Which Garmin Riders Are The Best? New Garmin Data Gives Surprising Insights

The Garmin Cycling Community is growing and the next tranche of Edge bike computers, starting with Edge 1050, will further help that. Over the last 12 months, existing Garmin cyclists and new Garmin cyclists together account for an uptick in recorded Garmin cycling activities of 7%. Interestingly the female component of that growth saw 9% growth. Other areas that grew more than average include indoor training, up by 12%.

What else do Garmin stats show?

A mid-50s VO2max is considered superior and can often be obtained by cycling 90 miles per week. Unsurprisingly, if you ride more, the stats show your VO2max is likely to increase.

How to make your Garmin VO2max higher

I’ve seen other stats in Golden Cheetah (GC) which show their average rider has an FTP of around 250w, but with Garmin, the normalized power of cyclists riding more than 70miles is 170 watts/ride. Those figures are not quite comparable but I would expect GC to have a higher level of rider on average than Garmin Connect.

What is Garmin FTP? how is it calculated?

Q: Is your country rubbish at cycling?

If you are in the UAE the answer is NO. The UAE has the fastest cyclists who average 16mph. You can perhaps imagine how the culture and climate in that part of the world might impact those who can cycle or who are allowed to cycle.

Similarly, the Danes are pretty good. The Viking gene pool might be the factor that makes them the most powerful riders averaging 196 watts (normalized).

Italy’s figures are greatly impacted by coffee and chatting. Perhaps helping Italians cover the longest ride durations and furthest ride distances. 2 hours and 29 miles respectively.

A great cycling nation like Belgium also has some bragging rights with Garmin stats. On average 30.24 miles per person are ridden per year. More than any other country (per capita).

As a Brit, I struggled to find anything to help me feel Great in Garmin’s stats, so I looked at Strava. I found that the Richmond ITT1 segment is the most ridden one in the world being attempted by 155,063 different cyclists, including many times by me. That’s at the end of an ACW lap to the Richmond Gate roundabout (locally known as Cancellara Corner) and involves an uphill kick towards the end. It was part of the old Ride London Surrey course and was also covered in the 2012 Olympics road races. It’s pretty in a deer-park kinda way, the most excitement coming from being moaned at by motorists for breaking what they imagine to be a 20mph speed limit (which doesn’t apply to cyclists), yet you will wonder why just about every car passes you at over 20mph breaking the speed limit which does apply to them.

Take Out

Cycling makes you fitter. It makes me moan a bit more (and get fitter)