E-biking is one of the fastest growing outdoor activities in the world according to data from Garmin, which reckons the number of completed mountain bike rides off-road was up a massive 18% in 2024 compared to the previous year.

Only gravel, track running and e-biking as a whole saw more growth in the past 12 months than proper mountain biking on an eeb. Garmin releases an annual data dump of information on how we all worked out during the year, with a tantalising look at sports participation around the world.

Garmin’s data shows bikes beat everything except track running, and the less said about the latter the better

Unfortunately Garmin doesn’t reveal any numbers on exactly how many people recorded rides on their smart watches or bike computers, so there’s no real way of knowing how big an increase 18% is in real terms. However, Garmin says its Connect tracking app is now used by millions of users globally, meaning the sample size is probably big enough to judge cycling trends by. It’s telling then that regular mountain biking and road riding wasn’t listed as an area for growth.

Meanwhile, many brands have told us that the best electric mountain bike sales as the biggest area of growth, while independent research has pointed to e-bikes being more popualar than ever. 

What else did the Garmin end of year report reveal?

With such a huge resource at its finger tips, millions of miles ridden and logged and data coming out of its cloud-like ears, Garmin could do a hell of a lot more to highlight trends. Useful stuff, like where we ride, how often and for how long.

However, there is a lot of benchmarking information to be interpreted, so if you are a Garmin user it’s useful to see how you stack up.

Body battery

Garmin scores its users out of a hundred on their Body Battery levels, or how much energy it thinks they have. The average high is 71 in the morning and 22 in the evening around bed time, with the average drain or expenditure at 49. Apparently we also have the most energy on Tuesdays and the least on Saturdays, although with so many sports and users lumped together this doesn’t really tell us much about why this is happening. Anecdotally, most people ride at the weekends and not on Mondays, which is as good an explanation as any.

Don’t let ‘No status’ put you off if you’re a mountain biker, Garmin watches can only gauge your fitness if you run

One of Garmin’s most hyped functions is its Training Status, which is designed to tell you how effectively you’re training. Interestingly, the data suggests we’re better trained in the summer, while we’re most likely to be detraining in October, November and December. Well, makes sense really.

Fitness age

Your true age since birth is inescapable, but Garmin likes to calculate what it calls Fitness Age, probably just to cheer us all up. It’s an estimate of how fit you are compared to your biological age – Gamin says it uses BMI, average resting heart rate and average vigorous activity and compares them with people the same age and gender as you.

And hey presto, Garmin users are on average 2.48 years “younger” than their real ages. Unfortunately this makes zero sense as the average age here must be a zero sum game. Or to put it another way, for some users to be ‘younger’ some must be ‘older’, unless Garmin is pulling data from the general population.

Garmin’s algorithm can calculate your VO2 Max and your stamina, which is impacted by stress and your sleep quality too

Garmin was also interested in users’ Stress Score, it uses your heart rate and heart rate variability (the variation in time between beats) to figure out a score for you out of 100. More good news here, Garmin users came in at an average of 30 for the year, which is categorised as low, with Mondays actually scoring lowest at 29.

Strangely though, Saturday September 21 was the most stressful day of 2024, with an average stress score of 33. Could it be that by measuring heart rate Garmin is actually just measuring how active we are, given Saturday is the most likely day for activities?

Garmin has also published sleep data, which is arguably much more useful. While it’s impossible to accurately determine sleep states without hooking yourself up to sensors that measure brain activity, the data is a good indicator when taken in aggregate and to compare your sleep levels to.

The average sleep score out of 100 is surprisingly low, at 71, which Garmin categorises as “Fair” in terms of quality. The best night of sleep per week: Since the average Body Battery score is highest on Tuesdays, this isn’t surprising — Garmin users are sleeping the best on Monday nights into Tuesday mornings, with an average sleep score on this day of 73.

Worst night of sleep per week: And since Body Batteries tend to get lowest on Saturday nights, you’re also getting your worst sleep on Saturday nights into Sunday mornings, with an average sleep score of 68.