A threshold session at Round Valley in Park City.

Cross-country ski training · iPhone · Winter 2026/27

Ski your fastest winter.

Skibuddy is the training app built for cross-country skiing. It times every lap of your loop, reads your technique from your phone's motion sensors and records the snow with every session, so you can see how much faster you get over the winter.

We're choosing 100 skiers to test Skibuddy on snow this winter. Apply to the test cohort

A threshold session at Round Valley in Park City.

Running trackers measure distance and pace. Your skiing also depends on the course, the snow, your technique and your skis.

The problem

A running watch
Your watch splits mid-climb
Your watch beeps the kilometre halfway up the stadium hill, then compares a climb with a descent and calls it pace.
A running watch
Three loops blur into one
Ski the 3.63 twice, then the 5.42, and your watch turns the session into one long average. You lose the laps you actually skied.
A running watch
Pace ignores the snow
A 4:30 kilometre on glazed tracks can be an easy morning. In fresh powder it can be a race effort. Your watch shows the same 4:30 for both.
Skibuddy
Skibuddy finds the loops.
Skibuddy closes a lap each time Olivia skis back through the start gate. Two laps of the short loop and one of the long loop come out as three laps, and each is compared only with laps of its own loop.

A running watch

1 km4:11
2 km5:07
3 km2:03
4 km2:58
5 km3:27
6 km3:23

Skibuddy · Tonight's laps

Lap 1Ridge loop
Lap 2Ridge loop−0:27
Lap 3Long loop

Laps: A running tracker: A split every kilometre, often partway up a climb; Skibuddy: A lap every time you pass the point where you started
Climbs: A running tracker: Mixed into the kilometre splits; Skibuddy: Every climb found after the session and timed rep by rep
Technique: A running tracker: One activity type for the whole session; Skibuddy: Classic or skate, and which technique you used where
Metrics: A running tracker: Pace and heart rate; Skibuddy: Pace and heart rate, plus stride rate, glide per stroke and left/right balance
Snow: A running tracker: Not recorded; Skibuddy: The snow conditions on every session, next to every time
Skis: A running tracker: Not recorded; Skibuddy: Which skis and wax you used, ranked by glide
During the session: A running tracker: Take a glove off to check your phone; Skibuddy: Lap times spoken out loud and shown on the Lock Screen and Apple Watch

How a running tracker and Skibuddy record the same ski session
In the session	A running tracker	Skibuddy
Laps	A split every kilometre, often partway up a climb	A lap every time you pass the point where you started
Climbs	Mixed into the kilometre splits	Every climb found after the session and timed rep by rep
Technique	One activity type for the whole session	Classic or skate, and which technique you used where
Metrics	Pace and heart rate	Pace and heart rate, plus stride rate, glide per stroke and left/right balance
Snow	Not recorded	The snow conditions on every session, next to every time
Skis	Not recorded	Which skis and wax you used, ranked by glide
During the session	Take a glove off to check your phone	Lap times spoken out loud and shown on the Lock Screen and Apple Watch

What Skibuddy records

Know why a session was fast or slow.

Every time on a ski trail comes from four things at once: the course, how you skied it, what the snow was doing and what was under your feet. Skibuddy records all four with every session, so you can see which one moved.

01
Your loops
Skibuddy laps your loops at the gate, keeps a history for every route and times every climb rep by rep.
02
Your skiing
Skibuddy reads technique, stride rate, glide and balance from your phone's motion sensors, and heart rate from any Bluetooth strap.
03
The snow
Skibuddy records one of eight snow conditions with every session, and its Smart Coach reads your glide against your own average.
04
Your skis
Skibuddy records the skis and wax of every session and ranks your setups by glide for snow like today's.

Automatic laps

Get lap times on any loop you ski, of any length.

Press Start where your loop begins and Skibuddy sets the lap gate there. Every time you pass it again in the same direction, Skibuddy closes the lap, even when you mix the 3.63 and the 5.42 from the same stadium. Ski the course again next week and Skibuddy adds the session to that route's history, with your best and your gap to it on every row.

Lap 2

12:02

Distance

3.46 km

Lap 1 at the same point

−0:15

SplitLap 15:38Lap 25:31−0:07
ClimbLap 13:23Lap 23:19−0:04
SplitLap 113:18Lap 213:01−0:16

Drag along the profile to compare the two laps at any point.

Climbs

Get every climb timed automatically and compared with your best.

After every session Skibuddy finds the climbs in your trace: 25 metres of gain or more at an average grade of 4% or steeper. Ski the same hill five times and Skibuddy lines up every rep with your best and your average. Mark a checkpoint at the top of the stadium hill once, and Skibuddy splits every later session there.

Climbs and checkpoints →

The hill repeats card with every rep of the stadium hill

A route's history with the snow on every session and the gap to the best time

During the session

Keep your phone in your pocket. Keep your gloves on.

Skibuddy speaks every lap out loud, through your earbuds or the phone's speaker: the time, the gap to your average and your average heart rate. It keeps the timer, distance, pace, heart rate and your last lap on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, so you never unlock the phone. On the lit track, Skibuddy's pure-black screen shows only the big numbers, and with an Apple Watch paired, lap times and heart rate sit on your wrist.

Hear your laps and balance cues in English, Norwegian, Swedish or Finnish
Glance at lap times and heart rate on your Apple Watch
Switch to a pure-black screen on OLED iPhones

Technique

See your technique, glide and balance, not just your pace.

Put your phone in a chest or jacket pocket and Skibuddy reads your skiing from the phone's motion sensors: the technique as you change it, from double poling to V2, your stride rate, the glide you get from every stroke and how evenly you push left and right.

