9 ms·

Global heatmap of cycling and running routes

258 points by knappe 12y ago

dougmccune 12y ago
Quick deep-linked url to look specifically at San Francisco for those interested (this map really only starts getting interesting when zoomed pretty far in to a specific city) http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#13/-122.45242/37.76345/blue/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#13/-122.45242/37.76345/blue/...
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- lamby 12y ago
  > some other non-professional runner can run a 5:37 mile over a hilly span that takes you 7:30-8:00 is humbling Another big Strava user here. I suppose it's somewhat inspiring and certainly fascinating, but it doesn't really strike a chord with me. I've also don't really connect with the "crush your friends!!" narrative they have as the main thrust of their marketing. I'm sure it's 'pops' more than "make long-term and measurable, and improvements to your fitness and mental outlook through exercise and a personal training log".
  - deleted 12y ago
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  - Florin_Andrei 12y ago
    > personal training log I find it perfect for that purpose.
bicknergseng 12y ago
Uhh... water bicycles? http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#12/-122.98491/37.73441/gray/bike http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#12/-122.98491/37.73441/gray/...
- SixSigma 12y ago
  The actual activity is self reported. Maybe they are doing a triathlon / iron man. Quite a few pro athletes use Strava.
  - pygy_ 12y ago
    It looks like a boat/jet ski ride. Lot's of loops and turns, no right angles.
- Nicholas_C 12y ago
  Perhaps boaters are using Strava.
- lechevalierd3on 12y ago
  People use strava for many more activities than just running and biking. Some people uses if while snowboarding/sking. I've personally used it while power kite-bugging.
- tzs 12y ago
  Take a look at Puget Sound west of Seattle, and you'll see lots of walking and riding on water, following Washington ferry routes.
- madeofpalk 12y ago
  While obviously they're just anomoloies in the reporting, It amused me seeing hotspots within water http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-208.82432/-33.87246/gray/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-208.82432/-33.87246/gray...
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bbarn 12y ago
Yes, Yes, and more yes. This is awesome. for someone who likes to roughly map out routes before trips, being able to see "Do locals ride this road or this one" is huge. Might convince me to create a new strava account (lost my old one when I quit facebook a year ago)
lamby 12y ago
(Is there a Hacker News Strava group?)
Mithaldu 12y ago
In line with http://xkcd.com/1138/ http://xkcd.com/1138/, i'd request this map be adjusted by the population density in the mapped areas, so be to be able to get more data than "a lot of people live here" and "a lot of Strava users live here".
- bbarn 12y ago
  If you look at connections between medium to small sized cities though, often in google maps, even with street view, something seems like it'd be a totally fine route. This takes that, and when paired up with the frequency people tend to feel comfortable riding at speed on them to track, can show you out of ten various routes, which is the best to take. Zoom level :)
- notatoad 12y ago
  it's not so useful for seeing what regions have the most active people, but it is still useful if you zoom in on any city to see where the trails are. even in the most populous regions, there's lots of good info to be had on this map.
- dionidium 12y ago
  This criticism only applies when zoomed out. It provides a lot more information than "where the people are" when sufficiently zoomed in on a specific location.
  - deleted 12y ago
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- baddox 12y ago
  Why does that make sense in this case? People probably don't care how many bike paths there are in an area per capita. They would just want to know how many bike paths there are and where they are.
- pgwhalen 12y ago
  I'd certainly like more specific data, but if you're a resident of the area you're examining, this is definitely revealing on its own.
agavegoose 12y ago
Looking at Iowa, it is pretty cool to see how many bikers do ragbrai - the 2013 route is what connects Omaha and Des Moines, 2012 is to the north of that.
paulmach 12y ago
Map creator here if you have questions. The data is aggregated into a quad tree based on number of GPS points in each pixel. Tiles are then served on the fly using Go and C using CGO. Cloudfront tackles most of the load, but the load balanced i2.xlarge instances can do about 300 tiles a second.
- bbarn 12y ago
  Geographic search, and click through to routes.. and this will be a really big deal. Love the concept, keep it coming!
  - afx2in 12y ago
    agreed. i'd love to be able to see what routes people run near my home so i can get new ideas.
- 3rd3 12y ago
  How do you calculate exacly the coloring of the heat map? Is the scaling of it locally adjusted or is it a global/absolute scale?
  - paulmach 12y ago
    Each pixel has a count. Each tile gets a 90 percentile value. Every corner gets the average of its 4 tiles. Every pixel in the currently requested tile gets a value [0, 1] based on the bi-linearly interpolated "max". It's then colored based on that final value. Maybe unnecessarily complicated, but it does provide really good local normalization. You also get cool looking shading like in this location http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-121.76487/38.49134/gray/bike http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-121.76487/38.49134/gray/...
    - aw3c2 12y ago
      This is very interesting. thanks! I would love to know about the whole setup in detail. nudge (edit: Your color scales are not really intuitive, I have no idea what red or blue means or red vs green.)
dalek2point3 12y ago
Around MIT, the route around the river is pretty popular as the map shows. Except at one point you have to choose between a fork in the road -- do you take a right and run right next to the river and enjoy the water, or do you keep running straight and enjoy the rush of cars on Storrow drive as you run. Im more of a car person, but my girlfriend likes to run by the river. Strava shows me that the Storrow alternative is indeed less popular :( http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-71.07863/42.35498/gray/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-71.07863/42.35498/gray/b...
morganw 12y ago
Looks like 17721 Bruce Ave. (or neighbor) might be a good place to steal a nice bike (Los Gatos Strava users tend to ride CF race bikes). Turn on & off recording right at your house & you're advertising: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-121.98018/37.23843/gray/bike http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-121.98018/37.23843/gray/...
- alexkus 12y ago
  Can't remember the terminology they use but Strava allows you to define privacy areas (within a configurable radius of a point) where no points are shown on your individual routes. Exactly to stop someone working out where you live/work from browsing your history. Either they haven't honoured this when calculating the global heatmap or, more likely (and harder to fix), such locations are given away by friends uploads (who don't have the same privacy areas defined). Oops.
