Privacy at Tom’s Gear Lab
Last updated: 29 September 2026
This page explains how your information is used when you use Tom’s Gear Lab and its cycling tools.
Who is responsible for your information?
Tom’s Gear Lab is responsible for the personal information processed through this website.
If you have a question about your information, want to exercise your data protection rights or want information deleted, please use our contact form.
What stays on your device
Event Calendar, Goals and some tool settings use your browser’s local storage. Ride Card activity files and photos are read in your browser to make the image; they are not uploaded to our account database. You can clear browser data or download a backup before changing devices. A downloaded or published Ride Card is under your control.
Your account
Clerk verifies your sign-in. When you choose to create your Tom’s Gear Lab account, we assign a separate account ID to keep your calendar and goals separate from other riders. A verified email address is used if you choose optional email updates. We record the first and most recent dates on which your signed-in account uses its account area; this helps us count accounts, manage the service and assess use. These counts begin when that feature starts and cannot reconstruct earlier sign-ins. Your goals, events, event preparation plans, race day checklists, warm-up plans, bike setups, season targets and home postcode may be saved in the site’s account database so you can use them on another device. The site checks for a different device copy before replacing it. The optional About my riding area can also save your date of birth, rider weight, riding disciplines and rider type. Date of birth distinguishes younger riders in tools and may later help with event categories; weight is used only where a cycling calculation needs it. Disciplines help you choose Event Finder filters. You can leave, edit or clear each field. We use this information to provide the account features you request.
Optional email updates
Signing in does not subscribe you. Adults may choose occasional Tom’s Gear Lab news and cycling tool updates in My account. We store the signed-in email, your choice, the wording version and the date of the choice. You can unsubscribe in My account. We are not sending these emails during this beta and will arrange an unsubscribe link before any messages are sent. We do not add sign-in emails to this list without an explicit choice or share subscriber addresses with prospective sponsors.
Connecting Strava
Connecting Strava is optional. We store the tokens needed to access rides you allow Strava to share, and limited cached ride summaries so the account can show highlights and help you set goals. These may include ride names, dates, distance, climbing, speed, recorded power and segment results. We do not receive your Strava password. Private “Only You” activities are not available under the current connection permission. Disconnect in My account to revoke the connection and remove its tokens and cached summaries from this site. Disconnecting does not delete your separate goals and calendar.
Weather & kit planner
When you request a forecast using a Great Britain postcode, we send it to Postcodes.io to find an approximate location. For Northern Ireland you can choose a town instead; this uses an approximate town centre location and does not send a postcode to Postcodes.io. For rides outside the UK, we send the town or place and country you enter to Geoapify to show matching locations. We then send the resulting coordinates to the Met Office Weather DataHub for an hourly forecast of the starting area. We do not store your postcode, place search or forecast in a weather planning account record. If you are signed in, your optional home postcode can fill the form; you can change it for that request. Your temperature preference remains on this device. Simple kit feedback remains on this device when signed out; when signed in, new feedback is saved to your account so later suggestions can reflect it across devices. This feedback includes only a broad kit level, a cold/right/hot rating and a date, not your location or forecast. You can clear saved feedback in My account. The forecast and clothing suggestion are refreshed for each request. Postcodes.io processes Great Britain postcode lookups, Geoapify processes international place searches, and the Met Office processes the coordinates needed for the forecast, under their respective privacy information.
Tool usage counts
We count broad Fuel Planner, Speed & Time Calculator and Weather & Kit Planner actions in daily totals to learn whether the tool helps riders. We count tool opens, calculator modes and results, comparison and pacing use, saved calculation actions, completed fuel plans, fuel additions and broad activity types. We also count kit feedback ratings by broad clothing level to flag patterns for review; this does not automatically change advice for other riders. We do not save a rider or device identifier, entered weight, age, fuel names or individual plans, postcode or coordinates in these counts. These totals are used to improve the tool; we may later describe aggregate use when assessing partnerships. We do not use these counts for advertising or individual profiling. You can object without affecting the tool.
Protecting the service
When abuse controls are active, we use the network address supplied by our hosting provider to limit excessive requests to weather and tool services. We turn it into a short-lived, secret-keyed code for a ten-minute period. The address itself is not saved in this control or used in our tool usage totals. Old codes are removed as traffic continues. Hosting providers may also process network information under their own security practices.
Contact and service providers
If you send a contact form, the details you submit go to our form provider so we can respond. This version of the site is hosted by Cloudflare. Independent sign-in is provided by Clerk, which verifies your identity. Tom’s Gear Lab uses a separate account ID to keep your saved riding information linked to you. These providers process information under their own privacy policies. Following an external link, such as Google Maps or Instagram, takes you to that service. We do not sell rider information or use it for targeted advertising.
How long we keep it
Browser data stays until you clear it or your browser removes it. Account riding data and saved kit feedback remain until you ask us to remove them; we are setting an inactivity period before wider release. Strava tokens and cached summaries are removed when you disconnect. Contact messages are kept only as needed to handle the enquiry and associated records. Ask us if you want details about a particular message.
Your choices and rights
You can use the Fuel Planner without an account or profile. It does not save your entered plan to an account in this phase. You can use many tools without an account or Strava. You can disconnect Strava and request a copy, correction or deletion of account information through the privacy contact form. You can also raise a concern with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. Riders under 18 can contact us with a parent or trusted adult if they prefer. We will explain any request in clear language.
This is a development notice for the access restricted site. We will review the final provider details, contact arrangements and retention period before public launch.