COACH CADENCE
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Help & support

Support

Stuck on something? Strava acting up? Coach not replying? Here's how to get unstuck, fast first, formal second. We read every message.

01Start here

Almost everything can be handled by messaging the coach on WhatsApp. The coach has tools to read your account, check your connection state, fetch your recent rides, update your goals, adjust your plan, and stop messaging you. Tell it what's wrong in plain English.

"Hey, Strava hasn't synced my last two rides, can you check?" / "Stop coaching me for two weeks, I'm on holiday." / "Forget what I told you about my knees, they're fine now."

If the coach can't fix it, or you'd rather speak to a human, email us directly:

james@jdturnbull.com

02Direct contact

Email
james@jdturnbull.com
WhatsApp
+44 7784 471245
Post
Store Relevance Ltd
Clare House, Frieth Road
Marlow, SL7 2JQ, United Kingdom
Response time
During alpha, we aim to reply within one working day. Urgent data or privacy requests get prioritised; flag them clearly in the subject line.

03Strava connection

Coach Cadence uses your Strava data, every ride, every segment effort, as the foundation for coaching. Things sometimes go wrong on this connection. Here's how to handle the common ones.

I want to connect my Strava account

Ask the coach to send you a connection link in WhatsApp. Tapping it takes you to Strava, where you authorise Coach Cadence to read your activities, profile, and segment efforts. We never write anything back to Strava, only read.

My recent rides aren't appearing

Strava notifies us by webhook when you upload a ride. Webhooks occasionally fail silently. Our daily polling backup usually catches missed rides within 24 hours. If a ride is older than that and still missing, ask the coach to "fetch my recent rides" and it will pull them in directly.

I want to disconnect Strava

You can disconnect from your Strava authorised apps page at any time. The coach will be told within a few minutes and will stop reading new activity data. Your historical activities stay on our side for 30 days in case you reconnect, then are deleted (see our retention schedule).

I disconnected and want to reconnect

Message the coach. It will issue a fresh OAuth link. Your previous history is preserved if you reconnect within 30 days; anything beyond that, we'll backfill from Strava.

I think my Strava data is wrong

Strava is the source of truth for activity data; we just read from it. If your numbers look wrong, the fix is usually in your Strava activity (gear, type, manual entries). Ask the coach to "refetch ride [date]" once you've corrected it on Strava, we'll pull the updated record.

04WhatsApp coaching

The coach hasn't replied

A few possibilities, in order of likelihood:

  • The coach decided not to reply. Sometimes silence is the right answer, see "Silence is a valid response" in our Agent docs. A read receipt confirms we received your message.
  • The coach is still thinking. Coaching turns usually take 5-30 seconds. Voice notes take a few seconds longer (transcription happens first).
  • The WhatsApp bridge is degraded. See Status & known issues. If we're having an outage, we'll post it there.
  • Something genuinely went wrong. Message us again, that resets the conversation and usually unblocks things. If it doesn't, email us with the time and rough context.

The coach got something wrong

Tell it. The coach is designed to learn from corrections, and unless you point them out, it has no way to know it got it wrong. Specific correction beats vague feedback: "no, my FTP is 230, not 210" works better than "your numbers are off."

The coach is messaging too much / too little

Tell it. "Stop with the morning briefs" or "message me less" or "give me a heads-up before key sessions" all work. The coach remembers preferences across conversations.

I sent a voice note and it wasn't understood

Voice notes are transcribed before the coach reads them. If the transcription was off, the coach will reply based on what was transcribed, not what you said. Re-send as text, or speak more slowly and clearly the next time. Wind, music, and accents can all reduce accuracy.

I sent a video / sticker / something else

We don't process video. We log stickers and reactions but don't treat them as coaching prompts (a thumbs-up isn't a question). Photos and GPX files are fully supported, the coach can read a bike-computer screen or analyse a route file.

05Common situations

I want to change my goal

Just tell the coach. "I'm switching to a different event" or "I've decided I just want to get fitter, no event" both work. The coach will rebuild the plan around the new goal.

I'm injured / unwell, how do I pause?

Tell the coach. "Out for two weeks with a knee strain" pauses the plan; the coach will resume cautiously when you message again. Always follow medical advice over coaching advice, see our Not medical advice notice.

I'm travelling, how do I tell the coach?

Drop a location pin in WhatsApp or tell the coach where you'll be and for how long. Route suggestions and weather adjust automatically while you're away.

I want to share a route I've found

Send the GPX file directly in WhatsApp. The coach can summarise its profile (distance, elevation, terrain) and adapt the session around it.

I want a chart of my training

Ask for it. "Show me weekly volume for the last 8 weeks" or "what does my load trend look like?", the coach will render an actual chart from your data and send it as an image.

06Reporting a bug

We're in alpha and we genuinely want bug reports. Email us at james@jdturnbull.com with:

  • What happened. One or two sentences.
  • What you expected to happen.
  • Roughly when (date + time, your timezone).
  • Any screenshots of the coach's reply, the chart, the route file, whatever's relevant.
  • Your WhatsApp number so we can correlate with our logs.

If you'd rather just tell the coach about it, that works too, it'll flag it for us to look at.

07Account & data

I want to stop using Coach Cadence

Tell the coach to stop. Revoke Coach Cadence's access in your Strava authorised apps page. We delete what we hold per the schedule in our Privacy Policy, within 30 days of stopping.

I want a copy of all my data

Email us asking for a data export. We'll send you a machine-readable export of everything we hold about you within one month (usually faster). UK GDPR right of access, no fee.

I want all my data deleted now

Email us asking for erasure. We'll delete everything we hold within 30 days and confirm in writing. Some records we have to keep for legal reasons (UK tax law, consent records), see our retention schedule.

I want to correct something we hold

Tell the coach (e.g. "my actual FTP is 240") for coaching state, it'll update immediately. For other personal data, email us with what's wrong and what it should be.

I want to complain about how my data is handled

Please tell us first, we'd like the chance to fix it. If you're still not happy, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.

08Status & known issues

We don't currently run a public status page. If we're having an outage that affects coaching, the WhatsApp bridge will queue your messages and the coach will reply when it recovers.

Known things to expect during alpha:

  • Occasional Strava webhook delays, our daily polling catches missed rides within 24 hours.
  • Voice transcription quality varies with background noise and accent.
  • Routes sometimes prefer faster roads than you'd choose for a cyclist. Tell the coach to "regenerate the route avoiding [whatever]" and it will.
  • Charts use your real data, but the visual styling is still evolving.

If you spot something not on this list and you're not sure if it's a bug, email us. We'd rather hear about it twice than not at all.