Cycling — Historical Data Analysis
I was curious to know how much time I have spent on cycling over the years. While I have no record of the time spent tinkering, fixing, planning, and analysing, I do have a pretty good record of the actual time-in-saddle.
Volume
Over 1059 sessions, I have spent just short of 1600 hours turning the crank. That means an average session was about 1.5 hours in duration — which, for a turbo-monkey, sounds about right.
My records begin in mid-2019, and back then I didn’t record all my training on Strava; the few records I do have from that year are manual uploads after I created a Strava account. Prior to that, in 2018, I haven’t recorded my rides at all. Taking that into account, the real total is probably closer to 2000 hours, but I would be surprised if it was any more than that.
By another metric, in the five years on record, I have completed a session on nearly 60% of all days.
Energy
As for total energy expenditure, unsurprisingly the graph looks very similar. Stacking up the power data yields a result of 1.4 GJ — or the calorie content of about 350 kg of raw granulated sugar, or over two tons of boiled potatoes, or just under a ton of the good old baked beans (which is well over two thousand tins, and feels pretty close to my actual consumption…).
And, for those who measure area in tennis courts and volume in Olympic swimming pools: that’s also enough energy to accelerate a singular (small) garden pea to about 1.8% of the speed of light.
Power over time
A slightly more interesting insight comes from looking at power data over time.
In my ‘road bike era’, the power creeps on a steady upward trend. Then, around summer of ’22, not only does it tank — it steadily decreases over time. That’s no mistake. As I moved over to time trialling, I suffered a significant decline in power output. My best ever 20-minute max power on a road bike was north of 450 W; on a TT bike, I never broke 420 W. Moreover, as I embraced aerodynamics more and more, I traded power for CdA. While I was always aware of the process — after all, the metric you want to optimise is neither CdA nor power output alone, but speed, which is a rather non-trivial combination of the two — it is still quite shocking just how much power I traded, and still ended up going faster.
The power data also reveals two distinct training modes: lower-intensity winter grind and higher-intensity summer season. Summer sessions sit overwhelmingly above the trend, and vice versa.
Cadence
My cadence preference has also evolved. It started reasonably high, when I was just riding around without focusing on any metrics. It then dipped as I started focusing on raw power output (my ‘man like see big number’ era) and realised that I can make up with strength what I lack in cardiovascular development. I even seem to have had a period of consistent riding at ridiculously low cadences — I can’t even remember what that was about.
Then, at the start of 2023, I acquired my super-stubby cranks and never looked back. After a period of steady adaptation, my preferred cadence crept into the high 90s (with racing cadence settling well over 100 RPM) and stayed there — a rather remarkable departure from the slow-spinning fever dream of late 2021.
In total, I have turned a bicycle crank just shy of 8 million times (on record).
Reflections
All in all, I think the numbers don’t seem particularly excessive — I had instinctively expected the grand total for the hours to be higher. If anything, I think I have enjoyed a rather good economy of effort: I can’t know for sure, but I would guess that in terms of hours ridden until first National title (not that this is a sensible metric to track), I’ve done rather well. Though in hours per title, I am almost certainly nowhere near the top — many riders have achieved multiple titles, and once you start amortising time over a few wins, the numbers start tumbling down.