The words you'll meet in the app and in this help centre. The Aster website has a fuller glossary of tracking and endurance-sport terms (dot watching, bikepacking, gravel racing and more) — this page sticks to what you'll see on screen.
Abandon — Ending a race or time trial early, before the finish; recorded as a DNF. Behind a confirmation code so a pocket tap can't end your ride. A sportive or point-to-point has no Abandon button — you end early the same way as a Just Ride, with slide-to-end — but it's still recorded as a DNF: unranked doesn't mean DNF-free, since either is a challenge you can fail to complete. Only a meet-up always ends as Finished.
Activity — The umbrella word for anything you record on Aster: a ride or a run. Aster treats running as a first-class activity alongside cycling, so "activity" is the general term — you'll see ride or run once the type is actually known, for example on your own Just Ride or in an event you've joined.
Alert — A safety notification an athlete raises (or crash detection raises automatically). It notifies the people watching the ride, and in an event the organiser too, with the athlete's live location. It does not contact the emergency services. The Alert screen offers a one-tap call to 999, and if nobody is watching, the app says so plainly. See Alerts and crash detection.
Aster — The app and service this help centre is about: live tracking for races, rides and runs, spectating, clubs and events.
Aster Plus — An individual membership that unlocks full club membership — the roster, chat, RSVP and meet-ups — and lets you be part of an open club that has grown beyond the free tier (a small club is free, up to three members). It also lifts the free three-route cap on your personal My Routes library. Billed monthly or annually, bought in the App Store or Google Play. Prices are on aster-track.com/pricing.
Bib — An athlete's number for an event, shown on the leaderboard.
Category — A group within an event (for example "Women 40–49"); results are ranked within each category. Clubs also use categories as pace or speed groups on meet-ups.
Checkpoint — A marked point along a route (an aid station, a turn, a waypoint), used especially on point-to-point and time-trial courses.
Club — A team with full club features switched on: unlimited members, recurring meet-ups, a members-only bulletin board, a shared route library, and members-only events. The club itself never pays a subscription — a small club is free, up to three members, and members of an open club join with their own Aster Plus membership. See Teams and clubs.
Course — A reusable route template — its shape, start/finish lines and feed stations — that an organiser can apply to several events.
Crash detection — The app can detect a sudden hard impact and start an Alert countdown for you; cancel it if you're fine. It never ends your ride.
Cut-off — A deadline set by the organiser; athletes still out past it are closed out automatically, as either DNF or Finished — the organiser chooses which when they set the cut-off.
DNF — "Did not finish": started an event but didn't complete it. Ending a race or time trial early is always a DNF, via Abandon. A sportive or point-to-point is unranked, not a race, but it's still a challenge — ending either early is a DNF too. The one format that's exempt is a meet-up: an untimed social ride that always ends as Finished instead, since there's no ranking to drop out of. An organiser's cut-off, or a manual change on the roster, can still mark any format DNF, meet-ups included.
DNS — "Did not start": registered but never started.
Dot / dot watching — Endurance-cycling slang for a rider's live position on a tracking map, and the pastime of following it. It comes from ultra-distance racing (the Transcontinental and the like), where fans "watch the dots" for days. In Aster we usually say live location, position or marker on screen, but you'll hear "dot watching" across the sport.
Event — An organised activity you register for: a race, time trial, sportive, meet-up or point-to-point.
Event Organiser — The person, club, series or company that hosts an event and runs the event dashboard (registrations, results, Alert handling).
Event Organiser plan — A monthly subscription for people running events, sized by how many registrations each event needs (tiers, then a larger enterprise option by arrangement). Try the whole flow first by hosting a free club meet-up before picking a tier. Clubs never need it to run their own members-only meet-ups. Prices are on aster-track.com/pricing.
Feed station — A support point (water, food, aid) marked on the route.
Festival — A group of related events run under one banner — for example several distances on one weekend.
