London crowned as Strava's most active cycling city

More than 7 million individual rides uploaded in a year

Published: October 6, 2015 at 1:30 pm

Strava has compiled data from more than 21 million individual bike rides across the world over the past year and has logged its findings onto its Insights interactive website. The data, which was taken from a staggering 136 billion data points, pitches 12 major cities head to head with stats including number of rides, average speed and distance, as well as elevation information and even the number of century rides.

The world's number one activity tracker has crowned London as the most active city on its network (perhaps unsurprising given its nearly nine million citizens), with more than seven million rides logged over the 12-month data capture. The average distance undertaken by Strava-savvy London riders was 25.9km (16.1 miles) with an average speed of 22.5km/h (13.98mph) and the average elevation change coming in at 644ft (196.3m). The data also showed that 8,639 London cycling commutes are logged on Strava every single day and that Tuesday is the most popular day to take to the saddle.

In second place was Amsterdam with 2,760,418 cycle activities logged over the last 12 months and San Francisco third with 2,380,633 activities. Given that each of these cities is only around a tenth the size of London, cyclists who live there probably have cause to argue that they are, in fact, rather more active than those in the UK capital.

Of course, the data on Strava insights does not account for the substantial number of rides completed by riders who don't use Strava.

However, the data is presented in interesting heatmaps, like this one of San Francisco commutes.

Pancake-flat Amsterdam clocked the fastest average speed per ride with 25.6km/h (15.9mph) while Milan cyclists ride the longest, with an average ride length of 54.2km (33.67 miles). Barcelona has the hilliest terrain, with cyclists climbing a leg burning average of 2,531ft (771.5m) per ride.

The data on Strava's Insights website will continue to refresh on a weekly basis, and with a network that is rapidly expanding the results are only going to get more interesting.

Cycling habits of Strava users

City

Average speed

per ride

Average distance

per ride

Average elevation

gained per ride

London

22.5km/h

25.9km

196.3m

Milan

24.2 km/h

54.2km

656.8m

Berlin

23.6km/h

31.8km

150.4m

Paris

23.7km/h

37.7km

272.8m

Barcelona

19.6km/h

41.7km

771.5m

Amsterdam

25.6km/h

43.9km

97m

San Fran

20.8km/h

29.7km

379.2m

Sao Paulo

19.1km/h

31.9km

376.2m

Sydney

23.1km/h

31.7km

383.8m

New York

21.7km/h

28km

208.8m

Los Angeles

21km/h

33.5km

403.7m

Melbourne

23.8km/h

31.7km

277.7m

Array