  - paulmach 12y ago
    On this map I took out any point within 1km of the start or end of every ride. This is stronger than what users have set and eliminates 1000s of "hot spot". I've looked into a couple of these cases and it's friends "coming by for a ride" or them stopping at their house mid ride. I'm working on further eliminating these points by just not included "stopped" points. I've also tried doing some image processing to remove these hot spots but have had mixed results.
    - mxfh 12y ago
      Found a lot of residential building footprints with activity inside just browsing around at z17. Maybe you could use slide to check local activity hotspot's and cross reference them against OSM building footprints or remove those gravity spots with no uniform direction or evenly weighted exit path slope altogether. Another approach might be only displaying common paths of 2 or more unique client id's.
    - alexkus 12y ago
      Thanks for the clarification. I know Strava takes the issue of privacy seriously!
caio1982 12y ago
Awesome idea and data set, however I'm very skeptical about its quality. Random analysis: the city where I live in Brazil (Curitiba/PR) shows major avenues and bus lanes as heavily used by bikes and for running, which is partly true but it's far from as heavy as the map makes it seem; my hometown 500km from here (Praia Grande/SP) has 7x more exclusive bike lanes and running trails and yet its usage is just average while everybody I know there rides a bike (not to say the most used bike/run path the maps shows there is actually a interstate freeway).
- flyt 12y ago
  Not everybody uses Strava, so the data is skewed a bit.
  - caio1982 12y ago
    I know, but it makes the data set weaker than it is then (specially given the title of the post).
- gavinpc 12y ago
  My family almost got killed once because of a bad judgement based on computer maps. My wife and I were on a cross-country bike trip, with our dogs in tow. On this particular day, we were shooting for the Chicago area and had a long way to go from Ransom, Illinois where we woke up. There was nothing but corn, windmills, and an Air Force special training center. But we had a friend in Oak Park, and we were determined to get there and take a rest day. After following a number of scattered trails and highways, we wound up lost in a kind of industrial alcove, trying to cross one of the canals. After a little backtracking (which is the worst), we stopped to ask for help from a bald guy in a pink tee shirt whom I'd noticed cycling earlier. He was a German guy named Rolf and he apparently biked about 60 miles a day just for fun. He told us we still had pretty far to go, and he rode with us about ten miles or so to his car, where he had a map book. He gave us detailed directions saying exactly what would be the best and safest route. We thanked him and went our separate ways. We followed his directions until after dark (at which point we would normally have stopped). We'd already traveled close to ninety miles that day, and were getting anxious to get off the road. At some point, we called our friend to see if we were close. We told her Rolf's directions and asked if that would get us there. She said she would look online. She called us back with a different set of directions, and, figuring that she should know her own neighborhood, proceeded to follow them. This took us onto a road that, we later learned, wound through what is essentially a wildlife refuge, and which quickly became extremely dangerous. There were no street lights, and cars were coming around turns at high speed. We decided to stop and barely got off the road in time to avoid being hit. We then had to get our bikes, dogs, and trailer across the street so we could walk the path. It was one of the scariest experiences of my life. I later found out that our friend had never been on the road she recommended, and was going only by what it "looked like" on Google maps. (This was 2008, by the way.) So yeah, quality. And there's no substitute for human expertise. EDIT: and yes, it was our bad judgement as well, for taking bad advice... and maybe for not having our own maps in the first place. Although I've done thousands of miles of cross-country (in the US), and I think you really do have to wing it.
cowsandmilk 12y ago
my conclusion from this is that a lot of people in Brookline and Allston need to buy "Great Runs in Brookline"[1]. No affiliation on my part, just the knowledge that book put me onto a lot of great running routes that aren't covered very well at all by these Strava wearers. There is more to the area than Beacon St, Comm Ave, and the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Great-Runs-Brookline-Vicinity-Lowenstein/dp/0982248504 http://www.amazon.com/Great-Runs-Brookline-Vicinity-Lowenste...
deserted 12y ago
I found an industrial park that appears to be the next best thing to a Velodrome for local cyclists. Very cool map! http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#15/-119.86045/34.43307/yellow/bike http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#15/-119.86045/34.43307/yello...
- syassami 12y ago
  That's ucsb's crit & iv classic. Source: raced there many times. Info on crits http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterium http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterium
- aganders3 12y ago
  Industrial parks are popular for criterium races ("crits") and practice races, which is probably what you're seeing there. Here's one I've raced in a few times. Looks like it's not quite as popular, though! http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-89.48204/43.05660/yellow/bike http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-89.48204/43.05660/yellow...
TravisLS 12y ago
Wow, this is incredibly useful for planning touring routes. I often ride 100+ mile trips to areas I don't know very well and the hardest part is knowing what roads are more-or-less bikeable to plan a route. Google Maps bike directions are basically worthless on long trips since they divert you way too often into neighborhoods and side streets. Strava is a perfect data set for this use case. This is damn useful as-is, but if someone could turn this data into long-range bike directions I would absolutely pay for it.
- dlib 12y ago
  The Strava route builder incorporates the popularity of other users routes when you plan your own. So, in an extension to the normal find-shortest-path algorithm between two points, penalties are given to paths not used by other users or bonus given to those that are popular. The result is that you end up with the better roads to ride on. Especially on the bike this is really useful as I can plan new routes in unknown areas and they are pretty good. For running I found it remarkable how these heatmaps show the inclination to run along water bodies or in forests. It can almost perfect predict where I would or wouldn't run.
- jonimius 12y ago
