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Comment by marknutter | Hacker News Reader

I found something very interesting in Minneapolis (where I live); it's a path that you wouldn't be able to find using google maps or probably even any bike-specific route finder.

Here's the area in google maps:

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9837242,-93.3338652,1914a,35...

and here's the same location in the Strava heatmap:

http://labs.strava.com/heatmap/#16/-93.33287/44.98897/gray/b...

I'll have to check it out in person but I'm guessing it's a mountain bike trail or something, which is what this heatmap would be great for helping people find.

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Those are the official mountain bike trails at Theodore Wirth park. Google Maps is bad for finding mountain bike trails--it doesn't show the other Twin Cities trails at Lebanon or Murphy-Hanrehan either. They're the sort of trails you could find if you wanted to, though, by some searching or asking at bike shops.

I agree in general, though. Even if you have your own routes or know friends who have theirs, this helps break out of that rut and find some new rides. This would have been great for finding rides just across the river in Wisconsin (though as-is it wouldn't help find hills. I've always wanted a map similar to this that showed all roads in terms of both ridability and steepness).

Yep, came here to say pretty much the same thing. There are also some mountain bike trails of so-so quality down by the "blue bridge" in North Minneapolis over the Mississippi. I grew up around there so haven't checked it out in 15+ years, but it was both fun and kinda sketchy at the same time back then :)

Yup, I can also confirm those are mountain biking trails.

I used to bike past here every weekend 1.5 years ago. I clicked on the link because it said Minneapolis but I didn't expect it'd actually be a place that I've been before.

A similar effect is evident in my area, in which there is an unofficial mountain bike track. The track is well known in the mountain bike community, and the understanding is that it's location can be passed on by word of mouth, but it should generally not be publicly documented, for risk it will get closed down by the landowner. The landowner is a government owned utility and the land is unused, so bikers and local residents don't feel too may qualms about using the land. The track isn't on any of the online mapping services, but stands out like a sore thumb on the heat map. On the plus side, I can now find any tracks that I wasn't aware of!

Agree, and these almost look like GPS tracks. This would underlying mapssets basically irrelevant (except for exposition). I bet quite a few folks are able to pick up visuals of familiar off-piste routes with a couple of glances at familiar but not well-publicised areas.

edit: gps source>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7688240

I checked; it's not on OpenStreetMap either: http://osm.org/go/T~fdUgI3?way=26160508

I just discovered a rail-trail I didn't know about as well. Very cool.

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