Inspired by professional cycling: Women around the world are taking up cycling

The Tour de France Femmes has inspired women all over the world – as shown by the latest Strava data. They have been cycling more often, specifically tackling climbs from this year’s route, or venturing out on longer rides.

​The women’s stage race not only inspired the professionals – it also gave countless amateur female cyclists new sporting ideas:

• A 15 per cent increase in the number of cycle journeys made by women in France was recorded during the week of the Tour compared with the previous week, and the distance covered was 28 per cent greater
• Worldwide – not just in France – 30 per cent more women uploaded their longest journey to date
• 41 per cent more women completed a 50-km ride for the first time
• 60 per cent more women completed a 100-km ride for the first time
• Three out of four journeys worldwide were made alone

Strava shows enthusiasm for Mont Ventoux

As with the men’s Tour de France, this year’s route was the main focus. Mont Ventoux was a particular highlight of the race, which is also reflected in the Strava figures: rides on the iconic Mont Ventoux segment increased by around nine times (+849 per cent) compared with the previous week.

Professional female cyclists are racking up KOMs

Unsurprisingly, the professional cyclists picked up numerous crowns almost as an afterthought.

• The professional riders who took part in the Tour secured a total of 994 QOM victories
• That works out at an average of 110 QOMs per stage – compared with 96 KOMs per stage for the men. Demi Vollering alone claimed 84 of them
• The peloton collectively climbed the equivalent of 133 ascents of Mount Everest, or 1.18 million metres of elevation gain
• Average speed across all stages: 30.2 km/h
• The professional peloton collectively burned as much energy as is contained in around 12,400 cappuccinos – that is, 1.4 million calories

Demi Vollering on Strava

Demi Vollering’s story illustrates just how valuable data is. In her Strava profile Neither heart rate nor wattage figures are displayed. She also only uploads certain activities and therefore does not provide any deeper insights into her training preparations. Sometimes, however, a lack of data transparency has quite practical reasons: “My Wahoo was on the team car,” comments Elisa Longo Borghini on an uploaded activity. Presumably, she had added another rider to the activity retrospectively. Just how widespread Strava is in the women’s peloton is evident from an automatically generated headline. “Demi Vollering was cycling with Nina Buijsman, Lorena Wiebes and 55 others,” reads the description for one stage. A treasure trove for data enthusiasts is the Strava profile of Puck Pieterse, who won the mountains’ jersey at the Tour de France Femmes. She offers a deep insight into her training and also reveals her power output figures. And fans can also see what her most important ride is after the gruelling stage race: she calls a ride with friends back in the Netherlands a “sprint for apple pie”.