To highlight what it takes to prepare for the Tour de France and the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, Strava has analysed training data from January to June 2022 from pro riders.
As an official ride partner for this year’s Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, Strava has published exclusive data. This reveals that pro cyclists have individually covered at least 15,000km in distance while training for the race since January – the equivalent of cycling from the UK to Australia and comparable to completing the Tour de France five times over. The riders who have tracked the most distance year to date have covered nearly 17,000km.
Other key data points include:
- Training hours: on average, pro cyclists recorded over 400 hours on the bike in individual training hours so far this year. However, the highest volume riders have clocked nearly 600 hours since January.
- Gaining momentum: as we approach the Tour, some riders are committing over 30 hours each week of training on the bike – surpassing 1,000km per week.
- Elevation: further to hours and distance, the total elevation gained by the pro riders during their training in 2022 is over 180,000m – the equivalent of climbing Mt Everest over 20 times.
- Going the distance: the longest individual ride amounted to just over 300km (186 miles). On average, athletes are completing a ride of similar distance once a week, every week.
- Calorie burn: male and female riders training for the race have individually burned over 350,000 calories. This is comparable to burning the calories that would have been consumed from eating over 4,500 French macarons or 1,500 croissants.
Collectively, the pro cyclists have been awarded 10m Kudos (recognition from fellow Strava users) on the platform to celebrate their training endeavours.
To uncover the data, Strava aggregated and anonymised the stats of 36 competitive cyclists riding in either the Tour de France or Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 2022, and their training logged from January to June 2022. This analysis only includes training rides tracked on Strava.
As the official ride partner for this year’s Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, Strava has also revealed how amateur riders around the world can get involved in their own piece of the race action.
Strava has analysed segment data based on distance and elevation, and identified local segments similar to those in iconic Tour stages, for athletes around the world to challenge themselves.
The 2022 Tour de France will run from July 1-24. It is made up of 21 stages – covering 3,328km in total. The first edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift is set to take place between July 24-31. This race will take place over eight stages and cover 1,029km in total.
In 2021, 72% of cyclists in the Tour uploaded their race efforts to Strava and 62% of stage wins in the 2021 Tour were uploaded to Strava.
2022 marks the first year of a three-year partnership between Strava and the Tour de France and the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. The long-term partnership is enableing Strava to develop new and unique experiences for its global community of athletes to follow each stage with a goal to inspire more people around the world to be active.
To follow all the race action, fans can now use the Tour de France and Tour de France avec Zwift race hub inside the Strava app. Following along provides access to stories of the peloton through their daily activity, breakdowns of key segments, uploads from each stage, and insights into unique athlete experiences.
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