Strava's new Heatmaps are here to make outdoor exercise safer this winter

(Image credit: Strava)

Strava is expanding its new Heatmaps feature
There are new Night and Weekly Heatmaps
They're designed to help users find active trails and roads, as well as populated routes, during winter

Strava has today rolled out an expansion of its helpful Heatmaps feature, bringing two new options to improve your winter workouts.

The new Night and Weekly Heatmaps are designed to help users make better decisions about the routes they take during the winter, especially in the evening after dark, or early in the morning. The Night Heatmap will show activities recorded between sunset and sunrise, so you can find popular areas for working out where there are plenty of people around.

The Weekly Heatmap is a broader look at activity from the last seven days, which should help inform users about which trails and roads are currently active, and which might be getting less use because of inclement weather and the changing seasonal conditions.

Strava expands Heatmaps

Strava night and weekly heatmaps — (Image credit: Strava)

Strava's Heatmaps are available to its premium subscribers only, and this week's additions bring the total number of Heatmaps up to four. Alongside the new Night and Weekly options, Global shows users the most popular areas all around the world, and the Personal option shows a one-of-a-kind record of all your recorded exploits, only visible to you. Only the Global Heatmap is available to all users, the rest are for subscribers.

To access the new Night or Weekly Heatmaps following the rollout, simply head to the Maps tab and select your desired Heatmap. You'll be able to filter by activity, and you can even view multiple Heatmaps at once.

Strava is definitely one of the best fitness apps out there, especially for adventurers. Its outdoor tracking and social networking features make it one of the most popular fitness communities on the planet, boasting 135 million users in more than 190 countries.

Stephen Warwick is TechRadar's Fitness & Wearables writer with nearly a decade of experience covering technology, including five years as the News Editor of iMore. He's a keen fitness enthusiast and is never far from the local gym, Apple Watch at the ready, to record his latest workout. Stephen has experience writing about every facet of technology including products, services, hardware, and software. He's covered breaking news and developing stories regarding supply chains, patents and litigation, competition, politics and lobbying, the environment, and more. He's conducted interviews with industry experts in a range of fields including finance, litigation, security, and more. Outside of work, he's a massive tech and history buff with a passion for Rome Total War, reading, and music.