Danny Norton, from The Heath and a lecturer in NUI Galway, has looked at the Strava Data available in Laois.
Recently, concerns have been raised by military observers about the data released by Strava.
Strava advertises itself as “The Social Network for Athletes” and it is a mobile app that tracks athletic activity via satellite navigation such as GPS.
The reason for the recent controversy is that some data showed soldiers activity in US bases in Syria and Afghanistan despite the data having been available since November 2017.
Strava have presented the data which is based on over one billion activities from all public Strava data through to September 2017.
They have mapped the data in the form of a heatmap which shows areas of high and low activity by its users. Data can be broken down by different types, the main two of interest in Laois are cycling and walking.
Now that this data has been highlighted, let’s have a look at Laois. Below shows the Strava heatmap of Laois and surrounding areas with some Laois towns highlighted.
Mostly the major roads are highlighted and this is because cycling seems to be dominate the data. However, there are a few interesting nuggets.
A few well known areas for walking show up on the above map. To the south-west of Portlaoise can be seen Togher woods, while east of Stradbally is Stradbally woods and south of Portarlington some brightness represents Emo Court.
Looking in more detail at walking in Laois. Looking initially at Portlaoise and its surrounds, Togher woods shows up brightly again. There seems to be a number of popular walking circuits within the town itself. These include
- Abbeyleix Road, Clonminian Industrial Estate, Mountrath Road with a high number of users crossing the circuit using the Old Knockmay Road.
- Along the Moutmellick Road and back into town along the New Ring Road.
- The Stradbally Road has a number of circuits including linking up with the Timahoe Road and the New Ring Road or,
- The Dublin Road and across by the Block Road to the Stradbally Road and back to the Church.
- The last large route seems to be out the Borris Road and across by Collier’s Lane to the Dublin Road and back to the Church.
Further out the Stradbally road we can see users using the woods around Grange while just to the south an interesting pattern of light blue can be seen.
Looking at it in more detail reveals it is the site of the Ploughing Championships in Ratheniska with the layouts of the stands clearly visible. The GAA pitches of Ratheniska GAA are also used a walking site seen outlined brightly in the top left corner.
In Portarlington, most of the walking activity is centered on a trinagle comprising of Station Road, Bracklone Street and Canal Street, with another smaller circuit based on Main Street, the Link Road, Sandy Lane and French Church Street.
Looking outside the town, most of the walking is centred on three sites. To the south of Portarlington the woods around Carrick Hill while further west is the woods in Garryhinch. The last site which seems to be popular is around the edge of Killenard Golf club.
Away from the towns, rural Laois has a lot to offer walkers and a number of well-known sites are highlighted below.
However not all areas are well known Laois walking hopspots. This ring near Raheen village seems to be quiet popular with a number of Strava users.
Note that since this is based only on Strava users it may not accurately reflect all walking areas in Laois, particularly those with lower numbers. However, after reading this you can see there are plenty of walking hotspots in Laois so there less excuses to get and about.
For more information on the Strava heatmap, details can be found here.
And for more information on improving health and wellbeing, Laois Libraries have a number of free talks in your local library. More information can be found here.
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