Harvard University’s Newell boathouse is a grand but garish building wedged between Boston’s Charles River and a six-lane highway. With its crimson-bricked facade and symmetrical pointy-hat roofs, tall pillars and star above the entrance, it gives off an aura of gothic leisure centre. Inside, it is packed to the rafters with long, wooden hulls: daily equipment of the men’s varsity rowing team. It is also the birthplace of Strava. Yes, that’s right: for all its prominence among cyclists and runners, Strava, the world’s biggest exercise app, began with a pair of rowers.
Michael Horvath and Mark Gainey met on the crew team in the late 1980s. Both athletic and academically astute, the duo spent hours hanging out around the boathouse, poring over their training and chatting with their team-mates. “The mood was festive and fun,” Horvath, now 57, tells Cycling Weekly, but they knew the days were numbered. Before long, the pair were plucked from the water and thrust into the real world. Horvath became an economics professor; Gainey, an art history student, went into private equity.
The two rowers remained close friends in the years after they graduated. Gainey would spend time with Horvath in his office at Stanford University, a ploy to pinch his internet connection, but also a chance to natter away like in their boathouse days.
