just out of curiosity, what is your highest yearly mileage ?
not that it means anything, but some people like to have something to aim for,
a challenge to yourself.
Pretty poor this year following my broken pelvis - might get to 1,500 miles. Tend to do around 3,500 miles.
A few years ago, when I was still commuting by bike too, I clocked somewhere over 12,000 km. It was all on Endomondo before that died and I started using Strava. Typically, it's now somewhere around 8,000 and I'll likely make it to 9,000 km this year BUT that's for all activities, including running, walking and paddling. Obviously, these are slower/more time consuming per km than cycling and I've been clocking up a fair bit of running time this past 3-4 years. I record it all on an app called VeloViewer so I can compare annual totals and I'll usually pop up those up in a similar thread at the end of the year, but here's what I have to date.
My ex GF was maintaining 200 miles (almost all on road) during COVID lockdown, she was furloughed for bloody ages mind! She doesn't manage quite so much these days, but still over 100 miles per week average.
I got chatting to a bloke a while back who was looking at a road bike I was selling... He commuted 40 miles EACH WAY to work and back every day on bike, 4 days a week (one day WFH) and then typically got at least one good ride if not two in every weekend too! He said he hadn't done less than 20k miles on a bike each year for many years!!! 🤯
I think my best year was about 3k miles, mix of on road and off, when I was riding 2-3 times a week most weeks.
Normally around 4.5-5,000 km/year but I've just checked and i've been slack this year and probably won't get past 4k.
Will be returning to commuting next year (54km return twice a week) so should get it back up.
3881 miles (6246km to make it sound more impressive) so far this year, a very poor 54 miles per week avg
I got chatting to a bloke a while back who was looking at a road bike I was selling... He commuted 40 miles EACH WAY to work and back every day on bike, 4 days a week (one day WFH) and then typically got at least one good ride if not two in every weekend too!
I started doing 32 miles each way this year (due to a change of job). It's only 1 or 2 days a week usually, although I have done 3 on a couple of occasions. In summer I was sometimes extending the ride home up to 40 or so miles. It's been a great way of doing steady "free" miles though, done 3000 miles just from that. Although it is on an e-bike...
I can normally get to around 6000 miles a year these days although I know that figure will be dwarfed by some on here. Done 10,000 a couple of times (many years ago when I was racing) but that sort of mileage really does demand properly structured plans.
A few years ago I was riding in the Richmond Park area with a friend and a guy on an S-Works passed us going the other way. My mate got very excited saying "oh it's...it's him...it's that guy, you know, the big Strava guy!"
No I didn't know...
Turned out it was some local guy who'd featured in some article about "big mile riders" and all he did, almost every day, was go out locally and go around the park, along to a bridge, turn back, around the park, out to some other bridge, turn back... Basically he never went more than about 25 miles from home in any direction but he just did that all day every day, 100+ miles most days but never actually going anywhere. Insane.
I wonder what Lachlan Morton's annual mileage is?! 😜
I got chatting to a bloke a while back who was looking at a road bike I was selling... He commuted 40 miles EACH WAY to work and back every day on bike, 4 days a week (one day WFH) and then typically got at least one good ride if not two in every weekend too!
I started doing 32 miles each way this year (due to a change of job). It's only 1 or 2 days a week usually, although I have done 3 on a couple of occasions. In summer I was sometimes extending the ride home up to 40 or so miles. It's been a great way of doing steady "free" miles though, done 3000 miles just from that. Although it is on an e-bike...
I can normally get to around 6000 miles a year these days although I know that figure will be dwarfed by some on here. Done 10,000 a couple of times (many years ago when I was racing) but that sort of mileage really does demand properly structured plans.
A few years ago I was riding in the Richmond Park area with a friend and a guy on an S-Works passed us going the other way. My mate got very excited saying "oh it's...it's him...it's that guy, you know, the big Strava guy!"
No I didn't know...Turned out it was some local guy who'd featured in some article about "big mile riders" and all he did, almost every day, was go out locally and go around the park, along to a bridge, turn back, around the park, out to some other bridge, turn back... Basically he never went more than about 25 miles from home in any direction but he just did that all day every day, 100+ miles most days but never actually going anywhere. Insane.
