Who is the cyclist with most followers on social media?

Nowadays, apart from performance and sporting results, there are other ways of measuring the popularity and interest generated by professional road cyclists: adding up their followers on social networks. And this is exactly what Wine & Wheels has done to obtain this particular ranking of cyclists.

List of road cyclists with most followers on social networks

Although his performance is in clear decline, Peter Sagan is still one of the cyclists most appreciated by fans and who generates the most interest. So it will come as no surprise to find him at the top of this ranking of cyclists with the most followers on social media.

The table has been compiled by the Wine & Wheels twitter account and has added up the followers of each cyclist on the three most active social networks: Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

It is remarkable to see how there are 5 cyclists who stand out from the rest with more than 2M followers, adding the 3 platforms together. Slovakian Peter Sagan leads the ranking with almost 4.5M followers in total and is the one with the most followers on Instagram and Facebook. And just below him we find Colombian Rigoberto Uran with 3.9M in second position and closely followed by his compatriot Nairo Quintana with 3.7M. Chris Froome is in fourth place with 3.1M and the top 5 is rounded off by Mark Cavendish with 2.5M.

Top 5 professional cyclists with the most followers on social networks 

1. Peter Sagan 4.445.000
2. Rigoberto Uran 3.900.000
3. Nairo Quintana 3.700.000
4. Chris Froome 3.183.205
5. Mark Cavendish 2.598.000

Full ranking of the most popular cyclists on social networks

Below them we see a large number of cyclists with more than one million followers, including Bernal, Nibali, Van der Poel and the current World Champion, Julian Alaphilippe.

Italy's Letizia Paternoster leads the women's rankings 

In the ranking of the most popular female cyclists, the number of followers is even lower, but Italy's Letizia Paternoster leads with more than 400,000 followers, which would put her in the middle of the pack if we were to make an absolute ranking.

What do you think about these rankings ? Do you think that brands could look at this kind of criteria when negotiating contracts for professional cyclists?