Christmas Fever: Man Cycles Special Routes To Draw Reindeer & Santa Claus On The Map!
Anthony Hoyte from Cheltenham creates art by planning intricate routes that form images on the Starva - a widely popular GPS among cyclists. Hoyte who works as a heritage consultant now tags his part-time profession as Starva Artist using his road bike as a paintbrush.
Christmas is around the corner and people are doing some seriously crazy things. When it comes to annual Christmas traditions, it's not just about playing secret Santa and making gingerbread, people are coming up with a lot of other - very creative ways - to spread the cheer.
In fact, some of them have taken to drawing festive portraits on their street maps! Now that's a tradition we could get behind.
Meet Anthony Hotye, man who is creating some interesting 'artwork' on the streets, or rather, maps! According to an Evening Standard report, Anthony Hoyte, from Cheltenham, creates art by planning intricate routes that form images on the Starva - a widely popular GPS among cyclists.
Hoyte, who works as a heritage consultant, now tags his part-time profession as Starva Artist. Using his road bike as a paintbrush, he follows a mapped-out route of roads and trails.
Bonjour @TeamCOFIDIS @BouhanniNacer Glad you like my @Strava art! I'd be delighted to show my support for Cofidis with a team jersey when I do my next doodle, except I don't have one! ? https://t.co/ujm3H3nt6I
¡ª Anthony Hoyte (@anthoyte) December 26, 2018
Drawing portraits like this is far from simple - there are multiple roadblocks that come your way, quite literally. By that we mean, the map re-routing or the GPS signal getting lost in some spots.
Speaking to Standard, Hotye says, ¡°There¡¯s a little glitch in there near Shepherd¡¯s Bush where I obviously lost the GPS signal and it creates a straight line that cuts through a couple of street blocks, but that¡¯s minor,¡± he noted. ¡°I made a couple of mistakes but they¡¯re so small that nobody¡¯s going to notice really,¡± Hoyte added. ¡°I¡¯m happy. It looks how I wanted it to look.¡±
It's that time of the year again when I cycle round congested streets in the rain looking for some festive cheer!: https://t.co/4u80fR8eNt@Strava @cyclingweekly #stravaart #stravart #gpsdoodle #gpsart #cycling #Christmas #reindeer #Rudolph pic.twitter.com/Nzm3Rch9nJ
¡ª Anthony Hoyte (@anthoyte) December 9, 2019
The report states that during his recent reindeer-shaped route, which is also his third annual Christmas ride, he was meant to go through a park to form a point on an antler, but it was shut off due to snow.
¡°I just spend a lot of time looking at maps and it¡¯s waiting for things to jump out at you,¡± he explained. ¡°Normally I look at maps until I see something ¨C- ¡®That looks a bit like a nose¡¯ ¨C- so I think ¡®Where can I find eyes near that?¡¯¡±
His longest ride till date was for the snowman, at just over 88 miles and 10 hours.
A reminder that I need to crack on and plan this year's Christmas special @Strava art ...#stravaart #gpsart #gpsdoodle https://t.co/FD1jxJdiiF
¡ª Anthony Hoyte (@anthoyte) September 17, 2019
¡°That¡¯s about my maximum distance ¨C I wouldn¡¯t want to go too much above that. It¡¯s a long day in the saddle," he was quoted as saying.
According to reports, Hotye draws inspiration for his quirky Christmas tradition from Canadian cyclist, Stephen Lund, who gained popularity on the app in 2015 for drawings he called 'GPS doodles'.
Reports state that the Canada native, Stephen, began this unusual craft in 2015 to unwind and be creative. Since then, he has logged 22,300 km, and his longest piece has been a 220-km mermaid.
Twitter/Yasushi Takahashi
FYI, the actual world's record for the largest GPS drawing belongs to Yasushi Takahashi from Japan. Takahashi pulled off this feat to propose to his girlfriend back in 2010.. He made even larger piece in 2015 that was 105,734-km long.
