Professional cycling, often viewed as a realm of high-performance athletes focused solely on race victories, is embracing a surprisingly fun and quirky trend. The WorldTour riders, including stars like Wout van Aert, Sepp Kuss, and Tiesj Benoot, have taken up a cycling craze that involves “tiling,” and they are making impressive strides on the world leaderboards.
Tiling, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a unique cycling hobby where enthusiasts collect “tiles” by visiting specific locations during their rides. Each tile represents a one-mile square of the world map. The goal is to gather as many of these tiles as possible through various activities like cycling, running, walking, or swimming—provided the mode of transportation is non-motorized.
Benoot, speaking to Het Nieuwsblad, explained, “The world map is divided into squares of one mile by one mile. The idea is to claim as many as possible, which can be done through any non-motorized activity.” He added that several top cyclists, including Wout van Aert and Sepp Kuss, are already engaged in the challenge, alongside prominent French pros like Arnaud Démare and Kévin Vauquelin.
To track their progress, riders can use platforms like VeloViewer, which integrates with Strava to display their tiling heatmaps. Benoot and his colleagues are also active on the Squadrats platform, where he currently ranks 34th globally with 42,152 tiles. In comparison, French adventurer Maximilian Schnell leads the pack with an astonishing 103,733 tiles.
While Benoot isn’t the top contender among the cycling elite, he’s certainly not alone in his pursuit. Groupama-FDJ’s Quentin Pacher (9th), Thomas De Gendt (11th), Démare (18th), and Kuss (24th) are also in the mix. Van Aert is close behind, sitting in 43rd place.
Benoot, who has embraced tiling more recently, credits his extensive racing experiences across Europe and beyond for his growing collection. His heatmap reveals a global reach, including rides across nearly every continent. For him, the pursuit of tiles requires both creativity and a willingness to think outside the box.
“Sometimes you have to do crazy things to claim a tile,” Benoot said. “Wout [van Aert] even rode through a hotel parking lot during his training camp in Mallorca just to get one. In my neighborhood, there are tiles I haven’t claimed yet because they’re on private property, so I’ll have to figure out a plan.”
Although the pros haven’t yet resorted to extreme methods—like swimming into lakes or crawling through marshes—Benoot hints that the addictive nature of tiling could eventually lead to such wild tactics. For now, these cyclists are proving that even the highest-level athletes can find enjoyment in this quirky, global trend.
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