Pedal Wrencher Is Back

In March 2015 I launched a weekend project called Pedal Wrencher. It connected to your Strava account, watched your mileage, and texted you when your chain was due for a replacement. It ran for about three years, sent a thousand or so notifications, and then died in 2018 when my startup got acquired and every side project I had fell over from neglect.

As of this month, it’s back. Same domain, same idea, same price (free). You can sign up right now at pedalwrencher.com.

What it does

The pitch hasn’t changed in eleven years: you already log every ride on Strava, so your bike’s wear is already being measured. Pedal Wrencher connects to Strava, tracks miles per bike, and emails you when a component crosses its replacement interval. Chains, brake pads, cables, bar tape, whatever you want to track. You tell it how worn each part already is when you sign up, and from then on it just watches the odometer.

The new version also tracks running shoes, which the old one never did. Shoes are honestly a better fit for the model than bikes. Nobody inspects their shoe midsole with calipers. You either track the miles or you find out through your knees.

One thing that did change: reminders arrive by email now instead of SMS. In 2015, texting people felt novel and delightful. In 2026 an unprompted text from a robot about your bike chain feels like a phishing attempt.

Why now

The honest answer is that the Strava API became something you could build on again.

If you followed the drama, Strava updated their API agreement in late 2024 and a lot of third-party apps got kneecapped overnight. The new terms said apps could only show a user’s data back to that same user, and couldn’t feed it to AI training. Plenty of dashboards and coaching tools built around comparing athletes were suddenly against the rules, and the general mood among people building on Strava was somewhere between grim and funereal. Building anything new on the platform felt like planting a garden in a landlord’s yard mid-eviction.

Then in 2026 Strava rolled out an actual developer program, with defined tiers and a real commitment to keeping the API around. You can argue about the details (the standard tier now requires a Strava subscription, which is a strange tax on hobby developers), but the signal matters more than the terms: the API has a future again, and the rules are finally written down.

And here’s the funny part: the 2024 restrictions that killed so many apps describe Pedal Wrencher exactly. It shows your data only to you. It does no AI anything. It keeps almost nothing. The app I designed in 2015 turned out to be the only shape of Strava app that’s fully welcome in 2026. I’d love to claim foresight, but it was just the simplest thing I could build in a weekend.

Still free

In the original launch post I wrote that the idea “should always be free to users.” Eleven years, one acquisition, and one full rewrite later, I’m happy to report the pricing model has survived unchanged. There’s no premium tier, no trial, no card on file. It costs me very little to run, and it’s the kind of tool that only works if you forget it exists until it emails you.

If you ride or run with Strava, go set it up. It takes about two minutes, and future-you will get a well-timed email instead of a snapped chain.

I’ll write a few more posts about what’s under the hood, because rebuilding a 2015 app in 2026 turned out to be more interesting than I expected.