Strava data tells the tale of Laurens ten Dam's 2014

Laurens ten Dam is one top pro who uses Strava to track his rides – and Dutch magazine Soigneur has run the rule over the 33-year-old’s numbers in 2014. Here’s what they found.

The Dutchman, who finished ninth overall at the Tour de France, rode a total of 28,138km during the year, including training, at an average speed of 33.5 kilometres an hour – rising to 39.6 kilometres an hour during the Tour itself.

He spent a total of 863 hours on the bike, with 83 race days logged on Strava and 149 training days, leaving 133 days on which he either wasn’t on the bike, or if he was, he didn’t upload his rides.

Along the way, he bagged an astonishing 773 new KOMs during 2014, easily outweighing the 574 KOMs that he lost.

Among the notable ones was a 4.1 kilometre stretch of road that passes the Tower of London, which figured in the closing kilometres of Stage 3 of the Tour – ridden at an astonishing 60.2 kilometres an hour, despite filthy weather.

Later in the race, he would take KOMs in both the Pyrenees and the Alps – the latter including three on Stage 14 from Grenoble to Risoul, including the Col du Lauteret, at 33.9 kilometres the longest climb he tackled in the year.

Over the 176.4 kilometres of that stage, ten Dam averaged 33.8 kilometres an hour, but on one descent that day, he hit a top speed of 116.6 kilometres an hour.

Across his year as a whole with Belkin Pro Cycling – now renamed Team LottoNL-Jumbo following a change in sponsorship – ten Dam achieved a highest average cadence during a single ride of 95rpm, and a highest average power output of 346 watts.

He also climbed a total of 361,214 kilometres – the equivalent of scaling Mount Everest 40 times.

You can follow ten Dam on Strava here, and last year he featured in our list of riders who also use the ride tracking and sharing app, including Marianne Vos and Alex Dowsett, which you can find here.

If you know of any other riders worth following on Strava, let us know in the comments below.