I wonder what Lachlan Morton's annual mileage is?! 😜
quite a lot … and he’s go a whole month left to go. 
I cracked 12000km one year - probably about 2017. Broke the target between Christmas and New Year. That was 95% road.
I managed 2000km last winter on the turbo, but I think I maxed my normal cycling at about 2500-3000km when I was commuting in town.
The wird thing is that, since I started working from home, it's actually difficult for me to get out for more than 30 minutes at a go during the day and weather uncertainty in spring and autumn means good cycling days are really limited.
I think I maxed my normal cycling at about 2500-3000km when I was commuting in town.
The key to big miles is actually not massive epic rides (although they help!), it's just riding every day. The guy who runs my LBS cycles to and from work 5 days a week. He's only a couple of miles away but he extends his commute to do about 8-10 miles each way unless the weather is really crap. He always ends up with 1500 - 2000 miles a year more than me cos he's just so consistent. He rarely does any individual ride of more than 100km (on his days off) but he always ends up with 1500 - 2000 miles a year more than me cos he's just so consistent.
During the first lockdown, May 2020, I was able to do loads of riding. Although I was WFH, it was really only half my job (the other half was work that could only be done in person in the office so my workload was fairly light!). Although the rides were never more than a couple of hours, I was doing that every day.
The weather was great, roads were deserted and it was one of my highest ever monthly mileages!
I've hit my aims of 12 Everests (one a month) and a weekly average >100km. No indoor cycling or ebikes, they don't count even if you think they do. It would've been nice to pass the 6000km mark this year but I'm not quite going to make it. I used to crank out more miles but I'm focussed more on quality than quantity these days; replacing the road bike with a monstercross five years ago (so I could avoid motorists) was a very good decision.
No idea personally as I don't really keep track but a mate did just over 10,000 miles (road, gravel and mtb) a few years ago (no commuting either), he said he wouldn't be doing it again
“No indoor cycling or ebikes”
No road bikes, because they don’t count! 😉
They count, they're just no fun.
I always aim for 5000 miles. I'm currently just shy of 3000 for this year. Which is a bit low even for me.
Closest I ever got was 4968. It snowed over Christmas and I put my spiked tyres on to commute to the office in the days between Christmas and New Year so I could finally hit 5k.
Managed to put my back out on Boxing Day sledging with the kids.
I reckon I'll have done about 7000m+ by the end of the year. A big chunk of that will have been riding home from Talliin, but I do try to keep up a running total of 100+ miles a week. About 500,000ft of climbing this year. Most of Eastern Europe was completely flat so there wasn't much elevation gain to be had there. Next year I'm riding home from Athens via Macedonia, Montenegro, the Balkans and the length of the Alps so it'll be a lot, lot more!
It's been a shit year for me this year due to niggling injuries and a bout of covid that knocked me about.
I go on height gain not distance as I'm only really interested in how much descent I can get in.
This time last year i was on a rolling 12 months of 212.000 Meters.
This year a very disappointing 167.000 Metres but expecting to finish at around 180.000 as December currently stands at zero.
All offroad and the majority on a long travel coil sprung Enduro bike.
I set myself a goal of averaging 100 miles per week for the year, this year. So a total of 5200 miles. I'll be on 5000 miles tomorrow morning so stand a good chance of achieving it (kiss of death right there). Not too bad for a 63 year old cancer victim who had a mini stroke last year. My highest was about 6500 miles back in the days when I was keen. And fit.
Road and gravel for me these days, zero MTB action. I'll hit 10k miles and usually manage between 8k to 10k miles dependant on incidents and accidents...
Highest was as a teenager. Morning and evening paper rounds plus road and mtb cycling I was on about 5000miles. I’ve not done that much road riding this year so only on 1200miles
Barely hitting 800 miles this year but thats a small amount of gravel and weekly/fortnightly up and down off-pistey type riding so no big 40 mile XC epics etc.
Play football with a fella who is 70 next year and he's 80 miles off hitting 10000 miles this year on his road bike.
