Making alternative to Strava Heatmap

Mapping bicycle rides in Berlin, Germany

tl;dr

Strava (service to track your fitness activity via GPS) has a feature called Global Heatmap which shows public rides uploaded by Strava users for one year. Many cyclists I know use Strava Heatmap to find the best route. But Strava Heatmap shows only density (road popularity). That is why I built my Strava Activity Map which also shows speed and filters rides by starting point.

Looking for the Best Route

I’m working on data visualisations the last couple of years and I do sporadic road cycling. Also, I’m a happy Strava Premium user. When I just moved to Berlin I was heavily using Strava Route Builder to discover directions for my workouts. It allows you to plan routes which are optimised for road popularity and saves a lot of time when planning workouts or bicycle trips. I love it!

A necessary part of route planning with Strava is the Global Heatmap. I use a Heatmap layer in the Route Builder to see popular alternatives and then adjusting the route to one of them.

Screenshot from Strava Route Builder. Red lines are showing roads where many cyclists go.

So, what is wrong with Strava Heatmap?

I respect Strava for making such amazing tools as Global Heatmap and Route Builder. I think it’s more useful than Runtastic Routes. But as a cyclist and visualisation developer I see some issues to solve:

First: Strava is not updating Global Heatmap since 2015. Maybe it is related to newer Strava Metro service. I’m curious if routing is using same outdated data from 2015.

Second: Strava Heatmap is not differentiating types of rides. So when you see red line on Strava Heatmap you cannot tell if this road is good for Road Bike or for MTB. Eventually, you will end up on an unpaved forest track with your 23mm road bike tires. Other Strava users also pointing on this.

Guys from GCN testing road bike on gravel

Making an alternative

Recognising the type of ride by GPS track is a challenging task. So, I approached it in a simpler way: I colored Strava activities by its average speed and let your brain to recognise patterns. The resulting map will show where the fast riders are going and where the fast riders are not going.