Strava Insights Reveals Which Cities Have the Most Hardcore Commuters
Strava released a fun new tool this morning that opens up its expansive collection of commuting data points—136 billion of them—to the public. Everyone can now dig into the ride habits of users across 12 of the world’s busiest cities for bike commuting—or make that, “12 of the world’s busiest cities for syncing bike commutes to Strava.”
Which city’s residents ride most in the morning? (Sydney.) Who rides the most at night? (Sao Paulo’s party animals.) Why did so many Barcelonan cyclists set out for a ride on Sunday, April 12? How did CicLAvia affect the number of commuters around LA? Which city rides the fastest—or gains the most elevation? These are some of the fascinating datasets available in infographic form on Strava Insights. Form your own half-baked theories for why Tuesday is such a popular commute day in cities across the world—the tool doesn’t provide any answers, instead opting to cleanly display numbers you could use to compare cities.
If, like me, you’re a longtime bike commuter who wouldn’t dream of uploading your daily grind to Strava, you’re probably wondering, to what extent can any of this data be applied to most bike commuters? After all, Strava Insights reveals that London is the top city for bike commuting, clocking 8,639 commutes per day—not Amsterdam, as most of us would expect. (It sees a mere 2,185 daily commutes, per Strava).
Related: Become a Strava Artist with These GPS Tips
But Strava representative Brian Holcombe says this issue was already addressed when Strava launched its Metro program to provide city planners with information about where people ride and run. Critics of the program attested that Strava data largely reflects the patterns of an elite echelon of cyclists—one that shouldn’t be used to determine safe cycling infrastructure for all commuters.
Strava maintains that large quantities of its data are based on the transportation habits of non-competitive cyclists who, thanks to a recent Strava update, can specifically label their rides “commutes.”
“When we go into communities with our Metro commuting data, the local groundwork they’ve done has shown that Strava data is incredibly accurate and indicative of the wider pattern of cyclists,” Holcombe says.
Examples of data that can be compared on Strava Insights include cities’ average commute lengths; average ride lengths; number of centuries completed; and average elevation gain per ride.
Related: 4 Dumb Reasons You’re Not Bike Commuting
Without a doubt, the commuting data does produce helpful results when you analyze heat maps of how cyclists navigate a city. And that’s how Holcombe expects at least some of the public will use Strava Insights.
“Let’s say you live in San Francisco, and you get a new job and you have to commute across the Mission,” he says. “You can actually look at the heat map and see where bike commuting is the most popular, and make inferences about the best route, whether it’s due to lack of stop lights, bike lanes, or whatever it might be. So in addition to being a fun tool, I think there’s a practical element, too.”
Dig into the data at insights.strava.com and see what you think. Holcombe says there’s no plan to expand to the tool to additional cities in the near future, as Strava is "focused on delivering the richest data experience possible for the 12 launch regions."
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