Our 2020 spring cycling survey received an unprecedented amount of interest, and the number responses exceeded all expectations. Thanks to our readers’ willingness to take part, we accumulated a lot of interesting information about cycling lifestyle, preferences and future plans. As you would expect, this information is not confidential, and in present and upcoming articles we share much of the results with those, who have made the findings possible. In the first part of the series we answer one of the central questions of the survey: “Who is the average Bikemag reader?” We hope this series of write-ups will be just as informative for you as it has been for us! Let’s dive into the research!
Let’s start our analysis with gender distribution! Unsurprisingly over 90% of BikeMag readers are male, which more or less mirrors the general cycling trends in Hungary, as well as the structure of our media content. Although we are continuing to strive to put out more content for female cyclists, the results of this survey show that we have a far more work to do in this regard.
The average age of the Bikemag reader 41, which shows that our magazine’s core readership is not the youngest by any means. This corresponds to the average age of active Hungarian cyclists using the bike for transportation, sports or leisure. If you’re not convinced about the validity of these findings, take a look at those who take part in various cycling events! In view of these trends the average age of our readership doesn’t seem at all high!
Distribution of readers by place of residence correlates more or less to the Hungarian population at large, although we can see that our capital is somewhat overrepresented. While one fifth of the population lives in Budapest, nearly a third of our readers reside there.
Let’s move on to some more interesting topics! In our 2020 survey we asked the question “How much does the Bikemag reader ride a week?” Having processed all the answers we learned that the average reader rides 3.14 times a week (funny number!) and spends an average of 6 hours 37 minutes in the saddle. This is actually no small feat in our view. In addition, it has been found that the average reader has been cycling regularly for 13.4 years.
Interestingly three-quarters of our readers use their bikes on tarmac roads when riding in their spare time. Less than half take to dirt roads and trails, while extreme mountain biking accounts to less than 10% of all leisure cycling activity. Dirt riding fused to be more popular 10-20 years back!
The eternal question cyclist are asked is “How many bikes de you own? If you’re our average reader you have 2.36 bikes, and there are 4 bikes total in your household.
Having answered the previous question, to next is undoubtedly “What kind of bikes do you have?” Well, 62.5% of our readers own a mountain bike, followed closely by road bikes at 57.2%. This is a good indication of the increase in proportion of road riders versus mountain bikers in the last two decades. Nearly one rider in three has a bicycle that fits to the trekking or cross segment, while only every 6th reader reported of owning a bike specifically used for public transport. Interestingly the gravel bike category – which was simply non-existent when we have conducted our previous reader survey – accounted to over 8% of bikes owned by our readers.
We also asked about the value of bikes owned by our readers. The most valuable bicycle in their possession costs HUF 430,000 on average, or nearly 1200 euros. This figure should be taken into context based on the average income, which is presently HUF 376,300.
Finally, we learned that 60% of our readers use bicycles for transportation, 55% also drive cars, while public transportation accounts to only 23%.