Follow — Following an athlete, team, event or organiser so their activity shows up in your feed and you can be notified when they ride. Following is free and unlimited, and you can unfollow any time. You never need to follow (or even have an account) just to watch a shared ride.
Ghost race — A replay of two rides on the same map, so you can compare one against the other over the same ground.
Gun — The official start of a mass-start race; everyone's clock starts here, not when they individually tapped Start.
Handle — Your @username, used for links and @mentions.
Just Ride (formerly Free Ride) — A personal ride or run you track outside any event; private by default, shareable by link. See Just Rides.
Lap — One circuit of a looped course; multi-lap events count laps as athletes pass the line.
Leaderboard — The live standings for an event. For sportives it lists times without positions.
Meet-up — A social, untimed format: everyone rides or runs together on the shared live map, with no timing, no positions and no rankings.
Members-only event — An event hosted by a club that only its active members can see and join. Never appears in public discovery.
Milestone — A named landmark an organiser places on a meet-up's route (the town sign, a climb, a café). Afterwards, the recap shows who reached it first and by how much.
Moving time — Your elapsed time minus any time you were paused.
My Routes — Your personal library of saved routes: ones you've drawn with the route builder, uploaded as a GPX file, or saved from a route someone shared with you. From My Routes you can rename, share, or attach a route to an event or a Just Ride. Your first three saved routes are free; saving more needs Aster Plus. Clubs keep their own shared library alongside it, free and unlimited for the club regardless of any admin's personal count — see The club route library.
Off route — When an athlete has left the event's planned course.
Point-to-point — A format with a start, a finish and optionally some checkpoints, but no prescribed route between them — athletes choose their own line and set off in their own time.
Private event — Hidden and locked; requires signing in and the organiser's access code to view.
Public event — Listed in Discover and watchable by anyone, no account needed.
Race — A mass-start format: everyone starts on the gun, with live positions and gaps.
Replay — Watching a finished event or ride back as an animation on the map.
Route builder — The in-app tool for creating a route by drawing directly on the map — trace roads as you go, snap to the nearest one, generate a round trip from a start point, and preview distance, climbing and an elevation profile as you draw. An alternative to uploading a GPX file. Finished routes save to My Routes.
Share link (watch link) — A link an athlete shares so others can watch their ride live in a browser — no account, no app install. See Share links.
Shared route — A link to one route from My Routes. Anyone who opens it sees the map, distance, elevation and a GPX download — no account needed — and can save their own copy if they're signed in.
Sportive (gran fondo) — A timed but non-competitive format: every finisher gets a time, and there are no positions, rankings or gaps anywhere.
Split time — An athlete's time at a checkpoint, used to compare athletes section by section (mainly time trials).
Start line / finish line — The points where an event's timing begins and ends, each with a detection zone that records crossings automatically.
Stoppage — When an athlete has been stationary for a while; can trigger a "stopped" notification to watchers. It never ends the ride — only the athlete (or the finish line or cut-off) does that.
Team — A group of athletes on Aster — a club, a crew, or just a few mates. A small team is free, up to three members; growing beyond that needs each member to have Aster Plus, which unlocks the full club features (roster, chat, RSVP and recurring meet-ups). See Teams and clubs.
Time trial — A format where athletes start individually and are timed on their own clock, from crossing the start gate to crossing the finish.
Trail — The line on the map showing where an athlete has been.
Unlisted event — Not listed publicly, but watchable by anyone with the link.
Units — Your personal choice of metric or imperial for distance and speed, set once in Settings → Display & units. It only changes how numbers are shown to you — everything is still measured and stored the same way underneath, so it never affects anyone else's view of the same ride.
Upgrade — The page where you buy Aster Plus or start an Event Organiser plan (reached from Settings, or at astertrack.app/plus). The organiser side has its own explainer page with the current tiers and prices.
Verified — A badge showing an organiser or team has been confirmed by the Aster team.
Watcher (spectator) — Anyone following an event or ride live. Watching public and unlisted events, and any ride shared with you by link, needs no account.
Wave — A category's own start time, so groups set off in stages rather than all at once.