Since Strava burst on to the fitness scene to track runs and rides, it’s collected an extraordinary amount of data — so much, in fact, that it even sells it to city planners. Now, it’s launched a new website called Insights that lets you explore how the entire world runs and cycles.
Drawing on a frankly bewildering 136 billion data points, Insights lets your explore the running and cycling habits in 12 cities around the world. You can simply compare key data points head-to-head — say, who cycles faster, London or New York? (Actually it’s London, 14mph to 13.5mph.) Or you can use some pre-built analysis tools to study things like who wins the commute run (Sydney in the morning; Barcelona in the evening.) And then there are key findings to study too, like the record day of uploads in San Francisco (May 17th 2015, when Bay to Breakers, a 12K organised run, happened).
All in, it’s quite a lot of fun to play with, and will no doubt get more interesting as the mass of data grows. Oh, and for the competitive — and which Strava users aren’t? — here’s how the world’s cities rank for running speed and cycling distance. Well done, Europe.
The world’s fastest city runners
- Paris — 8:56/mi (avg. pace)
- London — 9:00/mi
- Berlin — 9:11/mi & Melbourne — 9:11/mi
- Milan — 9:13/mi
- New York City — 9:15/mi
- Amsterdam — 9:19/mi
- Sydney — 9:33/mi
- Barcelona — 9:41/mi
- San Francisco — 9:47/mi
- Los Angeles — 10:26/mi
- São Paulo — 10:45/mi
The cities that cycle farthest
- Milan — 33.7 miles (avg. distance)
- Barcelona — 25.9 mi
- Amsterdam — 27.3 mi
- Paris — 23.4 mi
- Los Angeles — 20.8
- Berlin — 19.8 & São Paulo — 19.8
- Sydney — 19.7 & Melbourne — 19.7
- San Francisco — 18.4
- New York City — 17.4
- London — 16.1 mi
[Insights]