London crowned as Strava’s most active cycling city

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