See your technique named live, from diagonal stride to the downhill tuck
Measure your glide in metres per stroke cycle
Catch a left or right lean outside 45 to 55%

The Skibuddy live session screen: the technique, the running time, the lap and the metrics over the map

Skibuddy on Apple Watch mid-session with the timer, the lap, the last lap and heart rate

The Skibuddy Live Activity on the Lock Screen with the timer, distance, pace, heart rate and laps

Snow conditions

Compare every time with the snow it was skied on.

Skibuddy puts one of eight snow conditions on every session and shows it next to every time in the route's history, so you can compare a glazed Tuesday with a glazed Thursday. The Smart Coach reads your glide against your own average for the technique and tells you when the snow ran fast or slow.

A painting of a groomed ski trail curving into spruce forest on a frozen morning, a skier skating up the rise

Lap of the Ridge loop

Best

Hard, fast tracks after an overnight freeze

The post-session summary with the Smart Coach, the snow and the skis and wax

Wax room

Find your fastest skis and wax for today's snow.

Pick the skis and wax when you save a session. Skibuddy ranks every setup by the glide it gave you against your own average, so before a race you can see which pair and which wax ran best in snow like today's.

Add every pair once, with its technique and grind
Record the glide wax and, for classic, the kick wax
Count the sessions and kilometres on every pair

The wax room →

A painting of a coach at the side of a floodlit ski stadium at blue hour while three skiers skate past

Coaches and clubs

Plan your athletes' week and follow every session.

Clubs, training groups and coaches work in the same app as their skiers. Coaches plan sessions for their athletes and follow the week at a glance, clubs approve their members, and Skibuddy puts every shared session in the team feed with its laps, zones and technique. Skibuddy notifies each skier of likes and comments in their own language.

For coaches and clubs Apply to the cohort

A coach's week for one athlete with planned and completed sessions

The details

Everything one loop records.

Use Skibuddy with Apple Health, any heart-rate strap and your language.

Apple Health: Skibuddy saves every session to Apple Health as a cross-country skiing workout with the route and heart rate.
Any heart-rate strap: Skibuddy pairs with any standard Bluetooth chest strap once and reconnects it at every start, even in the background.
Four languages: Skibuddy speaks English, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish in the app, in its spoken announcements and on the Lock Screen.
Kilometres or miles: Skibuddy shows distance and pace in kilometres or miles, whichever you choose.
Your choice of audience: Skibuddy shares each session as Private, Connections & Clubs or Public, as you choose. Connections & Clubs means your coaches, the athletes you coach and your clubmates.
Session themes: Skibuddy files each session under the theme you pick: Intervals, Race, Recovery, Technique, Testing or a long distance ski.

What's next

Help train the next version of technique recognition.

Today Skibuddy recognizes technique with published rules. Skiers who switch on Help improve technique recognition label their technique as they ski, and those labels will train the next version.

Trained technique recognition isn't in the app yet. The labeling is: switch it on in Settings.

First-snow cohort

Test Skibuddy on snow this winter.

We're choosing 100 skiers for the first-snow TestFlight cohort: athletes who train on loops several times a week, and the coaches and clubs they train with. You ski with Skibuddy all winter and tell us what works and what to build next.

Apply to the test cohort

01A TestFlight build before the App Store release
02100 places, chosen by how and where you train
03A direct line to the people building Skibuddy
04Your input on what ships in the launch build

Questions

Questions skiers ask.

Which phones and sensors does it work with?

Skibuddy runs on iPhone and records with the phone in a chest or jacket pocket, so you don't need a watch. Pair any standard Bluetooth heart-rate chest strap for the full session. With an Apple Watch, Skibuddy also shows lap times and heart rate on your wrist, and it saves every session to Apple Health.

Where should the phone go?

In a chest or jacket pocket, Skibuddy measures everything: technique, stride rate, glide and left/right balance. In a pants pocket Skibuddy still measures stride rate but switches balance off, because your legs swing too much to read it.

Does it work at my trail?

Any loop, anywhere. Skibuddy sets the lap gate where you press Start, and every session of a kilometre or more becomes a route with its own history. No trail database required.

Does it handle several loops in one session?

Yes, as long as you ski them through the same start gate in the same direction. Ski the 3.63 twice and the 5.42 once from the stadium and Skibuddy closes each loop as its own lap and never laps an out-and-back. Skibuddy numbers the laps in order.

Classic, skate or both?

Both. You declare classic, skate or mixed at the start, and Skibuddy recognizes the technique within it as you ski, from diagonal stride and double poling to V1 and V2. The Smart Coach compares each session only with earlier sessions in the same technique.

Can my club or team join early?

Yes. Skibuddy is running a first-snow TestFlight cohort for coaches, clubs, training groups and trail managers. Apply on the cohort page.

When does it launch?

Skibuddy launches this winter, in time for the first groomed weekends. Everyone on the waitlist gets an invite before the public release.

What will it cost?

Tracking is free during early access. Pricing will be announced at launch, and recording your sessions will stay free.

A painting of a lit ski trail through snowy spruce forest at night, a skier with a headlamp far down the trail

Get Skibuddy before the first groomed weekend.

Join the waitlist and get your invite as soon as Skibuddy opens.

Ski your fastest winter.

Running trackers measure distance and pace. Your skiing also depends on the course, the snow, your technique and your skis.

Your watch splits mid-climb

Three loops blur into one

Pace ignores the snow

Skibuddy finds the loops.