Google Trends

I love Google Trends, and today I was looking for some cycling related things. One thing lead to another and I found this:

Cycling!

Yes, the number of Google searches for “cycling” is decreasing yearly, as the number of news articles (bottom of figure) is increasing. I’m not sure what this means.

If you’re curious about the peaks throughout the graph, here is a detail shot for 2008:

2008

I’m pretty sure you can guess what causes people to Google “cycling” during this 20ish day period around July. It rhymes with Blour de Pants.

And yes, the trend is there for “Biking” as well.

Picture 6

I’d guess that the peaks are not quite as high for “biking” because most of the world calls the sport “cycling”. So couple that fact with the fact that the Tour is more popular over seas, and you get an attenuated “biking” peak around the Blour de Pants time. I’m sure that this peak also reflects summer and good times in the sun as well.