Land in a new area and want to know where locals ride? Want to discover new routes in your neighborhood? The Ride with GPS Heatmap displays aggregated data from publicly-recorded trips and highlights it on the map, showing the “heat” generated by these activities so that you can see where people are riding, anywhere in the world. The darker color of the line, the more heat present.
Curious about the ground you’ve covered on your own? Take a look at your Personal Heatmap.
Accessing the Heatmap on the Website
The public Ride with GPS heatmap can be viewed at ridewithgps.com/heatmap.
Using the Heatmap in the Route Planner
The heatmap overlay will be turned on in the Route Planner by default for Premium members.
To turn the heatmap overlay on/off, click on the Heatmap button in the upper right corner of the planner.
The heatmap will display ride data from least popular (light blue) to more popular (darker red). Look for darker areas on the heatmap to identify the more popular riding areas based on our public ride data.
ACCESSING THE HEATMAP IN THE MOBILE APP
In the Mobile Route Planner
The heatmap will be turned off by default in the Mobile Route Planner. To turn the heatmap overlay on/off:
- Tap the Map Options icon.
- Tap Heatmap Icon
The heatmap will be off by default in the Ride Recording screen. To turn the heatmap overlay on/off:
- Tap the Map Options icon.
- Tap Heatmap icon.
OPT IN/OUT OF HEATMAP DATA
You can opt out of having your public ride data included in the heatmap dataset at any time in your Privacy Settings by checking or unchecking the Heatmap Data box.
FAQs:
- Who can view the heatmap?
Anyone can view the publicly available heatmap page. Premium users get access to the heatmap in our route planner, along with all of our other route creation and editing tools.
- What was data used to create the heatmap?
We used the most recent two years’ worth of publicly-recorded and uploaded trips from public Ride with GPS users.
- Were private trips included in the heatmap data?
No private trips were included in the data. Additionally, we excluded all trips from users who have marked their accounts as private.
- How were privacy zones handled?
All manually created privacy zones are respected. Additionally, every trip has an automatic privacy zone created at the start and end of the trip, which means that even for users who don’t use privacy zones, their start and end locations are obscured to eliminate people’s houses and other hotspots from appearing on the map.
- How often is the heatmap data updated?
The heatmap is updated every week. This keeps the data current, and allows us to quickly remove any user’s data who chooses to opt out.
- Can I opt my data out of the heatmap?
Yes. You can opt out by going to your profile settings and opting out here: Privacy Settings. You can also opt out of individual rides by marking them as private.