  http://strava.com/routes http://strava.com/routes let's you create your own route based on the popularity of segments. It's not as fast as creating a google maps route but combining the heatmap with the routes tool is a pretty surefire way of creating a solid route.
- drewrobb 12y ago
  I worked the routing backend if anyone has questions. You can read more here: http://engineering.strava.com/routemaster/ http://engineering.strava.com/routemaster/
tdaltonc 12y ago
Any idea what this starburst over the USC campus police headquarters is all about? http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-118.29075/34.02060/gray/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-118.29075/34.02060/gray/...
- ajuhasz 12y ago
  Since it only shows up on the bike activity, I'm assuming it's people parking in the structure and the GPS losing accuracy inside.
  - bradbeattie 12y ago
    Interestingly, the same patterns happen in Vancouver when downtown near all the highrises: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-123.11986/49.28436/gray/bike http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-123.11986/49.28436/gray/... The noise may well be indirectly tracking building height. ;)
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    They might be riding it up and down some too, the connections to the blob don't have much intensity.
amcnett 12y ago
This is a trail-poacher's dream. It'd be wonderful to have this cross-indexed with any extant publicly available data sources (state/national parks, property lines etc.) to try to determine the legality of a given route. Illegal trails are likely illuminated by this heatmap, but their illegality is not.
dionidium 12y ago
The famous Delmar dividing line is quite visible in this view of St. Louis: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#13/-90.28904/38.64610/gray/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#13/-90.28904/38.64610/gray/b...
- pgrote 12y ago
  I noticed that, too. Grant's Trail is well represented. What is the source data? I've ridden through North St. Louis using Everytrail and my rides are public. Edit: It is from Strava itself. I didn't know they tracked routes. lol
  - dionidium 12y ago
    I follow a guy on Strava who is in the process of riding every street in St. Louis City. He's been all over the Northside. But, as this map shows, it's not a popular place to go cycling.
    - jessaustin 12y ago
      ...not a popular place... There's a difference between "cycling" and "cycling while using Strava". I suspect that few people who cycle because they can't afford to fix their car, or they lost their license, or their wife commutes in the single family car, etc. belong to the latter group.
      - dionidium 12y ago
        You're right, of course!
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  For those not intimately familiar with St. Louis demographics and urban geography: http://unewsonline.com/2013/05/02/the-delmar-divide/ http://unewsonline.com/2013/05/02/the-delmar-divide/
- jamesaguilar 12y ago
samstave 12y ago
SO, as a 100% bike commuter for the last ~4 years... I find this map to be interesting and definitely beautiful -- but utterly useless. What I would love to see is: Given two points on the map - what is the most common path between them based on multi-path tracks of others... What were their avg speeds along those routes. How frequently did they stop. Also, looking at SF, clearly there is no bike path across the Bay Bridge (as an aside rant, how did we spend $7.5 Billion dollars on half a bridge, adding no additional capacity and no full span bike/pedestrian throughway)... It would be great for this map to ID bus/bart/public transit options that connect across such things like the bay bridge. Also, the fact that the dark red is the more trafficked route(?) that was completely non-obvious to me....
- MattLaroche 12y ago
  "What I would love to see is: Given two points on the map - what is the most common path between them based on multi-path tracks of others..." Check out strava.com/routes, as others have said in the thread. It doesn't have your feature requests, but it does point to point routing based on popularity.
  - samstave 12y ago
    Awesome thanks
- kbrosnan 12y ago
  The Bay Bridge will have a bike bridge to Treasure Island. The old span needs to be removed before it can be completed. Currently one can ride part of the path as an out and back route. http://baybridgeinfo.org/path http://baybridgeinfo.org/path
marknutter 12y ago
I found something very interesting in Minneapolis (where I live); it's a path that you wouldn't be able to find using google maps or probably even any bike-specific route finder. Here's the area in google maps: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9837242,-93.3338652,1914a,35y,0.68h,16.27t/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9837242,-93.3338652,1914a,35... and here's the same location in the Strava heatmap: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-93.33287/44.98897/gray/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-93.33287/44.98897/gray/b... I'll have to check it out in person but I'm guessing it's a mountain bike trail or something, which is what this heatmap would be great for helping people find.
- femto 12y ago
  A similar effect is evident in my area, in which there is an unofficial mountain bike track. The track is well known in the mountain bike community, and the understanding is that it's location can be passed on by word of mouth, but it should generally not be publicly documented, for risk it will get closed down by the landowner. The landowner is a government owned utility and the land is unused, so bikers and local residents don't feel too may qualms about using the land. The track isn't on any of the online mapping services, but stands out like a sore thumb on the heat map. On the plus side, I can now find any tracks that I wasn't aware of!
- baddox 12y ago
  I checked; it's not on OpenStreetMap either: http://osm.org/go/T~fdUgI3?way=26160508 http://osm.org/go/T~fdUgI3?way=26160508
- deleted 12y ago
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- 001sky 12y ago
  Agree, and these almost look like GPS tracks. This would underlying mapssets basically irrelevant (except for exposition). I bet quite a few folks are able to pick up visuals of familiar off-piste routes with a couple of glances at familiar but not well-publicised areas. edit: gps source>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7688240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7688240
mjmahone17 12y ago
You can see how much Google skews their map for China, such as by looking at Beijing: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#15/116.46747/39.94133/gray/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#15/116.46747/39.94133/gray/b... Vs a similar map for Tokyo: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#15/-220.36217/35.60747/gray/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#15/-220.36217/35.60747/gray/...
- edraferi 12y ago
  I don't get it. What am I looking for?
  - KnightHawk3 12y ago
    The paths ridden do not line up with the actual roads. I am not sure what the OP is actually trying to tell us about that though.
    - Holbein 12y ago