I seem to average about 100miles of actual riding (mostly gravel/XC and road) each week, goes upto 150 in summer and drops to 80 in winter. and then commute on top of that. So in theory that's about 8,000miles. In reality motivation and inconsistency takes a big chunk out of that so I doubt it's ever been over 6,000, this year will be about 5,000 though which I'm fairly pleased with.
3881 miles (6246km to make it sound more impressive) so far this year, a very poor 54 miles per week avg
Methinks you need a new calculator on this cyber Monday...that looks like 74 miles a week rather than 54....
You guys are amateurs... https://ultracycling.com/highest-annual-mileage-hamr/
Peak was about 22000km when i managed to blag a job near my team for the winter (instead of going back to the UK to earn some cash). So a full road season, then the winter riding with the team club and doing an almost full CX season.
Peak MTB was about 4500-5000 km, with another 8-9000 on the road.
They count, they're just no fun.The MTB stopped being fun about 3000 in...
Edit:- i could possibly find my old notebooks for that era and check... 🤔
I've done a little bit more elevation than @scotroutes with 102 km but less than half the distance 3,800 km. Guess he must live in the flatlands!
About 3300 miles on the bike, 3800 miles for all activities (not in the same year).
Just over 15,000 miles a few years ago when I was unemployed for most of the summer. Biggest running year was around 1,700 miles (different year)
Recently very poor, two years of long covid and then just starting to get over it this year and broke my arm and so did very little all summer.
That's real miles. I don't count turbo sessions and don't own an ebike (although did borrow one when my covid was really bad just so I could do something)
3000 this year and I m only in UK 8 months so more than happy. Car does 2500 so target to cycle more than drive achieved.
Car does 2500 so target to cycle more than drive achieved.
That's a good challenge!
My car does around 4000-5000 so it would be pretty doable if it wasn't for this damned Long Covid.
As it is, I probably do 500-600miles a year, and that's on an ebike.
I aim for about 100km a week and have been hitting that and more this year so it will be over 5000km by the end of the year. This is normal for me, been getting 5000+km for more than 30 years now. All on my emtb for the first time this year, I sold all my bikes now I am 70
2250km logged on Strava so far this year, but I never record me commutes which would approximately double that.
When I have brief bout of interest in this kind of thing, I use Elevate App which queries Strava and allow you to compare Year-To-Date milages across various sports, among other things
I've already ridden more this year than last year for instance, but I'm way down on years preceeding that. Looks like my highest total was 2019's 5128km. Atthat point I was cyce commuting 10k each way 3 or 4 times a week.
2020 was the big one in terms of elevation, we were just doing local loops in lockdownwith a few hundred metres of climbing per ride
From 2006 to 2020 I was doing around 6500 miles a year, target was 6000 and always beat it. I was doing a 20 mile each way commute on the bike year round though.
I do a much more modest 3.5k to 4k miles a year now and feel much better for it. I’m quicker now than I was when I was battering myself daily.
i beat the car mileage every year and always have done, we do about 30 miles per week.
5600 miles to present on my strava so will beat 6000 miles i think.
going to try and do 10000 miles next year to celebrate a big birthday.
i beat the car mileage every year and always have done, we do about 30 miles per week.
Yeah, I easily exceed car/van mileage these days too.
I used to do 12000 miles a year when I was a pure roadie. It’s not so easy now that most of my riding is off road. I reckon I’ll be lucky if I hit 9500 miles this year. Elevation for the year so far is 164,000 odd metres.
Looking at the figures it’s not surprising that July is my best month for distance then it’s a gradual decline through to winter. 1000 miles in July 400 in January. I don’t count stationary/imaginary mileage on the turbo. Turbo miles should go in as a negative figure as it sucks on your soul 🤪
This year I am on 4770 and struggling to find the motivation to ride the last 230 to get to 5000. No idea what my highest year was but it would have been over 10k miles when I was much younger, fitter and foolish.
I averaged about 8000 miles a year from 2013-23 with over 10,000 2013-16. Gone down a lot over the last two years due to various health injury issues.
