It looks like a new feature has been planned at STRAVA for quite some time, it’s called TOP STOPS.
STRAVA has got a lot of data about you. Just think, it’s more than the segments you ride and the flybys you had. It’s more than the gear you say you’ve used and the routes you’ve saved. It’s more than your critical power and definitely more than the Kudos you’ve been given.
Yes. It’s also about where you stop. It’s one of those obvious things…when you think about it. We stop for coffee, we stop to take in beautiful panoramas and we stop because we are jam crackered (translation: knackered…#Tired)
STRAVA’s TOP STOP feature is public but it currently only works on what looks like a snapshot of real data from the San Francisco Bay area. Nevertheless, it’s pretty cool at how it categorises your potential stops as either for a scenic view; a bike shop; a cake stop; a baseball field or a park (and more besides). But more than that it aggregates and summarises the stops according to day-of-the-week and time-of-day as well as giving the length of stay. Surprisingly, as an example, the average stop at the Bovine Bakery is longer than we take to enjoy the visual delights of the Golden Gate Bridge. Although I guess that once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. Bridges are a one-off, cakes are forever.
Something like that.
Although it’s a fairly old ‘prototype’, it’s still ‘cool’, a nice take-out would be that this could addssome intelligence, relavence and factual usefulness to POIs without going down the tried and tested route of relying on POI-based reviews of some sort.
Here, have a click on the image to go to STRAVA for a quick play
Will this make the light of day?
Opinion
This is a nice and potentially useful route-related feature. I might even use it myself … if it were fully live. STRAVA have been in need of some new features to better justify their platform fees to premium users and I reckon we’ll see something in the next 6 months. Will it be this? IDK.
TOP STOPS wouldn’t fit too nicely into any of the SUMMIT packs, although the safety pack would be the closest. Perhaps STRAVA could further expand the SAFETY pack with other route-related features in addition to this? For example there are other planned and beta route-related features like the mobile-based route creator which can use the heatmap.
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Another pointless feature in a declining popularity app.
I disagree. When cycling in an unfamiliar area I think it would be really useful to find a good or the best coffee/lunch stop available rather than relying on luck or having to go to a dingy pub. On long distance rides I’ve done with friends this is something we have often discussed having had some mediocre coffee at a burger van only to pass a lovely warm garden centre a mile further on.
Hasn’t this been in labs since forever?
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/product-news/seven-amazing-things-you-didnt-know-strava-could-do-198280
it’s still in the labs, others have been deleted. This still might see the light of day
Jezus, 5 years!!! Showing how important their customers are…… They come in the last place. Glad I’m not paying….
Nice write up thank you. I would use this when planning a new route, both for cakes and scenery. I’m a summit user, but I don’t understand the various versions.
Using my route data to sell me bakery goods is a misuse of my personal data. I hope Strava is not moving in that direction. I understand the lure is strong, but I trust Strava with my whereabouts for cycling reasons. For them to use that data for non-cycling applications is not ok.