Strava, the social network for athletes, has for the third year running published its annual End of Year Insights report for the UK, providing an insight into the behaviours and trends of the UK’s runners and cyclists – alongside international trends.
In 2016, 9.6 activities were uploaded to Strava every second, on average (up from 5.3 activities per second in 2015). Strava’s global community of athletes generated hundreds of billions of data points, a staggering 60,400 years’ worth of cumulative activity time.
A measure of Strava’s social community is the kudos, where member’s give praise to another’s activity. Strava saw 1.3 billion kudos given worldwide, with 183 million kudos within the UK. An impressive 51 million photos were shared worldwide, with 5.4 million images shared in the UK alone.
Strava notes that such an immense depth of data is unprecedented and allows documentation and analysis of the UK’s growth in the world of cycling and running, while also providing direct comparison with the Strava community on a global scale.
Global cycling
Across Strava’s global platform, cyclists shared a total of 161 million rides in 2016, they clocked up a total of 5.8 billion km – almost enough for a one-way trip to Neptune. Strava’s cyclists together accumulated 55 billion metres in elevation gain, which equates to over 8,000 trips up from the earth’s core to its surface. Sunday 11 September was the most popular day for cycling.
UK cycling
Cycling uploads on Strava continue to grow and grow as the UK’s riders logged 27.4 million individual rides throughout the year, totting up 800 million km along the way. An unseasonably high 25°C was recorded on Sunday 8 May (10°C higher than the historical average), resulting in that day becoming the year’s most popular day for a ride, enticing Brits to take to the saddle.
Despite the nation’s modest hills, compared with the mountain peaks of continental Europe, UK Strava riders still managed to reach an impressive 6.9 billion metres of cumulative elevation gain.
For ride distance, men recorded an average 41 km per ride, while women averaged 34 km. The average ride time for men and women showed only a marginal difference – with women averaging 1 hr 44 mins compared to men’s 1 hr 53 mins. Women recorded an average speed for the year of 19.8 km/h, with men registering 25.6 km/h.
Ards in Northern Ireland emerged as the fastest region with an average speed of 25.4 km/h for men and women combined. Northern Ireland also took the title of longest average ride with 44.9 km; with Banbridge cyclists clocking up the most kilometres on average. Merthyr Tydfil once again proved the hilliest; demanding its riders to average 645m of climbing per ride through the Welsh Valleys.
Strava also revealed that London was the most active location in the UK with 4.4 million rides logged, a considerable margin of difference over its nearest rival West Yorkshire, which totalled 915,489 activities. York’s cyclists mustered only 117m of climbing, the area’s cyclists producing the flattest average rides on Strava. Richmond Gate Roundabout to Queen’s Road Car Park has proven the most popular Strava segment in the UK in 2016, with 313,889 individual attempts.
Cycle commuting
For many of Strava’s members, cycle commuting is a way of life, with an average of 223,376 rides recorded as commutes to and from work every week in the UK. An average speed of 22.4 km/h ensured riders made it in on time, tackling an average 13.5 km door-to-door. Warmer weather made commuting by bike significantly more appealing, as demonstrated by the 87% summer increase in commuting activities, when compared to winter.
Global running
Runners around the world uploaded 86.7 million runs to Strava, logged 419,338 completed marathons and clocked up an impressive total distance of 718.6 million km, equivalent to just over 900 return trips to the moon. Like Strava’s cyclists, runners looked to the tail end of the season in order to stretch their legs and marked Sunday 11 September as the most active day for running.
UK running
The UK contributed 16.9 million runs and 132 million km to the global figures. 60,264 completed marathons were logged in the UK in 2016. Men recorded an average pace of 5:14/km for their average run distance of 8.3 km, while women recorded an average pace of 6:07 over their 7 km average run distance. Elevation gain for UK Strava runners reached the dizzying heights of 1 billion metres in total.
London and West Yorkshire once again took the top spots for most active location, with the capital’s runners uploading more than 2 million activities to its northern rival’s 638,572. Manchester rounded off the podium with 598,037 activities.
Wales proved a similarly lumpy affair for runners as it did cyclists, charting 162m of elevation on average in Powys, which again secured the top spot for both elevation and longest average distance of 9.8 km per run. Longest average moving time was claimed by the Highland Council Area in Scotland with runs averaging 1 hour in duration.
Run commuting
Thursday 9 June had the most people digging out their running shoes and commuting into work, encouraging 10,003 athletes to avoid the rush hour and work up a sweat instead. Commuters heading in on foot spent only 3 minutes longer travelling than their cycling counterparts (38 min v 35 min) and uploaded 32,698 runs to Strava each week.
Gareth Mills, UK Country Manager for Strava, said “The Strava End of Year Insights report shows the healthy growth of the Strava community and how the UK continues to lead the way in cycling and running in terms of participation levels.
“From the thousands of parkrunners uploading their Saturday morning runs to our first Global Bike to Work Day, every one of the 27.4 million rides and 16.9 million runs in the UK tells a story and the End of Year Insights shows the cumulative impact of the Strava community.”
