Strava has revealed the top cycling commuting cities in the UK to mark Earth Day.
The information Strava used to compile its results is a combination of activity data from its 150 million global athletes and insights from Strava Metro, which provides aggregated data to help improve active travel infrastructure.
Strava has also revealed how cyclists engage with its app based on age and gender.
Strava’s data show the top UK city for cycle commuters in 2024 was London.
The UK’s capital was ahead of every other city in terms of distance, carbon saved and the active commuter base.
London’s a big place, and so the average cycle commute was 9.1km and took 31 minutes, 58 seconds.
This shows that Londoners are now commuting further than before. In 2022, the average cycle commute in the city was 7km and took 27 minutes, 13 seconds.
Strava predicts that the cycle commutes uploaded to Strava in London saved a total of 18,489,808kg of carbon in 2024, compared to if these journeys had been taken by car – which is unlikely considering the prevalent use of public transport in the city.
In total, Londoners commuted 52,800,000km (roughly 32,808,400 miles) by bike, which is 13 times around the Earth.
71 per cent of total Strava rides in London were recorded as commutes, which is an increase of 8 per cent over 2024.
Completing Strava’s top 5 are Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol and Cambridge.
Coming in second behind the capital, cycling commuters in Manchester racked up 9,500,000km. Edinburgh was third (4,500,000km), Bristol fourth (2,900,000km) and Cambridge fifth (1,130,000km).
In terms of the percentage of rides recorded as commutes, the order of cities behind London changed. Bristol came in second with 66 per cent, followed by Edinburgh at 62 per cent, and Manchester and Cambridge level on 54 per cent.
Strava says 58 per cent of riders recording a cycle commute on the cycling app in London were millennials – more than any other age group in the capital.
Elsewhere, other than those aged over 60, at least half of riders on Strava from all generations recorded a commute last year.
Here are the full stats:
When it comes to cycling to work, Strava reveals that last year just over half of men and women uploaded commutes to its platform.
54 per cent of men and 52 per cent of women uploaded cycle commutes.
First held in 1970, Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection.
A key part of digital literacy is ensuring that all learners, regardless of their background or gender, have equal opportunities to develop computing skills and confidence in using technology.
However, the Department for Education in the UK recently released a report highlighting the growing gender gap in maths and science education. With International Girls in ICT Day just around the corner, it’s a timely reminder of the need to empower more girls and women within the computing sector.
In the latest episode of the Hello World podcast, Rachel Arthur, Chief Learning Officer at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, is joined by Dr. Jessica Hamer from King’s College London and Becky Patel from Tech She Can. Together, they explore the current state of girls’ engagement in computing and what we can do to support change.
This episode is the second in our three-part mini series on digital literacy. Each episode continues the conversations featured in the latest issue of the Hello World magazine, offering expert perspectives and practical examples from educators making a difference.
The gender gap in computing refers to the disparity between the proportion of female and male students who choose computing as a subject or career. This is problematic because:
To address these issues in detail, Rachel is joined by two guests who have dedicated years to understanding and addressing the gender gap.
Dr. Jessica Hamer is a Research Associate at King’s College London. She transitioned to academic research after working for a decade as a science teacher in secondary education. With a focus on projects like the SCARI project, she investigates factors affecting girls’ performance and participation in secondary-level computing. Her work includes a key report published last year on this topic.
In the podcast, Dr. Hamer reveals concerning findings about stereotypes in computing and how early they form. She explains that beliefs portraying girls as less interested in computing emerge as early as ages five or six, which significantly hinders girls’ engagement and involvement in the field.
Further, when students were asked to name famous figures in computing, most cited white, male tech entrepreneurs who are frequently in the news. This revealed a limited view of the kinds of people involved in computing, as well as a narrow conception of tech careers, with roles in areas like climate change and social justice being overlooked. However, Jessica highlights a key insight: “We found that girls were three times more likely to suggest a female famous face”, emphasising the vital importance of female representation and the need for relatable role models.
Becky Patel is the Head of Education and Learning at Tech She Can, a UK charity focused on increasing women’s representation in technology. She has a decade of teaching experience in both primary and secondary education and now develops the ‘Tech WE Can’ educational resources, which aim to inspire all children, particularly girls, to pursue careers in technology.
In the podcast, Becky emphasises the importance of early intervention to address gender stereotypes. She advocates for introducing children to a wide range of STEM careers, and to do this not just in computing lessons but across the whole curriculum.
Another key strategy Becky highlights is showing children that they can explore their hobbies and interests further through technology, even when at first glance it might seem that technology can’t play a role. She explains:
“There are so many tech roles which you can do working behind the scenes, training the athlete, helping them with health and physiotherapy, working on goal-line technology… There’s so many cool things and when you show children this, you see the attention. You see them sit up like, hold on, she’s talking about me and the thing I love. And she’s also talking about computing.”
To hear more about how to empower girls into computing, listen to or watch the full episode.
We hope this episode inspires you and helps you to engage your students more in computing. In the comments section below, we’d love to hear your thoughts, your feedback, and any of your own tips for empowering girls and young women.