Since I don’t road bike, I tend to focus on metres climbed. I’ve really no idea how many kms. I tend to climb around 40,000m per year. Now, with an e-bike, it tends to be 70-80k.
5100km YTD, mostly MTB. I have climbed 113,000m though, so far. I'm targetting 10,000Km and 50 munros for next year, as I'll be almost retired.
Older brother is in the 300,000 mile club, so anything I do would pale into insignificance.
I have set 5000 miles riding as a tgt on strava the last few years and never quite made it but not that far off i am never too worried about it and just ride to enjoy it. Mtb rides do mean i miss the target bit who cares?
My best year was 15000 followed by 12000 mainly road due to not owning a car.
In the days of terrible lights, the wrong kit and long 10hr shifts!
Pretty much felt like i lived on the streets!
What even is a mile and why do virtual miles on Zwift count the same as really miles because they are in no way similar and most importantly who gives a toss how far you ride anyway?
Older brother is in the 300,000 mile club
I've got one bike that's done nearly 100,000 miles.
It's a first-gen Specialized Langster SS road bike so must be 25 years old now (although the only original parts are frame, forks and seatpost). Had it since new and it was my commuter bike for most of that time, often doing a 4-month stint each year as winter road bike as well. That'd usually add up to 4000+ miles a year although I hardly use it these days.
As I said somewhere up there ^^, little and often just quietly adds up!
I’m around 4.8k miles so far this year with about a 50:50 mix of road and off road. Not too bad. Last year it was less after breaking the collar bone on the first day of an Alpine MTB week! The year before it was 6.5k miles since I was training and did the Haute route.
it all pales into insignificance to when I was a roadie. Winter training. Stage races. 3-4 races a week in the summer. Probable 10-12k miles
9024 km so far this year. And that included three months off with injury in the Spring. Training is 400 km/week. I include indoor track in this, and my cumulative total on the Dolan Seta is 2144 km. I ride about 50-90 km/week on the track at the moment. Off road has been two rides, including Swinley on Sunday on the gravel bike!
What even is a mile and why do virtual miles on Zwift count the same as really miles because they are in no way similar and most importantly who gives a toss how far you ride anyway?
Well, when you Zwift on Elite Nero rollers with a speed sensor, you get real miles too on the Garmin - Zwift miles are a little more optimistic than real miles.
- Zwift miles are a little more optimistic than real miles.
I've seen estimates of up to 20% more "optimistic". Probably affected by power/weight.
who gives a toss how far you ride anyway?
The person who started this post and to whom we are responding. Why open a post specifically asking this question otherwise?
~400 hours in '22, in addition to walking on delivery as a postie until October.
On the one hand, my mileage will be low for hours ridden, because my rides are typically ~60 feet per mile up in the South Downs and solo.
But on the other hand, I'm a slave to Zwift, especially Nov-Mar each winter, along with wet days. Far less effort needed to get ~20mph+ ride average!
Why open a post specifically asking this question otherwise
Well, this is called a discussion forum, if you don't like discussion, maybe don't bother.
I treat it like a conversation, if someone asked me how many miles I have ridden this year, I would say I have no idea, don't know what a mile is anyway and it's fairly unimportant to me anyway. Then someone would pipe up with well I've done 6000 or something and I would point out that half of that is Zwift and there's no way that person can do 2 hours at 35+km an hour in really life so it doesn't really count...
Still if you don't want a conversation maybe don't open a thread!
and most importantly who gives a toss how far you ride anyway?
well all the blokes who have replied seem to.
obviously you dont, so why even waste your time and energy relying........ seems pretty odd.
Confused by a couple of things. Why you’re bothering to post on a topic about mileage when you don’t care about mileage, just seems a complete waste of energy just to say ‘who cares’, quite bizarre really.
and saying you don’t know what a mile is, what are you talking about?
Older brother is in the 300,000 mile club, so anything I do would pale into insignificance.
i reckon i could possibly getting near that.
40 years commuting to work at 100 miles per week.
plus 40ish years on mtb or touring on a weekend, with a few years audax riding.
would love to know what it all adds up to.
