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Docs › Connecting Strava, Garmin & Wahoo

Connecting Strava, Garmin & Wahoo

How it works

Connect as many providers as you want. Rides come in automatically. If the same ride shows up from two sources, RideTool keeps the better one. You never see duplicates.

Login vs auto-sync

Login and auto-sync are separate. You can log in with Strava, Wahoo, Garmin, or email — that's just authentication, not data.

Auto-sync is turned on per-provider in Data Providers in the Ride Library. You can have multiple providers auto-syncing at once.

Best practice: Turn on auto-sync for whichever provider is connected to your actual recording device (Garmin or Wahoo). Rides that route through a chain (Garmin → Strava → Wahoo) sometimes lose detail like distance or route maps.

The providers

Garmin Connect™

Garmin pushes new rides to RideTool automatically — usually within minutes of uploading from your device. You get the full file with GPS, power, heart rate, cadence, everything.

History import: Garmin doesn't let us pull old rides on demand. Only new ones sync. For older Garmin rides, use manual upload or Strava bulk import.

Wahoo

Wahoo auto-sync pulls in rides with original files when they were recorded on a Wahoo device (ELEMNT, KICKR, etc.). You can also import older rides by date range.

Strava

Strava pulls ride summaries — name, distance, time, elevation, speed, power, heart rate, cadence, calories, GPS route. New rides sync automatically.

Strava gives summary data, not raw device files. For the full-detail file, connect your head unit directly (Garmin or Wahoo) or use manual upload.

Manual upload

Drag and drop .FIT files into the Ride Library, or click to browse. As many as you want.

Strava bulk import (ZIP)

If you have a Strava data export (the ZIP from Strava's "Download Your Data"), upload the whole thing. RideTool extracts every FIT, GPX, and TCX file inside. Great for backfilling.

When the same ride shows up twice

RideTool catches duplicates automatically and keeps the higher-quality version. The order of preference is: manual upload → Garmin → Wahoo → Strava. If you upload a file for a ride that already exists from Strava, the device file wins and the ride updates with the route map, the .fit badge, and the correct device name.

The full engine — fingerprinting, fuzzy matching, source priority — is in Sync & Dedup Engine.

When fitness updates

Your numbers stay current automatically:

  1. After every new ride — your fitness is recalculated immediately.
  2. Nightly — even on rest days, freshness shifts. We refresh around midnight local time.
  3. On demand — you can force a full rebuild from Account → Recompute Fitness after changing your HR settings or FTP.

Turning off auto-sync

Open Data Providers in the Ride Library and toggle it off. Existing rides stay. You can turn it back on anytime.

Need help? Our Discord server is the support channel — click the Discord icon in the nav bar after logging in.

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