MoguWind vs Strava: Wind Planning for Cyclists
You log your rides on Strava. But when it comes to planning your next route around the wind, which tool should you trust?
When you're planning a ride, wind matters. It's the invisible variable that can turn a fun outing into a grind. If you cycle regularly, you probably use Strava to log your rides and maybe check the weather. But Strava's wind feature—if it offers one at all—is buried and basic. Meanwhile, MoguWind is purpose-built to show you exactly what wind you'll face, kilometre by kilometre. So which one actually helps you plan better?
What Strava Offers for Wind Data
Strava is a social fitness platform. Its core job is to record your rides, let you share them, and compare yourself against others. Wind forecasting is not its focus. Some Strava features—like the route builder and segment tracking—work well for route planning, but wind information is minimal. You might see general weather conditions when you're about to start a ride, pulled from a generic weather service, but it's a broad average. One wind speed for your entire route, one time window. No granularity. No segment-by-segment breakdown.
Strava's strength is community and data: where you've ridden, how fast you went, what segments you crushed. It's brilliant for logging performance and comparing yourself to others. But when you're standing at your door with a blank canvas—asking "which route should I ride today given the wind?"—Strava isn't built for that question. You get surface-level weather, not actionable wind intelligence.
MoguWind's Granular Wind Forecasting
MoguWind Plan takes the opposite approach. It's a free web planner designed from the ground up to show you wind along your route, not as one number but as it changes across every kilometre. Enter a route, set a departure time, and MoguWind calculates the wind direction and speed you'll encounter at each point. It draws on European open weather data (Open-Meteo) and runs a numerical model that updates regularly. That means you see not just today's wind, but forecasted wind days in advance—updated every few hours.
The core insight: wind doesn't stay constant across 100 km. A route that faces headwind for 30 km might get a tailwind push for the next 20, then crosswind for the final 50. Strava won't tell you that. MoguWind will show it to you on a graph and on the map itself, so you can choose your departure time to dodge the hardest headwind sections or chase the tailwind.
Granular Forecasting: Why Kilometres Matter
Here's the practical difference. Imagine a 100 km ride:
- Strava approach: "Light winds, 5–10 mph." You start at 8 am and hit 20 mph headwind from km 30 to km 60. Surprise.
- MoguWind approach: You see the forecast shows a strong headwind from 10 am to 11 am between km 25 and km 65. You start at 6 am instead, and you're back on that section by 8 am when it's mild. Same route, different timing, vastly different experience.
This is what MoguWind means by showing "the wind you'll actually face," not the wind the forecast says exists somewhere in the region.
Integration and Convenience
Strava wins on one front: you're already there. Your ride history, your friends, your segments—it's all live. You log a ride, Strava knows about it immediately. Adding wind planning to an existing Strava workflow feels natural, even if the wind data is shallow.
MoguWind is a separate tool—you plan on the web planner, then head out. If you use a Garmin device, the MoguWind app on Connect IQ (with 4.7/5 stars and 5,000+ downloads) lets you see live wind updates during your ride. But it's a distinct app; you're not navigating within Strava itself.
That separation is intentional. MoguWind's single job is wind. It's not trying to build a social network or a training log. It's trying to answer one question really well: "What wind will I ride into, and when should I go?"
Cost and Access
Strava is free with premium tier (Strava+) costing around $80/year for deeper analytics and segment features. Wind forecasting, if available, comes bundled with no extra cost.
MoguWind is completely free. The web planner is free. The Garmin app is free. No subscription, no tier system. You plan your route, see the wind, and go. The assumption is that if wind planning is valuable to you, you'll use it regularly—and that value shouldn't be locked behind a paywall.
Which Should You Use?
If you're a casual rider logging workouts and want a quick weather glance, Strava's basic wind data (if present) is fine. You're not optimizing for wind; you're just seeing what happens.
If you race, ride long distances, or care about how wind shapes your effort, MoguWind is the better choice. You get forecast wind per kilometre, you can shift your departure time to avoid or chase the conditions you want, and you can see patterns across the week to pick the best day to tackle a hard route.
Many cyclists use both: Strava for logging and community, MoguWind for planning. Plan your route on MoguWind based on wind, ride it, log it to Strava. That's the workflow that makes sense—each tool doing what it does best.