That cycling is a sport practiced also in adulthood is certainly not new. However, it is different to observe this characteristic through the numbers, especially when the comparison is made with other sports disciplines. This is what emerges from the analysis of data from the Golee sports management platform, a platform used by hundreds of Italian amateur sports clubs. Among the organizations present in the system, approximately 600 indicate cycling among the disciplines practiced. The data relating to the 2025/26 sports season thus allows us to outline a profile of the licensed cyclist that is rather particular compared to what emerges in the other sports analyzed.

In cycling, the licensed athlete is primarily an adult

The most evident data concerns age. In cycling, 61.9% of licensed athletes are at least 35 years old, while the average age is 39.1 years. The difference compared to other disciplines considered by Golee is marked. In tennis, for example, those over 35 represent 32.3% of licensed athletes, with an average age of 27.2 years. In other sports, the weight of the adult component is even smaller: 6.2% in volleyball, 3.4% in basketball, and 2.9% in football.

The comparison must naturally be read taking into account the different structure of individual sports movements. Football, basketball, and volleyball indeed have a strong youth component and a system of sports practice built largely around school-age groups. But it is precisely this difference that makes the cycling data interesting. It is not simply a matter of saying that "cyclists are older." The data suggests something more structural: in organized cycling, the relationship with sport seems to extend much longer into adulthood.

A sport that doesn't end with adolescence

In many disciplines, sports licensing follows a fairly recognizable trajectory: one enters the environment as a child or teenager, passes through youth categories, and a significant portion of athletes then interrupts competitive or organized activity upon entering adulthood. Cycling presents a different profile.

The adult component is not a marginal presence within the movement, but represents the majority of licensed athletes considered in the analysis. This means that organized cycling manages to maintain a relationship with sport even when work, family, time availability, and daily habits change.

It is an element that has been intuited in the sector for some time, but which is rarely measured by comparing it homogeneously with other disciplines. The Golee numbers thus provide an initial quantification of what we might call the sporting longevity of cycling.

The female share grows with age

If age represents the first distinctive characteristic of the licensed cyclist, the distribution between men and women introduces another interesting dynamic. In our sport, female presence is 8.7% among those under 19. Among adults, however, it exceeds 21%, both in the 19-34 age group and in those 35 and over.

In other words, in the sample analyzed by Golee, the female component does not follow a path of progressive reduction with increasing age. Rather, the opposite occurs: its share of total licensed athletes grows significantly when moving from the youth sector to the adult sector. This is a phenomenon that, at least with the same intensity, does not emerge in the other disciplines considered in the analysis.

An amateur movement that continues to grow

Cycling thus seems to have a characteristic that clearly distinguishes it from sports with a strong youth vocation: it is not necessarily a sport practiced when young and then abandoned as an adult. Much more often, it is an activity that can accompany a person for a very long part of their sporting life and, in many cases, become precisely in adulthood a stable component of their habits. And within this adult cycling, the women who pedal—it is clear—are increasingly more.

The picture provided by management data fits into a context of amateur activity that appears dynamic. FCI data relating to 2025 indicates a 5.1% growth in amateur events and a 2.9% growth in overall races. All these numbers are consistent with the image of a cycling that, especially in its adult and amateur dimension, maintains a significant presence and an aggregation capacity that is anything but marginal. More than a demographic identity, a model of practice that at this point we hope parents and grandparents will pass on to new generations.