Strava sees huge rise in UK women using app while cycling

Strava, which sponsors the Queen of the Mountains jersey at the Aviva Women’s Tour, says it has seen huge growth in the number of women in the UK using the app in the 12 months since last year’s inaugural edition of the race.

Ahead of the second edition of the race next week, the US-based company has highlighted an 82 per cent increase in female members in the UK, who collectively rode a total of 44 million kilometres in rides uploaded to Strava over the past year – a fifth of the distance logged by all female users worldwide.

Women are also embracing the social side of Strava, according to the company, with a threefold increase in the number of challenges they are entering through the app or website, while three in ten of the rides British women log are group rides.

The Strava Queen of the Mountains jersey was won at last year’s race by former British national champion Sharon Laws, who racked up 410 QOMs on the platform over the five stages of the race, while the overall winner, Marianne Vos, is the most popular female cyclist on the network, based on kudos received.

The next most popular female pro cyclists on Strava are Olympic team pursuit champion Dani King, and her Wiggle Honda team mate, Peta Mullina, both of whom, like Laws and Vos, uploaded their data from each stage of last year’s race to it.

The 2015 Aviva Women’s Tour begins in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, on Wednesday 17 June and finishes in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, the following Sunday.