Not a clue. A lot fewer miles since Covid, I know that much. But why did I bother opening and replying to this thread anyway. Cos I is on STW and bored and thats what we do innit
I'll turn it round because this is something that's always interested me: how few miles (it's a number you can use as a measurement) does one have to do before you can no longer consider yourself an active cyclist - and why would you be hanging round on a cycling forum in that case?
I took a break from cycling 2-3 years about 14 years ago following an injury (it was the spur, not the cause). Did I continue posting on forums? Did I ****!
I took a break from cycling 2-3 years about 14 years ago following an injury (it was the spur, not the cause). Did I continue posting on forums? Did I ****!
Oh God, if you actually had to Do Cycling (or even more specifically, Do MTBing) in order to post on here, forum traffic would be a quarter of what it is! 🤣
A lot of people quite like stats and figures. I don't think anyone on here is trying to boast or claim that more miles somehow makes them superior to anyone else, it's just a point of interest.
The Strava end of year summary will be out soon. Also Festive 500 (which also seems to generate a mix of "WTF are you doing you weirdo?!" vs people who quite like it!)
Who cares is the wrong wording of saying that i do like to see how far i ride each year but i am not driven by it, like say finishing the.Rapha 500 or something.
The weekly target is nice to aim for, and actually what i look at mostly but if i fancy an mtb ride or gravel ride , thats my priority rather than than road miles to purely hit the weekly target with the time I have.
If i miss the yearly target....its probably because i did more off road than on road.
It is a funny topic because we all lead different lifestyles. The commute is the way mileage adds up and good use of time as well.
I'll turn it round because this is something that's always interested me: how few miles (it's a number you can use as a measurement) does one have to do before you can no longer consider yourself an active cyclist
A mate that I used to ride with hasn't done an MTB ride for over 12 months now but keeps telling me he hasn't given up.
I ride quite a bit more than a lot of folks but have never considered myself a cyclist.
All depends how you look at things and doesn't matter to anyone else.🤷♂️
As for a_a doesn't he just moan about everything on here?
I've just skimmed over his posts for years now.
. I don't think anyone on here is trying to boast or claim that more miles somehow makes them superior to anyone else,
as my speed is now 10mph max, my boast would be for the slowest mile counter........... lol
i reckon i could possibly getting near that.
@ton I'm not sure when he started recording mileage, but he was commuting 40 miles a day to uni in his early 20's, got into long distance time trials in his early 30's (240 miles in 12hrs/400+ miles in 24hrs sort of stuff), now aged 66 and retired his Strava is probably going to be 10k miles this year. Mind you his knee is ****ed so he can only walk about 1/2 mile & hates driving which could explain a lot of the miles, ie he cycles absolutely everywhere.
Confused by a couple of things. Why you’re bothering to post on a topic about mileage when you don’t care about mileage, just seems a complete waste of energy just to say ‘who cares’, quite bizarre really.
Because I cannot understand why people give two shits about a pointless metric, it's meaningless. Mind you I thought as I said earlier it was a discussion forum, why post if you don't like to discuss?
What even is a mile
Educational standards in the UK have slipped even further than I thought.
FYI, it's 1,609.344 metres.
I normally hit between 5-6000km a year.
This year, I'm already over 7000 as I did LEL (well, two thirds, storm Floris robbed me of 500km extra).
I've got a chunk of xmas week off, so I might do the festive 500 for kicks.
If you're into such things, I can add on another 1000km of virtual rides, but it doesn't really count.
Educational standards in the UK have slipped even further than I thought.
I would suggest they have just moved on from the 1970's 😀
FYI, it's 1,609.344 metres
Nice work on mixing metric and imperial...how many furlongs is that? (I do actually know that one!)
how many furlongs is that? (I do actually know that one!)
Bonus points if you know the origin of the word "furlong"!
