How To Edit Distance in Strava

We have all done it. Left our Garmin or Strava app running while we put our bike back on the car or driven home from an activity only to find out when we got home that the activity we are so proud of was messed up by a second’s inattention. Fortunately, you can edit distance and time in Strava.

This editing process is called cropping and lets you remove unwanted parts of an activity. It works for exactly that situation above and lets you take away the car journey home while keeping your collection of PBs. You cannot add distance though. If your cycle computer or running watch did not start correctly, you cannot add on those lost miles, only remove them.

If you stop midway through an activity, cropping won’t work. You cannot edit the middle of an activity with cropping alone. For that, we will need to split the activity and crop each end. I’ll show you how to do that in a minute.

Cropping activities in Strava

You can only crop GPS-supported activities and you can only remove the beginning or the end. Otherwise, the process is very straightforward once you know how. If you have ever created a segment, it uses the same slider tool.

1. Log into Strava.
2. Open the activity you want to crop.
   
3. Select the three-dot menu icon on the left and select ‘Crop.’
4. Move the sliders at the top of the page inward to crop the activity.
5. Select ‘Save’ once done.

It’s the same setup as creating a segment. You see a new page with a map of your activity, the elevation graph underneath, and a slider at the top of the screen. For large crops, slide the green dot to the right to crop the beginning and the red dot to the left to crop the end. For incremental changes, use the Back and Forward buttons on either side.

You can also zoom in and out of the map to make it more precise. You can adjust as much as you like until you’re ready. No changes are committed until you select Crop on the left.

Once done, the activity is saved and the mileage, elevation, and time adjusted accordingly. You cannot undo a crop once saved so make sure you get it right the first time. Once you hit ‘Crop,’ that’s it.

Splitting activities in Strava

Cropping only works on the beginning or end of an activity but what if something happened during the activity? You cannot use the Crop tool because that won’t work. Your only options are to leave it alone and add a note in the description to explain or remind yourself why your stats are wrong or to split an activity into two separate activities and crop those.

Splitting an activity is useful if something happens on a run or ride, like a mechanical or rest stop but the app keeps running for some reason and your cycle computer or watch doesn’t stop as it should.

Splitting activities in Strava is quite straightforward but you can only do it on the website and not on the app.

1. Log into Strava.
2. Open the activity you want to crop.
3. Select the three-dot menu icon on the left and select Split.
4. Select whether you want to split it into two or three.
5. Slide the orange dot on the slider to where you want to split your activity.
6. Select Split once ready.

Like cropping, you can see on the map and on the elevation graph where you’re planning to make your mark. When you slide the orange dot, you will see a corresponding orange dot on the map. You can still zoom in to get it exactly right and then select Split to commit your changes.

Once you select Split, it cannot be undone. Your ride will be divided in two permanently.

If you needed to remove the center portion of an activity, you could then select each half of your ride and crop the end. This would remove the old center of the activity which would remove the rest stop/mechanical/feed station stop or whatever. It’s a lot of work to do but if accuracy is important in your Strava records then this is a way to achieve as close to total accuracy as possible with an app like this.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why don’t I see the option to split an activity?

This option only appears for activities labeled as a run or a ride. If you don’t see the option you can edit the activity and update it to one of those two. Then, the option should appear allowing you to split your activity.

Know of any other way to edit the middle of an activity? A faster way to crop or edit distance in Strava? Tell us about it below if you do!