
The World's Athletic Activity Mapped - WMCRUN
https://blog.strava.com/galleries/heatmap/?utm_source=strava&utm_medium=mktgemail&utm_campaign=2017_11_21_Nov_NL
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6841iam
Long time strava user here.

I really wish Strava would do a better job helping you discover new routes
around you for activities that you do. I'm a long time user who uses it for
Mountain biking and short runs but I've never selected a route because Strava
told me to. If you are a PM at strava there's so much you can unlock with all
the user's activity data you are sitting on.

They aren't doing nothing of course. I can see their product efforts are
focused on 1) growing the user base 2) growing paid subs.

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peterbraden
They're really not doing much. I just let my premium membership lapse because
they have so few extra features.

Trying to make a facebook news feed doesn't do anything with their current
data which is their strength.

I really wish they'd up their game.

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kingosticks
Exactly this. I recently cancelled my renewal after years of justifying the
payment as the best way to support a service I like but I don't miss any of
the premium features at all. I think I only ever use one or two and rarely.

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CJefferson
The strava heat map is one of those cases where I really realise the power of
data.

I've discovered several amazing cycling routes I never knew about within 10
miles of my house from the heatmap. It was also great when I went on holiday,
to get a quick glance at local popular routes.

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dogruck
I would like it if Strava, or someone else, did the following:

1\. Associate each GPS data point with a short (say, 10 meters) segment.

2\. Collect metadata on each segment. eg incline, weather history, is it a
segment of an organized race, etc.

3\. Combine segments into proposed routes that match a user’s search criteria.

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useful
they have some this in the labs
[https://labs.strava.com/clusterer/](https://labs.strava.com/clusterer/)

You can search for yearly/weekly events.

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dogruck
That’s a neat experiment, but not really what I’m thinking of. I want to solve
two problems:

1\. Find a route that matches a search like “20 mile trail run, with moderate
hills, and at least 3 water fountains.”

2\. See interesting information about segments of the route, such as “mile 8.7
is the highest point of the End Cancer 50 mile race.”

That said, thanks for the pointer, I hadn’t seen that before.

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rurban
"Athletic" might be misleading. The heatmap in my area (East Germany) only
shows activity on the city golf court, whilst we have plenty of real athletes
training here, on the amateur, professional and olympic level. Looks like only
golfers use Strava.

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aw3c2
*People who let Strave track their every move when running their app, mapped.

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notatoad
Yes, obviously. But there's enough Strava users that that's a pretty good
proxy.

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timthelion
Not at all. This is a good proxy for the activities of wealthy people who
don't care about privacy. I'd be interested in this map if I wanted to know
where to put up ads for overpriced energy bars. But this isn't a map of
physical activity.

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notatoad
It never claimed to be a map of physical activity. It's a map of athletic
activity. i.e. the people who purchase overpriced energy bars.

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aw3c2
The title was changed after I posted my rant. Previously it used a term like
population or people (can't remember) including everyone which was stupid.

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nolliebs180
I would love to discover new skate spots in my city. The list of activities
seems pretty short...

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dreen
Where are all those people skiing in southern England? I want to get in on the
action.