Just shy of 4000 km ridden and really close to where i was last year. Mainly rest off road
55,000m of elevation gain all activities
400 hours all activities
i like the last one. Averaging over an hour a day doing stuff i love
Mind you I thought as I said earlier it was a discussion forum, why post if you don't like to discuss?
because what you have posted isn’t what we are discussing. It’s a thread with the title about how many miles you cycle.. if the topic was “is there any point in logging how many miles you cycle” then your input would be relevant, pertinent & interesting, but it isn’t so it isn’t.
then your input would be relevant, pertinent & interesting, but it isn’t so it isn’t.
and who made you the guardian of what others find relevant and pertinent? It's an open discussion forum, if you don't want discussion to develop it would be a very boring thread.
Bonus points if you know the origin of the word "furlong"!
I have always imagined it's something to do with ploughing but no idea why I think that.
i like the last one. Averaging over an hour a day doing stuff i love
A much better metric.
Ooo an old school STW squabble about not very much... 🙃
Ton posited the question as is a fairly regular occurance around this time of year. Some people responded, maybe some thought they had something to brag about who knows. In my view, unless you're doing mega mileages (like 20k miles), you're just regular and keen with mebbies a small dose of OCD/on the spectrum... (which definitely describes my approach).
I prefer miles as my unit of measure rather than those new fangled pesky KM's and I'm definitely not a machine so it'll not be in hours thankyouplease.👍
maybe some thought they had something to brag about who knows. In my view, unless you're doing mega mileages (like 20k miles), you're just regular and keen with mebbies a small dose of OCD/on the spectrum... (which definitely describes my approach).
Certainly my approach too!
The thing about defining the year by mileage is that anyone riding mostly off-road (unless they're doing some massive bikepacking expedition) will be doing far fewer miles than someone who rides mostly on road but as you say, that doesn't mean anything in the real world, it's just different ways of riding.
The thing about defining the year by mileage is that anyone riding mostly off-road (unless they're doing some massive bikepacking expedition) will be doing far fewer miles than someone who rides mostly on road but as you say, that doesn't mean anything in the real world, it's just different ways of riding.
Which is why hours in the saddle is a better metric. Mileage will vary based on how hilly and area is too
In my view, unless you're doing mega mileages (like 20k miles), you're just regular and keen with mebbies a small dose of OCD/on the spectrum... (which definitely describes my approach).
I don't think there's anything wrong with setting your own targets and that'll often mean trying to "beat" previous years. That VeloViewer image I posted earlier has a whole load of stats and can be customised according to the users whims. Ideally I'd improve on ALL the numbers I recorded last year but I'm likely to fail on at least one.
Ton my AVG bike is 11,0 for comparison a bus does 22, the 555 Lancaster to Keswick anyway, and my car 30. I m just happy to be out of single figures.
Well done some impressive mileages.
It's December 3rd and I've already exceeded my distance and elevation for December 2024, so monitoring stats has some value.... but the RidewithGPS app on my phone has been occasionally dropping out mid-ride since an Android update in the summer. I'm quite impressed by those Strava-derived visualisations posted above so I might hold my nose and start using that in 2026.
can't say I've really given milage much thought.
I look at elevation.
I'd call a good brisk evening 2 hr ride a success with 500m; a more social one 300m. A "proper" weekend ride I'm sad if I don't hit 1000m, though last weekend I was racing so lower total climbing which was all done full gas... so maybe this doesn't work...
On road, off road, or indoor - I find the climbing to be a statistic equaliser
climbing it great if your engine is working well. but if you are running with a miss firing valve, it aint much fun.
i do some but it floors me a bit.
Aye. I think people should measure their riding however they want. It's their metric for their consumption and there's no 'correct' answer/panacea. If you use hours so it reflects MTB activity better, what about road miles? 4 hours at 20mph on the road is definitely not like 4 hours at 10mph... And what about mixed rides? Some road, some gravel, some pukka MTB stuff all in one day?
If you're only worry is how your numbers compare to everyone else's, mebbies you're in it for the wrong reasons...
Check out Matt Fairbrother's profile. I follow him on Strava just to marvel at the places he gets to and the sheer volume of off road riding he does.
2025 so far:
11,963 miles
1,019,600 ft
He was the nutter who a few years ago rode, yes rode between the various EWS races before competing in them.