I love maps. Maps are probably the reason I started my bike tour company because I don’t get tired of looking at them for route possibilities. I also like to know where I’ve been and where I’d like to go next. In the old days this meant highlighting a paper Michelin map, but now we have heatmaps, which helps alleviate the frustration of trying to refold the Michelin.

Above is my personal heatmap that comes with a paid Strava account. These two zoomed-in ‘red’ areas are Nimes and the Cévennes (west side of the Rhone river), where I train and work sometimes; and the Ventoux area (right side), which is where I spend a lot of time in the spring, summer and fall with clients. I’ve been on Strava since 2013, so have compiled a healthy number of red lines of various ‘hotness’.

Other than seeing what I’ve done, the personal heatmap allows me to know what I’ve missed, like a short stretch of road in the hills above Ales that I’m going to ‘fill in’ on Friday. It also answers the question of whether I’ve ridden a portion of road or not – something that comes up quite a lot in my business and which I often don’t know the answer to. My heatmap will tell me, as long as it was ridden after 2013.