Interest in bikes rises in spring and bottoms out in December. That's what three years of visits (2023-2025) to the "bicycle" article on six Wikipedias show: in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and English, December is the weakest month, and March through June account for 35% to 42% of the year's interest, when an even split would give 33.3%. But Wikipedia draws a much gentler season than Google, and in French it's even reversed. Here's why, and what you can conclude from it.
What we measured (and what we didn't)
- We measured how many people open each Wikipedia's "bicycle" article every month: "Bicicleta" in Spanish and Portuguese, "Bicicletta" in Italian, "Bicycle" in English, "Bicyclette" and "Vélo" in French (the article was renamed in August 2025, so we add the two together) and "Fahrrad" and "Rennrad" (road bike) in German. We used the official Wikimedia API, human visits only (no bots), from January 2023 to December 2025.
- We measured languages, not countries. Spanish Wikipedia is read mostly in Latin America, Portuguese mostly in Brazil and English all over the world. That's why the headline says "by country" loosely: German, Italian and French track their home countries fairly well; Spanish, Portuguese and English don't.
- We didn't measure purchase intent. Someone opening Wikipedia wants to know what a bicycle is, often for a school assignment. For buying, Google is a better indicator, which is why we compare against it.
Interest month by month
To compare languages with very different traffic, we calculate an index: the share of the year's visits that falls in each month, averaged over 2023, 2024 and 2025, multiplied by 12. 1.00 is an average month; 1.38 means 38% above average.
Spanish · Bicicleta
French · Bicyclette + Vélo
German · Fahrrad + Rennrad
Italian · Bicicletta
Portuguese · Bicicleta
English · Bicycle
German, “Rennrad” only · Rennrad (road bike)
Orange: month with the most interest. Dark green: months above average. Source: Wikimedia pageviews API (users only, no bots), January 2023 to December 2025. Analysis: BikeRatio, CC BY 4.0.
| Language | J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spanish | 0.93 | 1.08 | 1.38 | 1.14 | 1.22 | 1.01 | 0.79 | 0.90 | 0.94 | 1.08 | 0.88 | 0.64 |
| French | 1.35 | 1.14 | 1.31 | 1.08 | 1.19 | 0.93 | 0.78 | 0.72 | 0.82 | 0.95 | 0.94 | 0.80 |
| German | 0.93 | 0.91 | 1.13 | 1.09 | 1.14 | 1.08 | 1.24 | 1.06 | 0.97 | 0.81 | 0.76 | 0.89 |
| Italian | 1.09 | 1.05 | 1.11 | 1.18 | 1.41 | 1.32 | 0.81 | 0.85 | 0.84 | 0.89 | 0.80 | 0.65 |
| Portuguese | 1.00 | 1.05 | 1.32 | 1.05 | 1.07 | 1.09 | 0.74 | 0.91 | 0.96 | 1.07 | 1.01 | 0.73 |
| English | 1.14 | 1.07 | 1.16 | 1.05 | 1.07 | 0.93 | 0.92 | 0.95 | 0.98 | 1.03 | 0.91 | 0.81 |
| German, “Rennrad” only | 0.66 | 0.88 | 1.04 | 1.03 | 1.20 | 1.14 | 1.88 | 1.39 | 1.02 | 0.71 | 0.55 | 0.50 |
What stands out:
- Spanish: peak in March (1.38) and low in December (0.64). May (1.22) and April (1.14) stay high. March through June account for 39.5% of the year.
- Italian: the most pronounced spring season: peak in May (1.41) and June (1.32), low in December (0.65). March-June adds up to 41.9%, the highest figure.
- German: the general "Fahrrad" article is almost flat (peak in March, 1.15; low in November, 0.81), but "Rennrad", the road bike article, has the most extreme curve in the whole study: July scores 1.88 and December 0.50. July is the month of the Tour de France, the three-week race that dominates European cycling coverage every summer, and that's the most likely explanation.
- French: the exception. The peak is in January (1.35) and the low in August (0.72). That's the opposite of a cycling season, and the opposite of what Google shows for France (low in January).
- Portuguese and English: peak in March and low in December, with gentle curves (1.81 and 1.44 times between the best and worst month).
Wikipedia vs. Google
We compared against the monthly volume of 20 bike-related Google searches from September 2025 to August 2026, estimated with a keyword research tool (these aren't official Google figures). The question is how much higher the strongest month is than the weakest:
Wikipedia: Wikimedia pageviews API. Google: estimated monthly volume of 20 bike-related searches (keyword tool). Analysis: BikeRatio, CC BY 4.0.
| Language | Wikipedia (2023-2025) | Google (Sep 2025-Aug 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Spanish | 2.14× | — |
| French | 1.88× | 2.46× |
| German | 1.64× | 4.18× |
| Italian | 2.18× | 2.59× |
| English | 1.44× | 2.18× |
- Spanish on Google: the series is almost flat with no clear peak month, so we leave it out. English on Google: US market.
| Language | Readers | Wikipedia peak | Wikipedia low | March-June | Google peak | Google low |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spanish | Spain and Latin America | March | December | 39.5% | no clear peak | — |
| French | France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and French-speaking Africa | January | August | 37.6% | April | January |
| German | Germany, Austria and Switzerland | July | November | 37.0% | March | December |
| Italian | Italy and Switzerland | May | December | 41.9% | April | December |
| Portuguese | Brazil and Portugal | March | December | 37.7% | — | — |
| English | worldwide (US, UK, India…) | March | December | 35.1% | May | January |
| German, “Rennrad” only | Germany, Austria and Switzerland | July | December | 36.8% | — | — |
“March-June”: share of the year’s pageviews that fall in those four months (if interest were flat, it would be 33.3%).