Enjoy the conversation!
Next week, in the final podcast in our mini series, we’ll be looking at the notion of the ‘digital native’. Are young people truly tech-savvy, or are they simply reliant on digital tools without understanding the underlying mechanics?
James Robinson, Senior Learning Manager at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, will be joined by fellow colleague Sway Gratham and two guest speakers, Anna Lahtinen from Haaga-Helia University and Nicole O’Connor from Digi Know This, as they debate the complexities of digital skills, access, and education. Discover how the label ‘digital native’ can mask crucial issues and learn what real digital literacy looks like today.
You can watch, or listen, to each episode of our podcast on YouTube, or listen via your preferred audio streaming service, whether that’s Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music.
Don’t miss out on this discussion — subscribe to Hello World today to ensure you never miss a podcast episode or issue of the magazine.
The post How can we empower girls in computing? An important conversation on the Hello World podcast appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.
Following a lot of work in this direction toward the end goal of removing GNOME X11 support, this milestone may finally be acheived for the Fedora 43 cycle due out by the end of the year. A change proposal has been filed for removing the GNOME X11 packages in the repository and in turn making the GNOME desktop Wayland-only on Fedora Linux…
One of the biggest surprises of last year was finding out that VMware has been working on shifting VMware Workstation from proprietary code to building atop the upstream KVM code within the Linux kernel. Following the initial patches from last October, an updated patch series was sent out on the Linux kernel mailing list yesterday for working on this transition…
The Google Pixel 4a smartphones launched in mid-2020 and now in mid-2025 it looks like we might finally be close to seeing mainline kernel support for the Pixel 4a devices and other hardware making use of Qualcomm Snapdragon 730/730G/732G SoCs…
Today, the OpenMandriva project announced the release and general availability of OpenMandriva Lx 6.0, the latest stable version of this 100% community-driven GNU/Linux distribution and the direct successor to Mandriva Linux.
Discover how xclip can supercharge your workflow by letting you copy file content to your clipboard – no mouse required.
The Ultra HDR format enhances brightness, contrast, and color.
QEMU 10 open-source machine emulator brings new CPU features, better device support, and performance improvements.
Arch-based CachyOS’s April 2025 update fixes kernel issues, adds OCCT for stress testing, and improves handheld support.
Chrome will keep third-party cookies, a loss for privacy but a win for web ad rivals. After six years of work, Google’s Privacy Sandbox, technology for delivering ads while protecting privacy, looks like dust in the wind.…
With the Linux 6.15 kernel settling down nicely, I’ve been testing out the current Linux Git state on more systems in looking for any performance changes. Unfortunately this week I ran into a large performance regression affecting the Nginx HTTP(S) web server. Here’s a look at that problem currently affecting Linux Git.
Running GenAI models is easy. Scaling them to thousands of users, not so muchHands On You can spin up a chatbot with Llama.cpp or Ollama in minutes, but scaling large language models to handle real workloads – think multiple users, uptime guarantees, and not blowing your GPU budget – is a very different beast.…
The Linux kernel can be configured so that
kernel modules must be signed or
otherwise authenticated to be loaded
into the kernel. Some BPF developers want that to be an option for BPF programs
as well — after all, if those are going to run as part of the kernel,
they should be subject to the same code-signing requirements. Blaise Boscaccy
and Cong Wang presented two different visions for how BPF code signing could
work at the 2025 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory-Management, and BPF Summit.
The April 2025 ISO update is out today for CachyOS, the Arch based Linux distribution known for its aggressive out-of-the-box performance on modern hardware…
Mesa’s NVK Vulkan driver had been Vulkan 1.4 conformant for Turing and newer GPUs, but now with Mesa 25.2-devel it’s Vulkan 1.4 conformant going back to Maxwell GPUs. This change is exported to be back-ported to the upcoming Mesa 25.1 release as well for those interested in using this open-source NVIDIA Vulkan driver…
Over the past few weeks, Zwift has rolled out an important, powerful set of fitness tracking and reporting features. These tools expand the activity data Zwift consumes, allowing us to feed our outdoor rides into the platform for the first time ever. This, in turn, enables Zwift to build a more accurate profile of our current fitness to help us train smarter.
Let’s dive into Zwift’s new Fitness Tracker and all the moving parts that make it function…
You may be wondering why would I even want Zwift to track my outdoor riding? It’s a fair question, especially if you see Zwift as simply an indoor cycling platform.
The big reason Zwift needs to track your riding outdoors as well as indoors is so Zwift can put together an accurate, current profile of your fitness. Zwift wants to help its users choose appropriate workouts, but they can’t do that unless they know a person’s training load. How fresh are their legs? How fit are they overall?
Secondly, on a customer retention level, tracking outdoor riding (and letting outdoor rides extend our week streak and earn XP) is a smart move from Zwift. It won’t change the minds of every “winter-only Zwifter”, but it will surely convince a few to keep their monthly subscription going.
Eric Min, Zwift’s CEO, has said for years that Zwift’s goal is to get more people more active more often. Tracking outdoor rides falls perfectly in line with this goal, helping Zwift better position itself as a year-round fitness platform.
