Kyle Yugawa

Kyle Yugawa

Kyle Yugawa

The Breakaway App

What started as a pandemic passion project became one of the most meaningful things I've ever built. With The Breakaway, I wanted to bring clarity and fun back to cycling improvement. With a small team of 4 people we brought our vision to market, and helped take it from a side project to a YC-backed startup ending an acquisition by Strava in 2025.

What started as a pandemic passion project became one of the most meaningful things I've ever built. With The Breakaway, I wanted to bring clarity and fun back to cycling improvement. With a small team of 4 people we brought our vision to market, and helped take it from a side project to a YC-backed startup ending an acquisition by Strava in 2025.

Co-founder · Head of design

Cycling training apps were built for data — power curves, TSS, VO2 max — and if you didn't already speak that language, you were lost. The tools that existed rewarded complexity over clarity, leaving most cyclists without a real sense of how they were improving or what to do next. The Breakaway was built around a different belief: that a great training app should be easy to understand, and make you want to get out and ride.


I co-founded The Breakaway alongside former Strava colleagues, went through Y Combinator, and led all product design from the first concept to the final release. Over four years we built a personalized training app that made cycling feel motivating and fun to share with your friends.

In 2025, Strava acquired The Breakaway. The features we built are now used by millions of athletes around the world.