      There seems to be a chinese decree that all maps must be skewed so that in the case of being attacked, an attacker can presumably not find its way around the chinese capital. Bike maps are likely created directly from GPS paths, which are unskewed. When you look at Bejing, you can easily see that difference.
      - 1stop 12y ago
        Exactly, similar to that thing in the US before they opened up civilian GPS accuracy...
        alexkus 12y ago
        Not quite, the difference between the two situations is the difference between accuracy and precision. E.g. http://academics.wellesley.edu/Chemistry/Chem105manual/Appendices/AccuracyPrecision.gif http://academics.wellesley.edu/Chemistry/Chem105manual/Appen... The Chinese Street maps are very precise but consitently inaccurate (the skew). The GPS tracks shown are relatively precise and accurate. The change to the GPS signals (by not encrypting as much of the timestamp data) improved precision.
jofer 12y ago
Interestingly, at least for the cities in the southeast where I've lived, these maps are amazingly good proxies for gentrification. For example, have a look at Houston, TX or Memphis, TN. In the Midwest, the trend is much less clear. For example, Madison, WI is covered with bikepaths, so there's no clear relationship. (Same for Anchorage, AK. You can see the main trail system, and it pretty much circles the city.) In a lot of other places, the pattern is controlled by topography/parks (e.g. Birmingham, AL) I'm limiting things to cities where I've lived, but does anyone else notice similar patterns?
novaleaf 12y ago
wow! I just found some trails right next to my house, didn't even know they existed! http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-122.11865/47.78666/gray/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-122.11865/47.78666/gray/...
snogglethorpe 12y ago
Based on what the map says about my local area, the results seem quite er... surprising... in that they don't really match what one sees on the ground (especially for cycling). And when I say "don't really match" I mean "are completely out of wack"... I suppose it's because the results only reflect users of this app, and there's a correlation between app users and certain types of usage.
wahsd 12y ago
That map is no where near accurate. Most of Europe is essentially nothing but a cycling and running route and should essentially be lit up red all over.
chatman 12y ago
In India, every poor person's primary mode of commute is a cycle. But such cycles are not GPS tracked, and hence his tracks will never feature in such a map.
mkr-hn 12y ago
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7681301 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7681301
michaelvillar 12y ago
(I come from Belgium) Belgium heatmap is really funny. Flemish people bike so much compared to walloon people: http://cl.ly/image/1R2G0z2k1K2S http://cl.ly/image/1R2G0z2k1K2S
nkozyra 12y ago
Without looking too deeply into the data, in my neighborhood it showed two long routes for both biking and running and seeing these spots every day I would absolutely fear for my life if I attempted to run or bike on either of them.
_zen 12y ago
Okay, this is just hardcore. http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#11/-117.10332/36.51021/blue/run http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#11/-117.10332/36.51021/blue/...
jmspring 12y ago
A lot of the trails in the Santa Cruz area aren't legal riding. Interesting how people report these publicly on Strava.
gerbal 12y ago
Interesting. In the United States it would appear to be an excellent proxy for affluence.
tzs 12y ago
Earlier discussion, although it only got a few comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7681301 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7681301
allochthon 12y ago
Perhaps unsurprisingly, you can use this to see what areas of town (e.g., Oakland) people consider safe and which ones they consider sketch. There's also no doubt a high correlation with socioeconomic status and path intensity.
dmcg 12y ago
Interesting to compare a view between running and cycling. Runners tend to run on the same side of a road in both directions.
dmcg 12y ago
I wonder how many of those data points are mine? Disappointingly I can't find any route that I alone have run or ridden - that's something to fix this summer I think.
davidw 12y ago
More cycling in UK and Scotland than northern Italy? Hrrmm... I'm guessing that it's indicative of more strava users than representative of total activity. Cool map though - as others have mentioned, zooming in provides a lot of interesting detail.
ejain 12y ago
I wonder about that bike track to the summit of Mt Rainier...
buro9 12y ago
It would be great if the heatmap had query options. This would then make it really useful to cycle advocacy and safety groups and even to those researching where to open cycle related businesses. An example scenario: Say I wanted to open a bike shop and cafe in West London and I'm looking around Holland Park: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#14/-0.19582/51.50592/gray/bike http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#14/-0.19582/51.50592/gray/bi... It's clear that there are two main East-West routes on the North and South sides of the park (created by Hyde Park splitting traffic along two roads). But which is the better location for the shop? The North side? Or the South? If the line thickness could be adjusted to see differences between the two it would be helpful. If the days of week or even hours of day could be just to restrict the data included in the lines it would be helpful. That would allow you to determine whether the lines are purely commuters or include a decent number of weekend recreational cyclists too (more likely to give you trade 7 days per week). Such query parameters would also allow cycle safety groups to have access to basic insights about cycle traffic loads without having already completed counting (leaving people with tally counters at junctions).
pingec 12y ago
Does anyone know, if strava supports showing you the heatmap of all routes and the routes you recorded as two layers of different colors on the same map? If not, it would be a cool feature for exploring new routes on my bike...
samsamoa 12y ago
It seems like a lot of intersections are darker than the streets surrounding them. I'm assuming this is due to stop signs or stop lights. Perhaps this could give us some information about poorly-timed lights?
tom_scrace 12y ago
I wonder what's going on here: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-0.01296/51.49360/gray/bike http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-0.01296/51.49360/gray/bi... The location corresponds to a supermarket.
- mjfisher 12y ago
  Just speculation, but I've sometimes seen GPS traces like that when a unit enters a building. You can get a very erratic, low-accuracy set of data points back that look qualitatively similar to the pattern in your link.
  - tom_scrace 12y ago
    Interesting. Thanks.
rompic 12y ago
This is pretty impressive. In 2012 I worked in a research project where we did something similar but for a smaller area (vienna). See http://meineradspur.at/ http://meineradspur.at/ including color coded information about the speed of the cyclists.

