It’s that time of year when we look back on what we’ve achieved in our cycling: how far we went, how many metres climbed and what our average speeds were. Yep, the cycling community is over represented by stato - bores who like nothing more than analysing and poring over a set of numbers to gauge performance and set new goals. This week Strava released data on their followers – how do you compare to the rest of the country and the world?
George Marshall covered a few km on this year's Transcontinental
You guys have been busy out there with 27 million rides uploaded in the UK alone, covering 803 million km with an elevation gain of 6.9 billion metres. For a smallish country we make up a fair proportion of the 161 million worldwide recorded rides. 145,041 of you have completed a 100-mile ride.
Chances are that you took the bike out on Sunday 8th May as that was the most popular day out among Strava users. It was an unseasonably 25 degrees centigrade (10 degrees higher than the historical average) which clearly tempted droves of you onto the bike.
Adrian Ballinger attempted the most miles covered in a year
Men tend to ride slightly further than women, putting in an average of 41km over 1 hour 53 minutes each time they go out with women not far behind on 34km over 1 hour 44 minutes. Men average 25.6 kmh and women, 19.8 kmh, making us the second fastest nation in the world behind the Dutch.
Congratulations to cyclists from Banbridge who are the hardiest with their average length of ride being 44.9 km while the Scots need to toughen the f*** up with their paltry 19.9 km outings in Glasgow.
Surprisingly the flattest average ride goes to York. Unsurprisingly the hilliest are in Wales and the Scottish Borders.
Richmond Park
So how many km did you cover over the year? The average among men is 615 km with women on 324 km. Londoners are the most active with a whopping 4.4 million rides, followed by West Yorkshire and Manchester. The most popular segments recorded are in Richmond Park which has, over the last few years, become a Mecca for London cyclists looking to get away from traffic lights and traffic.
Commuting by bike has become more popular than ever, peaking on Tuesday 19th July with 80,862 commutes in a single day and over 1.5 million km covered, actually beating cycle to work day on 10th May by nearly 1,000. Was it raining then?
My average speed is higher than yours!
But if you’re feeling smug about your achievements, you may want to compare yourself to Kurt Seavogel who holds the record for the highest annual mileage with 76,076 miles. Top that!
