Physicist Rigged His Pet Hamster's Wheel to Strava. It Runs Far Every Night

MRI physicist Thijs de Buck built a speed and distance tracker for his 10-month-old hamster, Mollie, and had her data automatically uploaded to her Strava account. Mollie's nightly runs show impressive distances, with one recent activity covering 6.06 miles in 4 hours and 37 minutes. De Buck initially wanted to know how much distance Mollie was covering at night but soon realized he needed the full Strava experience, including splits, uploads, and post-run analysis.

He built a magnet and sensor system that detects each rotation of Mollie's wheel and sends the data to his laptop in the morning. The system even includes a tiny OLED display to show Mollie's live speed and over 100 possible run titles. De Buck's hamster Strava account gained thousands of likes, kudos, and followers within a week, and Mollie completed Strava's August 400-minute challenge on her second day.

Mollie's running schedule is consistently early at night, with the average distance being almost 10 kilometers per night. De Buck, a runner himself, enjoys tracking every possible stat during marathon training, and Mollie's nightly mileage has fueled his interest. He plans to attempt to match Mollie's weekly running distance, and Mollie's 20th run will provide Strava with race predictions.