258 points by knappe 12y ago

Quick deep-linked url to look specifically at San Francisco for those interested (this map really only starts getting interesting when zoomed pretty far in to a specific city) http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#13/-122.45242/37.76345/blue/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#13/-122.45242/37.76345/blue/...

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

lamby 12y ago
> some other non-professional runner can run a 5:37 mile over a hilly span that takes you 7:30-8:00 is humbling Another big Strava user here. I suppose it's somewhat inspiring and certainly fascinating, but it doesn't really strike a chord with me. I've also don't really connect with the "crush your friends!!" narrative they have as the main thrust of their marketing. I'm sure it's 'pops' more than "make long-term and measurable, and improvements to your fitness and mental outlook through exercise and a personal training log".
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- Florin_Andrei 12y ago
  > personal training log I find it perfect for that purpose.

bicknergseng 12y ago

Uhh... water bicycles? http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#12/-122.98491/37.73441/gray/bike http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#12/-122.98491/37.73441/gray/...

SixSigma 12y ago
The actual activity is self reported. Maybe they are doing a triathlon / iron man. Quite a few pro athletes use Strava.
- pygy_ 12y ago
  It looks like a boat/jet ski ride. Lot's of loops and turns, no right angles.
Nicholas_C 12y ago
Perhaps boaters are using Strava.
lechevalierd3on 12y ago
People use strava for many more activities than just running and biking. Some people uses if while snowboarding/sking. I've personally used it while power kite-bugging.
tzs 12y ago
Take a look at Puget Sound west of Seattle, and you'll see lots of walking and riding on water, following Washington ferry routes.
madeofpalk 12y ago
While obviously they're just anomoloies in the reporting, It amused me seeing hotspots within water http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-208.82432/-33.87246/gray/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-208.82432/-33.87246/gray...

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bbarn 12y ago

Yes, Yes, and more yes. This is awesome. for someone who likes to roughly map out routes before trips, being able to see "Do locals ride this road or this one" is huge. Might convince me to create a new strava account (lost my old one when I quit facebook a year ago)

lamby 12y ago

(Is there a Hacker News Strava group?)

Mithaldu 12y ago

In line with http://xkcd.com/1138/ http://xkcd.com/1138/, i'd request this map be adjusted by the population density in the mapped areas, so be to be able to get more data than "a lot of people live here" and "a lot of Strava users live here".

bbarn 12y ago
If you look at connections between medium to small sized cities though, often in google maps, even with street view, something seems like it'd be a totally fine route. This takes that, and when paired up with the frequency people tend to feel comfortable riding at speed on them to track, can show you out of ten various routes, which is the best to take. Zoom level :)
notatoad 12y ago
it's not so useful for seeing what regions have the most active people, but it is still useful if you zoom in on any city to see where the trails are. even in the most populous regions, there's lots of good info to be had on this map.
dionidium 12y ago
This criticism only applies when zoomed out. It provides a lot more information than "where the people are" when sufficiently zoomed in on a specific location.
- deleted 12y ago
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baddox 12y ago
Why does that make sense in this case? People probably don't care how many bike paths there are in an area per capita. They would just want to know how many bike paths there are and where they are.
pgwhalen 12y ago
I'd certainly like more specific data, but if you're a resident of the area you're examining, this is definitely revealing on its own.

agavegoose 12y ago

Looking at Iowa, it is pretty cool to see how many bikers do ragbrai - the 2013 route is what connects Omaha and Des Moines, 2012 is to the north of that.

paulmach 12y ago

Map creator here if you have questions. The data is aggregated into a quad tree based on number of GPS points in each pixel. Tiles are then served on the fly using Go and C using CGO. Cloudfront tackles most of the load, but the load balanced i2.xlarge instances can do about 300 tiles a second.

bbarn 12y ago
Geographic search, and click through to routes.. and this will be a really big deal. Love the concept, keep it coming!
- afx2in 12y ago
  agreed. i'd love to be able to see what routes people run near my home so i can get new ideas.
3rd3 12y ago
How do you calculate exacly the coloring of the heat map? Is the scaling of it locally adjusted or is it a global/absolute scale?
- paulmach 12y ago
  Each pixel has a count. Each tile gets a 90 percentile value. Every corner gets the average of its 4 tiles. Every pixel in the currently requested tile gets a value [0, 1] based on the bi-linearly interpolated "max". It's then colored based on that final value. Maybe unnecessarily complicated, but it does provide really good local normalization. You also get cool looking shading like in this location http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-121.76487/38.49134/gray/bike http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-121.76487/38.49134/gray/...
  - aw3c2 12y ago
    This is very interesting. thanks! I would love to know about the whole setup in detail. nudge (edit: Your color scales are not really intuitive, I have no idea what red or blue means or red vs green.)

dalek2point3 12y ago

Around MIT, the route around the river is pretty popular as the map shows. Except at one point you have to choose between a fork in the road -- do you take a right and run right next to the river and enjoy the water, or do you keep running straight and enjoy the rush of cars on Storrow drive as you run. Im more of a car person, but my girlfriend likes to run by the river. Strava shows me that the Storrow alternative is indeed less popular :( http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-71.07863/42.35498/gray/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-71.07863/42.35498/gray/b...

morganw 12y ago

Looks like 17721 Bruce Ave. (or neighbor) might be a good place to steal a nice bike (Los Gatos Strava users tend to ride CF race bikes). Turn on & off recording right at your house & you're advertising: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-121.98018/37.23843/gray/bike http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-121.98018/37.23843/gray/...