The gap is big in German: on Google, March has 4.2 times the searches of December; on Wikipedia, the strongest month beats the weakest by only 1.6 times. In Italian and French, Google shows 2.6 and 2.5 times; Wikipedia, 2.2 and 1.9. For Spanish, the Google series for Spain came out almost flat with no clear peak month, so we didn't use it.
France is the most striking case: Google puts the peak in April and the low in January, and Wikipedia shows exactly the opposite. Our hypothesis is that school lookups weigh heavily in January, and that in summer, during vacation, people read the encyclopedia less even though they ride more. We can't test that with this data.
A trend that isn't seasonal: Wikipedia is losing visits
Visits to these articles fell sharply between 2023 and 2025 in every language, by 30% to 64%. We don't know how much of that is less interest in bikes and how much is a change in how people look things up online. That's why we work with the split within each year rather than the raw number of visits.
| Language | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2025 vs. 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spanish | 143,160 | 88,952 | 51,723 | -64% |
| French | 102,523 | 76,507 | 55,993 | -45% |
| German | 110,319 | 95,492 | 76,834 | -30% |
| Italian | 45,030 | 34,273 | 22,474 | -50% |
| Portuguese | 25,593 | 21,605 | 16,308 | -36% |
| English | 580,897 | 436,298 | 260,969 | -55% |
Views by people (no bots) from all devices. German combines “Fahrrad” and “Rennrad”; French, “Bicyclette” and “Vélo”.
Conclusions
- Cycling season starts in March-April. Google says so for Germany (March), France and Italy (April), and so does Wikipedia in Spanish, Portuguese and English (March). The United States runs a little later (May). It's the time for the tune-up we explain in bike maintenance by mileage and for checking the calendar of group rides and gran fondos.
- December is the slowest month in almost every series; November in German.
- Wikipedia shows the direction, not the size. It confirms that spring is high and the end of the year is low, but it flattens the curve. To plan campaigns or inventory, search or sales data is a better guide.
- Road cycling has its own calendar, with a summer peak tied to July.
Methodology
- Data: Wikimedia REST API (pageviews per-article), user agent (no bots), all access (desktop and mobile), monthly, January 2023 to December 2025, downloaded October 19, 2026.
- Monthly index: for each year, the month's visits ÷ the year's visits; averaged across the three years; renormalized to add up to 100% and multiplied by 12.
- Peak and low month: the months with the highest and lowest index. Amplitude: peak index ÷ low index.
- Google: estimated monthly volume of 20 bike keywords per market (Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the United States for English), September 2025 to August 2026. These are rounded estimates from a keyword tool and cover only one year.
- Reproducibility: anyone can repeat the Wikipedia calculation with the API (there's a sample query in the sources).
Cite this study
You can use the data, tables and charts from this study in your publication, blog or work. All we ask is that you credit BikeRatio with a link to this page.
Citation
BikeRatio (2026). “Cycling Season by Country: When People Look Up Bikes.” Published October 19, 2026. https://bikeratio.com/studies/cycling-season-by-country/
Link for your website (HTML)
<a href="https://bikeratio.com/studies/cycling-season-by-country/">Cycling Season by Country: When People Look Up Bikes</a> (source: BikeRatio)License: the charts and tables in this study are published under aCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0): you can copy, adapt and reuse them, including for commercial purposes, as long as you credit BikeRatio as the source with a link to this page and say whether you changed them. Third-party figures still belong to their authors (we cite them under “Sources”).
Frequently asked questions
What month do people search for bikes the most?
It depends on the country and the source. On Google, the 2025-2026 peak came in March in Germany, in April in France and Italy and in May in the United States. On Wikipedia, March was the strongest month in Spanish, Portuguese and English, May in Italian and January in French.
What is the slowest month for cycling interest?
December in almost every Wikipedia language (Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, English and the road bike article in German). On Google, December in Germany and Italy and January in France and the United States.
Why don't Wikipedia and Google agree?
Because they measure different things. Wikipedia captures reference interest, much of it from students, and is far flatter. Google better reflects the intent to buy and ride: in Germany, Google's strongest month has 4.2 times the searches of its weakest; on Wikipedia, 1.6 times.
Can I use this data?
Yes, under a CC BY 4.0 license, crediting BikeRatio with a link to this page. The Wikipedia data is public and can be downloaded from the Wikimedia API.