Getting your outdoor rides into Zwift is easy, assuming you’re recording those rides on a head unit/app from Wahoo or Garmin. All you need to do is connect your Zwift account to your Wahoo and/or Garmin account.
You can do this via the Companion app under Settings>Connections, or by logging into your account at zwift.com and going to Account>Connections.
Wahoo requires a simple login to your Wahoo account, and if you already had Wahoo connected, there’s nothing more you need to do.
Garmin will require a reconnection even if you already had your Garmin account connected, because there’s a new level of permission you need to authorize so Garmin can send data to Zwift. (Previously, you could only authorize Zwift sending data to Garmin.)
Simply enable both toggles, click “Save”, then “Agree” on the next screen:
Zwift tells me that when you first connect your Wahoo account, it should import the last 90 days of activities into Zwift. Garmin should import the last 30 days of activities. It may take up to a week for old activities to show up on Zwift.
The Companion app has a new section at the top of the homepage that Zwift has dubbed the Fitness Tracker:
That screenshot is a bit boring, though, since it was taken on Monday morning when I haven’t ridden yet! Scrolling back a few weeks, you can get a better idea of what the Fitness Tracker shows:
There’s a lot of information packed into this little box, including:
It’s worth noting here that your Training Score and Status are computed based on your daily Stress Points, and those Stress Points are calculated based on your FTP setting in Zwift. If your FTP isn’t set accurately, your Training Score and Status won’t be accurate, either. Zwift will automatically detect FTP increases based on an internal algorithm, but you might consider taking an FTP test or even setting your FTP manually in game to ensure it’s accurate.
Related: “How (and Why) to Take an FTP Test on Zwift” >
This big fitness tracking release includes an expansion of what used to be very limited goal-setting/tracking capabilities in the Companion app. The app used to support only basic weekly time or distance goals, but now supports the weekly goals based on:
Additionally, now that Zwift can see your outdoor rides, your goals can be based on what you want to accomplish overall in your weekly cycling, instead of what you think you’ll accomplish on Zwift. (It always felt clunky in the past to have a weekly Zwift time or distance goal, especially when the weather changed and your ratio of indoor to outdoor riding changed with it.)
As before, the in-game ride report will show your goal progress at the end of each ride, and you’ll get a notification in game if you hit your goal while riding on Zwift.
Apart from better tracking of our fitness, this new functionality from Zwift also means we can continue to level up while riding outside.
Outside rides now earn 5XP for each kilometer, up to a maximum of 200KM/1000XP per ride. Yes, this is significantly less than the 20XP per km you earn for Zwifting. But it’s still something.
Related: “All About Zwift XP, Levels, and Unlocks for Cyclists” >
There are a few details worth mentioning here:
This is just the initial launch of fitness tracking on Zwift, and they’ve assured me that there is more to come.
First, while these new features only apply to cycling right now, Zwift says they’ll be rolling out support for running later this year.
Second, support for importing activities from Hammerhead is coming this summer. Zwift says other platforms may be added (DC Rainmaker mentions Polar/Suunto/COROS/Apple as the likely candidates). Why doesn’t Zwift just import activities from Strava, you may ask? Zwift isn’t saying, but my guess is that Strava’s API terms of service changes over the past year made Zwift nervous. On top of that, this move into outdoor ride tracking is a move into Strava’s territory, so Zwift may be steering clear for that reason as well.
Third, duplicate activities are a concern for some users based on their current setup (which devices/services they use to record which activities). Zwift says automatic de-duplication is coming soon, but for now you can delete activities manually if you’d like, using the Companion app. We also know Zwift has been testing in-game dual recording, which would eliminate the need to record your power data on a head unit (something that could lead to more duplicate activities).
Fourth, “Smart Goals” are coming, where the game will automatically recommend a goal based on your current fitness, to help you get started. Great for beginners.
Lastly, Zwift knows we don’t just want a snapshot of data… we want charts! So they have promised a “fitness trends” feature, and even delivered screenshots of it:
The items above are what we know Zwift is working on. But what else could these fitness tracking changes lead to? The answer is: so much.
You may not realize this, but solo structured workouts are the most popular activity done on Zwift. At Zwift Community Live, Zwift staffers shared the following activity stats from the last 30 days on Zwift:
That’s a bit wild when you think about it, especially considering the popularity of Robopacers and all the focus Zwift puts on events.
Given Zwifters’ obvious interest in structured training, I believe the holy grail for Zwift would be some sort of AI-based coaching built into the app, not unlike third parties such as TrainerRoad, XERT, and FasCat currently offer.
Imagine if you could set some simple goals (“I want to perform better in Zwift races” or “I want to lose some weight”) and the app could recommend daily activities for you based on your training history, including outdoor rides. For extra credit, Zwift could recommend more than just boring ol’ structured workouts. What about a race or group ride that fits the bill?
So many possibilities.
What do you think of Zwift taking in our outdoor rides and delivering fitness tracking? What sort of functionality would you like to see Zwift build on top of these new capabilities? Share your thoughts below, along with any questions you may have about these new features…