alexkus 12y ago
Can't remember the terminology they use but Strava allows you to define privacy areas (within a configurable radius of a point) where no points are shown on your individual routes. Exactly to stop someone working out where you live/work from browsing your history. Either they haven't honoured this when calculating the global heatmap or, more likely (and harder to fix), such locations are given away by friends uploads (who don't have the same privacy areas defined). Oops.
- paulmach 12y ago
  On this map I took out any point within 1km of the start or end of every ride. This is stronger than what users have set and eliminates 1000s of "hot spot". I've looked into a couple of these cases and it's friends "coming by for a ride" or them stopping at their house mid ride. I'm working on further eliminating these points by just not included "stopped" points. I've also tried doing some image processing to remove these hot spots but have had mixed results.
  - mxfh 12y ago
    Found a lot of residential building footprints with activity inside just browsing around at z17. Maybe you could use slide to check local activity hotspot's and cross reference them against OSM building footprints or remove those gravity spots with no uniform direction or evenly weighted exit path slope altogether. Another approach might be only displaying common paths of 2 or more unique client id's.
  - alexkus 12y ago
    Thanks for the clarification. I know Strava takes the issue of privacy seriously!

caio1982 12y ago

Awesome idea and data set, however I'm very skeptical about its quality. Random analysis: the city where I live in Brazil (Curitiba/PR) shows major avenues and bus lanes as heavily used by bikes and for running, which is partly true but it's far from as heavy as the map makes it seem; my hometown 500km from here (Praia Grande/SP) has 7x more exclusive bike lanes and running trails and yet its usage is just average while everybody I know there rides a bike (not to say the most used bike/run path the maps shows there is actually a interstate freeway).

flyt 12y ago
Not everybody uses Strava, so the data is skewed a bit.
- caio1982 12y ago
  I know, but it makes the data set weaker than it is then (specially given the title of the post).
gavinpc 12y ago
My family almost got killed once because of a bad judgement based on computer maps. My wife and I were on a cross-country bike trip, with our dogs in tow. On this particular day, we were shooting for the Chicago area and had a long way to go from Ransom, Illinois where we woke up. There was nothing but corn, windmills, and an Air Force special training center. But we had a friend in Oak Park, and we were determined to get there and take a rest day. After following a number of scattered trails and highways, we wound up lost in a kind of industrial alcove, trying to cross one of the canals. After a little backtracking (which is the worst), we stopped to ask for help from a bald guy in a pink tee shirt whom I'd noticed cycling earlier. He was a German guy named Rolf and he apparently biked about 60 miles a day just for fun. He told us we still had pretty far to go, and he rode with us about ten miles or so to his car, where he had a map book. He gave us detailed directions saying exactly what would be the best and safest route. We thanked him and went our separate ways. We followed his directions until after dark (at which point we would normally have stopped). We'd already traveled close to ninety miles that day, and were getting anxious to get off the road. At some point, we called our friend to see if we were close. We told her Rolf's directions and asked if that would get us there. She said she would look online. She called us back with a different set of directions, and, figuring that she should know her own neighborhood, proceeded to follow them. This took us onto a road that, we later learned, wound through what is essentially a wildlife refuge, and which quickly became extremely dangerous. There were no street lights, and cars were coming around turns at high speed. We decided to stop and barely got off the road in time to avoid being hit. We then had to get our bikes, dogs, and trailer across the street so we could walk the path. It was one of the scariest experiences of my life. I later found out that our friend had never been on the road she recommended, and was going only by what it "looked like" on Google maps. (This was 2008, by the way.) So yeah, quality. And there's no substitute for human expertise. EDIT: and yes, it was our bad judgement as well, for taking bad advice... and maybe for not having our own maps in the first place. Although I've done thousands of miles of cross-country (in the US), and I think you really do have to wing it.

cowsandmilk 12y ago

my conclusion from this is that a lot of people in Brookline and Allston need to buy "Great Runs in Brookline"[1]. No affiliation on my part, just the knowledge that book put me onto a lot of great running routes that aren't covered very well at all by these Strava wearers. There is more to the area than Beacon St, Comm Ave, and the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Great-Runs-Brookline-Vicinity-Lowenstein/dp/0982248504 http://www.amazon.com/Great-Runs-Brookline-Vicinity-Lowenste...

deserted 12y ago

I found an industrial park that appears to be the next best thing to a Velodrome for local cyclists. Very cool map! http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#15/-119.86045/34.43307/yellow/bike http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#15/-119.86045/34.43307/yello...

syassami 12y ago
That's ucsb's crit & iv classic. Source: raced there many times. Info on crits http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterium http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterium
aganders3 12y ago
Industrial parks are popular for criterium races ("crits") and practice races, which is probably what you're seeing there. Here's one I've raced in a few times. Looks like it's not quite as popular, though! http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-89.48204/43.05660/yellow/bike http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-89.48204/43.05660/yellow...

TravisLS 12y ago

Wow, this is incredibly useful for planning touring routes. I often ride 100+ mile trips to areas I don't know very well and the hardest part is knowing what roads are more-or-less bikeable to plan a route. Google Maps bike directions are basically worthless on long trips since they divert you way too often into neighborhoods and side streets. Strava is a perfect data set for this use case. This is damn useful as-is, but if someone could turn this data into long-range bike directions I would absolutely pay for it.

dlib 12y ago
The Strava route builder incorporates the popularity of other users routes when you plan your own. So, in an extension to the normal find-shortest-path algorithm between two points, penalties are given to paths not used by other users or bonus given to those that are popular. The result is that you end up with the better roads to ride on. Especially on the bike this is really useful as I can plan new routes in unknown areas and they are pretty good. For running I found it remarkable how these heatmaps show the inclination to run along water bodies or in forests. It can almost perfect predict where I would or wouldn't run.
jonimius 12y ago
http://strava.com/routes http://strava.com/routes let's you create your own route based on the popularity of segments. It's not as fast as creating a google maps route but combining the heatmap with the routes tool is a pretty surefire way of creating a solid route.
drewrobb 12y ago
I worked the routing backend if anyone has questions. You can read more here: http://engineering.strava.com/routemaster/ http://engineering.strava.com/routemaster/

tdaltonc 12y ago

Any idea what this starburst over the USC campus police headquarters is all about? http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-118.29075/34.02060/gray/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-118.29075/34.02060/gray/...

