Devon will use Strava to prioritise popular cycling roads for repairs

I have encountered the Oxfordshire Dragon Patcher, and it's repairs, (fresh, turns your tyres into rice crispies, at least sound wise) and they seem like a good fix, seen similar repairs on some formerly heavily potholed tracks in Surrey too.  They must have one.

Perhaps if they limit the data to rides tagged as commutes, the results will be better geared towards action in the right direction. But then the problem becomes some more reasonable routes to want to cycle, are being avoided because of their poor condition, so they need to look at the roads surrounding the most popular routes and not just the routes themselves. Strava data has multiple levels that they can filter.

Only time will tell if this investment in their roads will pan out.

Doctor Fegg wrote:

Strava is a platform for self-described "athletes".

It's the other way round, Strava calls its member athletes. Never thought of myself as an athelete, and still don't.

Panslanepaul wrote:

Doctor Fegg wrote:

Strava is a platform for self-described "athletes".

It's the other way round, Strava calls its member athletes. Never thought of myself as an athelete, and still don't.

I suspect what Doctor Fegg meant was that it's targetted at the more enthusiastic cyclist - particularly those who like to chase fast times, long rides, heavy mileage - so not necessarily representative of the cycling patterns of the average commuter.

Doctor Fegg wrote:

The notion that its activity data is representative of general cycling has been repeatedly disproven. Using Strava to direct spending will prioritise roads favoured by roadies over those used by families and commuter cyclists.

Source?

I raised the same query with my local council's transport officer, a cyclist himself, as they were doing the same as Devon. They'd done their own surveys to test the data and their conclusion was it wasn't just 'athletes' but their presence on the heat map was indicative of demand from all cyclists. Also, where enthusiasts lead, others will follow.

So it makes a big difference where you are.

There's been some research done in and around Glasgow, for example, where the Strava Metro data lines up reasonably well with other measures of cycling activity. This is not surprising - Glasgow has a desperately low modal share for cycling (<2%) so, by and large, the only people cycling are the Strava audience.

But if you look at somewhere where everyday cycling is normalised - Oxford or Cambridge, for example - it's really clear that the heatmap doesn't match up with trivially observable cycling patterns. In Oxford, for example, one of the main shopping streets (Cornmarket) glows brightly on the heatmap, which makes sense until you realise that the street is actually closed to cyclists throughout the day - i.e. activities like weekend club runs are skewing the stats. Similarly, head a short way out into the countryside and the roads/NCN routes that are popular with families don't show as prominently as the busy, direct roads which Stravaites are happy to use.

This is what I logged in to say.

I ride roads that are ok, that there than the ones I'd ride if they were all the same condition.