Introducing Matches: See Every Time You Truly Went All‑In
Head of Growth
Cyclists talk about “burning matches” all the time. Those all‑in efforts in a race or hard group ride that leave you breathing through your eyeballs and change how the rest of the day feels. Until now, those moments have mostly been a feeling. Stride’s new Matches feature turns them into something you can actually see, measure, and learn from.
What Matches Are In Stride
In Stride, a match is every time you push above your Critical Power and really light things up. Think: that bridge across to the break, the full‑gas surge over the top of a climb, the final sprint when everyone else is cracking. Each of those efforts now shows up as a match, so you can see exactly how many times you went all‑in during a ride and how deep you really went.
Instead of just looking at average power or one max number, Matches surfaces the efforts that actually decide races, town‑line sprints, and dropped‑or-not moments in group rides.
Key Insights You’ll See
With Matches, Stride gives you a clearer view of your hard efforts so you can train and race smarter:
- Number of matches per ride: See how many times you went above Critical Power in a meaningful way, not just random tiny spikes.
- W′ (energy) spent per effort: Understand how much energy (in kilojoules) you burned on each all‑in surge, not just how it felt.
- How many you had left: Get a sense of whether you finished the ride with matches still in the box, or whether you were completely emptied out.
This turns your ride file from a wall of numbers into a story: where you attacked, where you paid for it, and whether your pacing matched your goals.
Why This Matters For Your Training
Most riders know the feeling of going too deep, too early. Matches helps you see that pattern clearly and fix it.
- Pacing races and events: Use Matches after races or hard rides to check if you blew too many matches early and faded, or if you had more to give at the end.
- Training specificity: If your target event demands repeated hard surges, you can train to increase how many matches you can burn before performance drops.
- Managing fatigue: By tracking how often and how hard you go above Critical Power over time, you get a better handle on how “fried” you really are, beyond simple TSS or time-in-zone.
Instead of guessing whether you went too deep, you’ll have a concrete record of those key efforts.
How To Use Matches On Your Next Ride
You don’t need to change how you ride to start using Matches. Just:
- Go ride as normal: group ride, race, intervals, or a hilly solo day.
- Sync to Stride after your ride.
- Open the session and look at your Matches: how many you burned, where they happened, and how much W′ each one cost.
Then ask yourself:
- Did this match how you felt in the moment?
- Did you burn too many matches too early?
- Could you afford another one next time, or did you empty the box?
Over time, this becomes a powerful feedback loop: you go out, burn a few matches, then come back to Stride to see what really happened.
Go Burn A Few (On Purpose)
Matches is built to connect the way cyclists actually talk about racing and riding with the way we measure and understand performance. The next time you hit a race, a spicy group ride, or a set of hard intervals, think about where you want to spend your matches—not just whether you can hang on.
Then upload the ride to Stride, see how many matches you lit, and what you had left in the box.