ajuhasz 12y ago
Since it only shows up on the bike activity, I'm assuming it's people parking in the structure and the GPS losing accuracy inside.
- bradbeattie 12y ago
  Interestingly, the same patterns happen in Vancouver when downtown near all the highrises: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-123.11986/49.28436/gray/bike http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-123.11986/49.28436/gray/... The noise may well be indirectly tracking building height. ;)
- maxerickson 12y ago
  They might be riding it up and down some too, the connections to the blob don't have much intensity.

amcnett 12y ago

This is a trail-poacher's dream. It'd be wonderful to have this cross-indexed with any extant publicly available data sources (state/national parks, property lines etc.) to try to determine the legality of a given route. Illegal trails are likely illuminated by this heatmap, but their illegality is not.

dionidium 12y ago

The famous Delmar dividing line is quite visible in this view of St. Louis: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#13/-90.28904/38.64610/gray/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#13/-90.28904/38.64610/gray/b...

pgrote 12y ago
I noticed that, too. Grant's Trail is well represented. What is the source data? I've ridden through North St. Louis using Everytrail and my rides are public. Edit: It is from Strava itself. I didn't know they tracked routes. lol
- dionidium 12y ago
  I follow a guy on Strava who is in the process of riding every street in St. Louis City. He's been all over the Northside. But, as this map shows, it's not a popular place to go cycling.
  - jessaustin 12y ago
    ...not a popular place... There's a difference between "cycling" and "cycling while using Strava". I suspect that few people who cycle because they can't afford to fix their car, or they lost their license, or their wife commutes in the single family car, etc. belong to the latter group.
    - dionidium 12y ago
      You're right, of course!
dredmorbius 12y ago
For those not intimately familiar with St. Louis demographics and urban geography: http://unewsonline.com/2013/05/02/the-delmar-divide/ http://unewsonline.com/2013/05/02/the-delmar-divide/
jamesaguilar 12y ago

samstave 12y ago

SO, as a 100% bike commuter for the last ~4 years... I find this map to be interesting and definitely beautiful -- but utterly useless. What I would love to see is: Given two points on the map - what is the most common path between them based on multi-path tracks of others... What were their avg speeds along those routes. How frequently did they stop. Also, looking at SF, clearly there is no bike path across the Bay Bridge (as an aside rant, how did we spend $7.5 Billion dollars on half a bridge, adding no additional capacity and no full span bike/pedestrian throughway)... It would be great for this map to ID bus/bart/public transit options that connect across such things like the bay bridge. Also, the fact that the dark red is the more trafficked route(?) that was completely non-obvious to me....

MattLaroche 12y ago
"What I would love to see is: Given two points on the map - what is the most common path between them based on multi-path tracks of others..." Check out strava.com/routes, as others have said in the thread. It doesn't have your feature requests, but it does point to point routing based on popularity.
- samstave 12y ago
  Awesome thanks
kbrosnan 12y ago
The Bay Bridge will have a bike bridge to Treasure Island. The old span needs to be removed before it can be completed. Currently one can ride part of the path as an out and back route. http://baybridgeinfo.org/path http://baybridgeinfo.org/path

marknutter 12y ago

I found something very interesting in Minneapolis (where I live); it's a path that you wouldn't be able to find using google maps or probably even any bike-specific route finder. Here's the area in google maps: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9837242,-93.3338652,1914a,35y,0.68h,16.27t/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9837242,-93.3338652,1914a,35... and here's the same location in the Strava heatmap: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-93.33287/44.98897/gray/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-93.33287/44.98897/gray/b... I'll have to check it out in person but I'm guessing it's a mountain bike trail or something, which is what this heatmap would be great for helping people find.

femto 12y ago
A similar effect is evident in my area, in which there is an unofficial mountain bike track. The track is well known in the mountain bike community, and the understanding is that it's location can be passed on by word of mouth, but it should generally not be publicly documented, for risk it will get closed down by the landowner. The landowner is a government owned utility and the land is unused, so bikers and local residents don't feel too may qualms about using the land. The track isn't on any of the online mapping services, but stands out like a sore thumb on the heat map. On the plus side, I can now find any tracks that I wasn't aware of!
baddox 12y ago
I checked; it's not on OpenStreetMap either: http://osm.org/go/T~fdUgI3?way=26160508 http://osm.org/go/T~fdUgI3?way=26160508
deleted 12y ago
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001sky 12y ago
Agree, and these almost look like GPS tracks. This would underlying mapssets basically irrelevant (except for exposition). I bet quite a few folks are able to pick up visuals of familiar off-piste routes with a couple of glances at familiar but not well-publicised areas. edit: gps source>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7688240 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7688240

mjmahone17 12y ago

You can see how much Google skews their map for China, such as by looking at Beijing: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#15/116.46747/39.94133/gray/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#15/116.46747/39.94133/gray/b... Vs a similar map for Tokyo: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#15/-220.36217/35.60747/gray/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#15/-220.36217/35.60747/gray/...

