Origin Story
Nick Kleban’s Strava Fun Fact Series is shaped by a childhood fascination with facts over fiction. As a kid, Nick never cared much for novels or stories—he famously only read two chapters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone before abandoning it. Instead, Nick devoured encyclopedias and non-fiction books. With particular interests in animal taxonomy, world geography, and history. This passion for factual knowledge continued into his teenage years when the discovery of Wikipedia provided an endless source of information to fuel his curiosity. To this day, Nick indulges in at least an hour of leisure Wikipedia reading before bed.
The idea for a fact-based series began as a solution to a problem Nick noticed in the cycling Strava community: an oversaturation of TLDR race reports and repetitive latte art images. Recognizing a need for more engaging, organic content, Nick combined his love of trivia facts with his cycling routes.
On January 28, 2024, while on a fat bike training ride, he redirected his route to visit the LeBer-LeMoyne House, a little-known building on Boulevard LaSalle that may be Canada’s oldest fully intact and unaltered structure. He shared the fact in his Strava post. A good friend’s comment—suggesting Nick should go public with his encyclopedic knowledge—was the catalyst for the series.
In July 2024, the future of the series faced an unexpected crisis. Strava removed Nick’s Pro Badge. This badge had not only symbolized his status as a recognized contributor to the fact community, but also provided access to the platform’s route builder, a critical tool for planning his meticulously crafted rides to historical landmarks. With both his honour and essential functionality
stripped away, Nick was left with a difficult decision. Would he end the beloved series or pay over $15 a month for a Strava subscription to regain access to the route builder. The subscription fee, he reasoned, was a small price to pay for the joy and purpose the series brought to his rides. The Pro Badge debacle, while initially frustrating, became a legendary chapter in the Strava Fun Fact Series narrative.
HUSTLE PRO CYCLING – A Year in Fun Facts
Faced with a Wikipedia page that contains only two sentences about the team, he decided to flip the script: instead of reporting Wikipedia facts to Strava, he decided to report Strava facts to Wikipedia (this post), using the team’s 2024 cumulative stats like total kilometres ridden and elevation gained.
Here’s where the numbers took him:
Calories Burned and Donut Stacks
In 2024, Hustle Pro Cycling collectively burned 4,073,652 calories. To put this into perspective, that’s the equivalent of approximately 21,441 donuts (homage to Toronto’s famous Donut Ride, a beloved weekly group cycling tradition). If these donuts were stacked, the tower would soar roughly 704 meters into the sky—taller than the city’s iconic CN Tower (553.3 meters). Despite its impressive stature, the donut stack would still fall well short of the 1,786,608 meters the team climbed on their bikes throughout the year. This equates to scaling 202 Everests, which is approximately 17.87 times the height of Earth’s atmosphere.
Distance Covered
Speaking of spheres, the team logged an astounding 162,421.20 kilometers in 2024. This distance is equivalent to cycling around the Earth’s circumference 4.05 times. To mark this year’s solar eclipse, Nick also calculated that the team rode approximately 0.00017 times around the Sun.
Power Generated
Speaking of the sun and solar power, Hustle Pro Cycling’s riders collectively generated 214 watts of power over 5,742 hours of riding, resulting in an impressive 4.42 gigawatt-seconds of energy. While this might sound substantial, the city of Toronto, requires an estimated 3.17 gigawatts-seconds of electricity on average to stay powered. This means the team’s total combined season energy output could keep the city running for about 1.4 seconds.
Teammate Fun Facts
Despite not being documented on Wikipedia, Hustle Pro Cycling also achieved notable success during the 2024 season:
● Emile Hamm distinguished himself as the only rider to achieve top-ten finishes in the Men’s Elite National Championships across three distinct disciplines: cross-country marathon (XCM), gravel, and cyclocross (CX).
● Michael Foley secured victory in Stage 2 of the Tour de Beauce and represented Canada at the Paris Olympics in the Madison and Team Pursuit events.
● Hudson Lubbers claimed victories in both the spring and fall editions of the “Heck of the North.”
● Daniel Kalichman won the inaugural Tussle with the Hustle Criterium, where he lapped the field solo.
● Evan Russell and Sam Morris together dominated the Tour de Bloom, winning 60% of the race’s stages, finishing second overall in the General Classification (GC), and earning the points jersey.
● Chris Ernst delivered a remarkable performance over less than three weeks, winning four races, including the overall GC at the GP Charlevoix, and achieving a top-ten finish at the UCI GP NYC.
● Zach Webster focused primarily on track racing but also competed in five road events, going on to win two of these.
For most contributors, we suggest you go and give their Instagram a follow. For Nick that just didn’t seem right… so here’s his Strava … check out all his fun facts and big rides over there.
