Strava / GPS Art (Chicago)

Curious if anyone has done any cool Chicago-area art? It's near impossible to find much on Google for our city streets, especially cycling art. I did create this Strava club for local "artists" to post to:

https://www.strava.com/clubs/strava-art-chicago

Please share any ideas or routes you've created! :)

I did recently make a horse and am planning another route.

https://www.strava.com/activities/3982923036

There are a number of Chicago area running examples (you may need a Strava login to view some):

Elephant: https://www.strava.com/activities/1478953417

Whale: https://www.strava.com/activities/2272744856

Bunny: https://www.strava.com/routes/24780401

Camel: https://www.strava.com/activities/2137482012

Cactus: https://www.strava.com/activities/2020425202

Rhino: https://www.strava.com/activities/1653930558

Sailboat: https://www.strava.com/activities/261218435

Beer: https://www.strava.com/activities/268076205

Finger: https://www.strava.com/activities/258054579

Giraffe: https://www.strava.com/activities/1533967496

Heart: https://www.strava.com/activities/2429818205

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by ketoguychicago on September 3, 2020 at 3:11pm

These are really quite clever!! I like the bunny, but the horse is fantastic. The neck bump, it's great. Question - How was the angled line from the horse's nostril up to the eye done? I can't find that angled street on the map. Turn the GPS off then back on to force it to fill in the line? It's all pretty nice.

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Permalink Reply by DerferMark on September 4, 2020 at 2:26am

Thanks ketoguy. Correct on the top line of horse's nose! One side of one of the ears was done this way too for example. "Art" is all about taking creative liberties right? LOL

Some religiously use the 1-stroke method (never pause Strava).

Others sometimes pause Strava, moving to a new spot, and then resume Strava to draw a straight line.

Good discussion here: https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/fc91sa/discussion_artis...

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Permalink Reply by ketoguychicago on September 4, 2020 at 7:57am

Well played sir.

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Permalink Reply by DerferMark on September 22, 2020 at 2:02am

Last full day of summer ride...

https://www.strava.com/activities/4094061033

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Permalink Reply by ketoguychicago on September 22, 2020 at 11:48am

Wow. Sooo, how do you pre-map the shortest route for a celtic knot? First track working toward the center and then finishing working outward, or.... ? That's really well done.

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Permalink Reply by DerferMark on September 30, 2020 at 4:24am

That's a whole math problem in itself, figuring out the shortest possible route (ie. repeating as few lines as possible) I just traced it out manually on Ride with GPS and audio cues told me when to turn as I rode it. I'm sure there's a shorter, more efficient route possible, but not by much. There's actually only 26 miles of lines there if there were no repeats (208 blocks) but I had to go 31.6 mi. to make this. If you had to "legally" make this it would be soooooo many more miles as I went the wrong-way on many 1-way streets. :o