edraferi 12y ago
I don't get it. What am I looking for?
- KnightHawk3 12y ago
  The paths ridden do not line up with the actual roads. I am not sure what the OP is actually trying to tell us about that though.
  - Holbein 12y ago
    There seems to be a chinese decree that all maps must be skewed so that in the case of being attacked, an attacker can presumably not find its way around the chinese capital. Bike maps are likely created directly from GPS paths, which are unskewed. When you look at Bejing, you can easily see that difference.
    - 1stop 12y ago
      Exactly, similar to that thing in the US before they opened up civilian GPS accuracy...
      - alexkus 12y ago
        Not quite, the difference between the two situations is the difference between accuracy and precision. E.g. http://academics.wellesley.edu/Chemistry/Chem105manual/Appendices/AccuracyPrecision.gif http://academics.wellesley.edu/Chemistry/Chem105manual/Appen... The Chinese Street maps are very precise but consitently inaccurate (the skew). The GPS tracks shown are relatively precise and accurate. The change to the GPS signals (by not encrypting as much of the timestamp data) improved precision.

jofer 12y ago

Interestingly, at least for the cities in the southeast where I've lived, these maps are amazingly good proxies for gentrification. For example, have a look at Houston, TX or Memphis, TN. In the Midwest, the trend is much less clear. For example, Madison, WI is covered with bikepaths, so there's no clear relationship. (Same for Anchorage, AK. You can see the main trail system, and it pretty much circles the city.) In a lot of other places, the pattern is controlled by topography/parks (e.g. Birmingham, AL) I'm limiting things to cities where I've lived, but does anyone else notice similar patterns?

novaleaf 12y ago

wow! I just found some trails right next to my house, didn't even know they existed! http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-122.11865/47.78666/gray/both http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-122.11865/47.78666/gray/...

snogglethorpe 12y ago

Based on what the map says about my local area, the results seem quite er... surprising... in that they don't really match what one sees on the ground (especially for cycling). And when I say "don't really match" I mean "are completely out of wack"... I suppose it's because the results only reflect users of this app, and there's a correlation between app users and certain types of usage.

wahsd 12y ago

That map is no where near accurate. Most of Europe is essentially nothing but a cycling and running route and should essentially be lit up red all over.

chatman 12y ago

In India, every poor person's primary mode of commute is a cycle. But such cycles are not GPS tracked, and hence his tracks will never feature in such a map.

mkr-hn 12y ago

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7681301 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7681301

michaelvillar 12y ago

(I come from Belgium) Belgium heatmap is really funny. Flemish people bike so much compared to walloon people: http://cl.ly/image/1R2G0z2k1K2S http://cl.ly/image/1R2G0z2k1K2S

nkozyra 12y ago

Without looking too deeply into the data, in my neighborhood it showed two long routes for both biking and running and seeing these spots every day I would absolutely fear for my life if I attempted to run or bike on either of them.

_zen 12y ago

Okay, this is just hardcore. http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#11/-117.10332/36.51021/blue/run http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#11/-117.10332/36.51021/blue/...

jmspring 12y ago

A lot of the trails in the Santa Cruz area aren't legal riding. Interesting how people report these publicly on Strava.

gerbal 12y ago

Interesting. In the United States it would appear to be an excellent proxy for affluence.

tzs 12y ago

Earlier discussion, although it only got a few comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7681301 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7681301

allochthon 12y ago

Perhaps unsurprisingly, you can use this to see what areas of town (e.g., Oakland) people consider safe and which ones they consider sketch. There's also no doubt a high correlation with socioeconomic status and path intensity.

dmcg 12y ago

Interesting to compare a view between running and cycling. Runners tend to run on the same side of a road in both directions.

dmcg 12y ago

I wonder how many of those data points are mine? Disappointingly I can't find any route that I alone have run or ridden - that's something to fix this summer I think.

davidw 12y ago

More cycling in UK and Scotland than northern Italy? Hrrmm... I'm guessing that it's indicative of more strava users than representative of total activity. Cool map though - as others have mentioned, zooming in provides a lot of interesting detail.

ejain 12y ago

I wonder about that bike track to the summit of Mt Rainier...

buro9 12y ago

It would be great if the heatmap had query options. This would then make it really useful to cycle advocacy and safety groups and even to those researching where to open cycle related businesses. An example scenario: Say I wanted to open a bike shop and cafe in West London and I'm looking around Holland Park: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#14/-0.19582/51.50592/gray/bike http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#14/-0.19582/51.50592/gray/bi... It's clear that there are two main East-West routes on the North and South sides of the park (created by Hyde Park splitting traffic along two roads). But which is the better location for the shop? The North side? Or the South? If the line thickness could be adjusted to see differences between the two it would be helpful. If the days of week or even hours of day could be just to restrict the data included in the lines it would be helpful. That would allow you to determine whether the lines are purely commuters or include a decent number of weekend recreational cyclists too (more likely to give you trade 7 days per week). Such query parameters would also allow cycle safety groups to have access to basic insights about cycle traffic loads without having already completed counting (leaving people with tally counters at junctions).

pingec 12y ago

Does anyone know, if strava supports showing you the heatmap of all routes and the routes you recorded as two layers of different colors on the same map? If not, it would be a cool feature for exploring new routes on my bike...

samsamoa 12y ago

It seems like a lot of intersections are darker than the streets surrounding them. I'm assuming this is due to stop signs or stop lights. Perhaps this could give us some information about poorly-timed lights?

tom_scrace 12y ago

I wonder what's going on here: http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-0.01296/51.49360/gray/bike http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#17/-0.01296/51.49360/gray/bi... The location corresponds to a supermarket.

mjfisher 12y ago
Just speculation, but I've sometimes seen GPS traces like that when a unit enters a building. You can get a very erratic, low-accuracy set of data points back that look qualitatively similar to the pattern in your link.
- tom_scrace 12y ago
  Interesting. Thanks.

rompic 12y ago

This is pretty impressive. In 2012 I worked in a research project where we did something similar but for a smaller area (vienna). See http://meineradspur.at/ http://meineradspur.at/ including color coded information about the speed of the cyclists.