A few core ideas show up everywhere in Aster. Understanding these makes everything else straightforward.
Your live location and trail
Your live location is your position on the map. As you ride or run, your marker moves and leaves a trail — the line showing where you've been. Spectators watch your position and trail update in near real time.
Pings
A ping is a single GPS point — your location at one moment. The app records pings as you move and sends them to Aster, which connects them into your trail and adds up the distance between them. If you lose signal, pings are saved on your phone and sent later — your trail and distance fill in automatically when signal returns.
Events, Just Rides and meet-ups
There are three ways to be tracked:
| Event | Meet-up | Just Ride | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | An organised race, sportive or ride you register for | A members-only ride or run organised by your club or team | A personal ride or run you track on your own |
| Set up by | An event organiser | The club | You, on the spot |
| Who's on the map | All registered athletes | Club members who joined | Just you |
| Live times/results | Depends on the format (below) | Untimed | No — just your own stats |
| Who can watch | Spectators of that event | Club members | Whoever you choose with the who-can-watch control |
See Register for an event, Just Rides and Teams and clubs.
Event formats
When an organiser creates an event they pick a format, and the format decides how timing, results and finishing work:
- Race — every athlete's clock runs from the gun; first across the line wins. Ranked results.
- Time trial — timed from crossing the start line to crossing the finish line, ranked fastest-first.
- Sportive / gran fondo — timed start-line to finish-line, but results are published as personal times, not rankings. No positions, no podium — you can compare your own time, but the event publishes no finishing order.
- Meet-up — no competition, no timing. Ride or run together.
- Point-to-point — start, finish and optional checkpoints; the athlete picks the line between them.
Start moment and finish moment
Every ride is bounded by two moments: when it started and when it ended. Everything shown about your ride — your trail, distance and time — is measured strictly between those two moments. Points recorded before your start or after your finish are ignored, and once you're finished, every surface freezes: your live location, your clock, your distance and your result all stop at the line. This is what keeps your numbers honest. See Why your distance and time are accurate.
Following
Following an athlete, team or event puts them in your feed and gets you notifications (starts, finishes, posts). Following is free and unlimited for everyone — follow as many people, teams and events as you like. Two things worth knowing:
- Unfollowing — always allowed.
- Watching — opening an event page or a shared ride link is not following. You can spectate anything you have access to, without an account.
Share links
A share link is how a Just Ride gets watched. When you choose who can watch you live — Followers & club or Anyone with link — Aster creates one live link you can send to anyone. They open it in a browser and see you live, no account or app needed. Choosing Just me means no one watches and no link is shared. See Share links.
Event privacy levels
- Public — listed in Discover and watchable by anyone.
- Unlisted — not listed anywhere, but watchable by anyone who has the link.
- Private — you must be signed in to view it, and you need the event code to join as an athlete.
- Members-only — visible only to active members of the club or team hosting it. Never appears in Discover.
See Public, unlisted and private events.
Handles
A handle is your @username (for example @dirtyreiver). People, teams,
events and organisers can all have one. Handles make profiles easy to link to
and let you @mention someone in a post or comment. See
Your profile and handle.