STRAVA Art

This is a post to celebrate the ONGOING life and STRAVA art of Anthony Hoyte, one of the UK’s most prolific STRAVARTISTs. I used the word ‘ONGOING’ as otherwise it sounded a bit like he’s dead but HE IS DEFINITELY ALIVE and pedalling and he sent me an email the other day to give permission to link to and show his STRAVA art collection.

But it’s not just Anthony who is a renowned STRAVA artist; there are many of them, so this post: explains a few things about STRAVA Art; shows the complete STRAVA Artworks of Anthony Hoyte, and gives several other examples …including a more abstract piece by me (that’s really just a pretty heatmap).

Table of Contents (Click to Expand)

What is STRAVA Art?

STRAVA art comes from the route of one of your workouts recorded on STRAVA.com and that route just happens to look like something funny, clever, rude…or whatever.

Perhaps the nicest one was this marriage proposal to Emily who, apparently, said “Yes”.

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A post shared by Gary Cordery (@strav.art)

STRAVA.Art – What are the Rules?

There are no rules, it’s not an official thing. However, you will probably be mercifully mocked and virally abused if you just draw a digital route on a ride planner and then upload it to STRAVA without actually riding it in the real world. If it has the associated power data or heart rate data hidden within the depths of STRAVA then I reckon that’s all you need for it to be genuine.

However, it’s perfectly OK to draw and plan your route in advance AND THEN follow that route using a bike computer (or similar)

The Old Skool method, of course, is to follow a paper map but…really? 2019 and all that.

Another ‘rule’ is that if you try to create a site like https://www.strava.art then STRAVA will almost certainly sue you for something to do with Trademarking. So you’d be best advised to name yourself, instead, www.strav.art. But that’s already been taken, as we shall see. No, seriously folks, STRAVA is an awesome service but they DO like to close things down that they don’t like and they do have a bigger cheque book than you. A LOT bigger.

Haven’t got a bike? That’s OK you can use any mode of transport including two feet.

STRAVA gives you the option to view your ride/art in one of 3 map types TERRAIN, STANDARD and SATELLITE. I reckon you need to use just the STANDARD map but I stand to be corrected on that assertion.

Creating STRAVA Art – What could possibly go wrong?

Answer: Quite a lot

Here are some things I can think of and I’m sure there are plenty more – further answers, below, on a postcard, please.

START: You have to get to the start. Make sure you don’t record that journey to the start and get a GPS fix before pressing ‘GO’.
STOP: When you finish the art…stop recording.
RIGHT ROUTE: Don’t make a wrong turning…obviously. But I mean over a 40-mile route. NOT. ONE. SINGLE. WRONG. TURNING. OR. MISTAKE.
TURN AROUND: At some point, you will have to draw the end of a line and that will mean going up and back on the same street. Except you will be on different sides of the road and that might look a bit weird on wider roads.
GET LOST: You might have to go the wrong way down a one-way street or through somebody’s back garden or, just generally, somewhere where you shouldn’t be or can’t be
TIME: A piece of art could well take you many, many hours. Just like completing an Ironman, nutrition and wee-stops need to be catered for and you might want to press a pause button for the latter.
PAUSE: But even if you stop to eat, or just generally stop for a rest, then your GPS might wander and think you are moving up to 20 metres from where you are stationary and eating a sandwich. Again…press that pause button. Indeed this might be one valid use for the AUTO-PAUSE feature on your Garmin
GPS inaccuracy – Bike computers seem generally accurate but that’s normally because you are riding well away from buildings, unlike runners in an urban area. A tall building can EASILY throw your track 30m or more off route so bear that in mind. Sometimes such errors validate that your artwork was genuinely produced but sometimes it might make it look a little bit rubbish. PLAN, TEST, PLAN and TEST again might be a good idea…your call.

On the subject of what could go wrong, check out Matt’s travails on this video (Matt from GCN)

STRAVA Art – The Complete Works of Anthony Hoyte

Well, there’s 10 at any rate. That’ll do for now

And here are links to the original to prove they are real!

STRAVA Art – My Favourite

This one appeals to the child in me and is my favourite from Steven Lund

ROAR!

STRAVA Art Alternatives – Does it need to be boring red lines?

My definition of art would be that “the creator intended it to be art”. So if you want to turn your IM Bolton UK route into a piece of artwork then who am I to say, “That’s not artwork?” Along a similar vein, you can turn heatmaps of ALL of your routes (ever) into a piece of art and I’ve covered that before in some detail here in this piece on STRAVA Personal Heat maps and taken from that post, this image would be my own personal example of a part of my heatmap that I think is quite pretty.

Or, rather than your own personal heatmap, you might want a population level heatmap to exhibit on your lounge wall. Here’s one that looks at all of STRAVA’s rides for London and the Thames Estuary.

Printing STRAVA Art

I’m sure you can take a screenshot of your route and get it printed easily enough but there are other services like strartwork

STRAVA Art Resources

A curated Instagram feed of STRAVA art by Gary
STRAVA’s Greatest Artist? links to strava.com
Sketchbook of a STRAVA doodler who also used RELIVE.
Strava Art contest.

Opinion

This is one of those harmless things that are a bit of fun and distract some of us from the trials and tribulations of everyday life.

If you plan to do these, even once, then they appear to me to be somewhat time-consuming. GOOD LUCK!