The 2019 Annual Lunacy Challenge

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ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
Welcome to the inaugural 'Annual Lunacy Challenge'. The new challenge is not intended to replace any of the 3 current monthly challenges. They are fine tests of cycling consistency throughout the whole year and I encourage you to attempt any (or all!) of them if you feel able to. This is something different, which you might find interesting. Please read on...

This thread is only for the logging of your qualifying rides.

PLEASE DO NOT POST ANYTHING ELSE BUT QUALIFYING RIDES IN THIS THREAD


1. Choose a target distance, for example 100 miles, but it can be any imperial or metric distance which will be challenging for you to complete thirteen times in a calendar year.

2. The distance is a daily distance, not a 'ride' distance, where a day is defined as 'from getting up to going to bed' (which covers night rides which go beyond midnight). This means that you can add up two or more rides in one day to count towards your target distance and therefore allows, for example, two commuting rides to be added to reach a target. The idea of this is to make achieving longer distances a more realistic proposition for many people who struggle to find enough spare time for individual long rides.

3. Each time you complete a day's riding which meets or exceeds your target distance, post in the challenge thread, stating your target and how many times you've met it at the top and then listing each ride which meets your target below. The post should ideally include details of the rides completed including how far, a list of points on each route, perhaps the elevation gain, and a link to the route(s) if you recorded it/them. The idea of these details is to maintain everyone's interest in where people are riding, as well as their progress towards their goal.

4. Chat about rides, etc. goes in the associated chatzone thread, located HERE. Please don't post anything other than lists of your rides in the challenge thread.

5. Even once you have completed thirteen qualifying rides, you can keep posting new ones where your 'top 13' has changed. Just post your thirteen longest. At the end of the year, your thirteenth longest ride is your actual achievement for the year. NB If you keep cranking out rides exactly hitting your target, you would struggle to exceed it later in the year. For example if your first 10 rides were exactly 100 miles, you would have to do another 13 rides of 101 miles to increase your lunacy challenge achievement to 101 miles! If you like the idea of trying to beat your target, it is always worth adding at least a few miles/kms to as many of your long rides as possible throughout the year. In that respect, every duplicated ride distance is 'wasted', although each will qualify for the basic challenge that you set yourself.

6. Since the only rules are to state a target distance and complete it thirteen times, anyone can join at any point during the year where there are sufficient days left to complete. It also means that an unavoidable break for illness, injury, childbirth, pressure of work, mojo-loss, freak weather conditions, [insert applicable excuse/reason here] would not bring your challenge to an abrupt finish, unless that happened to be so late in the year that you would not have time to complete the challenge once you started riding again.

7. The following year, everyone who met their stated target can display the crescent moon 'Lunacy Challenge' icon in their signature. Something like this:

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Annual Lunacy 2019 (161 kms), 2020 (168 kms)

8. There are many ways of ‘gaming’ this challenge if all you want is a shiny, crescent moon in your signature. (Picking an easy target is the most obvious of those. Seeing how you’ve done in October and entering the challenge then by posting all your best rides is another.) The spirit of the Lunacy Challenge, however, is to stretch yourself beyond whichever every-month-of-the-year challenge you can manage, so your target should really be a distance which you are genuinely unlikely to complete in some or all of the winter months. This should be treated as an opportunity to choose a genuinely challenging target, avoid the hazards of winter, and enjoy a bit of support with it along the way.

Those are the guidelines. Stick as closely as you can to them, but this is supposed to be fun so tweak them to suit yourself. For example - If you only want to count single rides at the qualifying distance rather than daily totals, that is fine.

See you in the Chatzone! :hello:
 
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aferris2

Guru
Location
Up over
Target distance: 100km
Qualifying rides (1)
1. 01Jan: 102.45km 3753ft
Stock, Mountnessing, Kelvedon Hatch, Passingford Bridge, Theydon Bois, Buckhurst Hill, Loughton, Abridge, Pilgrims Hatch, Hutton, Preaching Cross, Stock
https://www.strava.com/activities/2048787261
 

aferris2

Guru
Location
Up over
Target distance: 100km
Qualifying rides (2)
1. 01Jan: 102.45km 3753ft
Stock, Mountnessing, Kelvedon Hatch, Passingford Bridge, Theydon Bois, Buckhurst Hill, Loughton, Abridge, Pilgrims Hatch, Hutton, Preaching Cross, Stock
https://www.strava.com/activities/2048787261
2. 17Feb: 109.48km 2369ft
Stock, Ingatestone, Norton Heath, Abbess Roding, Felsted, Bannister Green, Cock Green, Little Waltham, Chelmsford, Stock
https://www.strava.com/activities/2155990510
 

bluenotebob

Veteran
Location
France
Target distance 70km

Qualifying rides (2)

February 13th 2019 : 82.41km, Mauron to Malestroit (on the V3 Voie Verte), returned to le Pont des deux Rivières on the Nantes-to-Brest towpath, then back to Mauron on the V3 Voie Verte.

March 8th 2019 : 74.21km, Home – Mauron – (on the V3(S)) – le Pont des Deux Rivières – (on the Nantes-to-Brest canal) – Josselin – St Malo-des-Trois Fontaines – Guilliers – Home 74.21 km



 

Fiona R

Formerly known as Cranky Knee Girl
Location
N Somerset
Target distance 200km (Edited in Feb was 163km aka 100 miles)
Qualifying rides (5)
1: Sat 12th Jan 2019 GWR Chalke and Cheese 200km Audax 210km 2250m Bristol/Warmley- Rode-Boynton-Wilton-Broad Chalke-Shaftesbury-Gillingham-Wincanton-Glastonbury-Wedmore-Cheddar Gorge-West Harptree-Pensford-Keynsham-Bristol/Warmley
2: Sat 9th Feb DIY 200 Audax Born to be Wild 201km 1492m
Home-Bristol-Bath-Norton St Phillip-Kilmersden-Priddy-Cheddar Gorge/Cheddar-Glastonbury-Burnham on Sea-Brean-Weston super Mare-Congresbury-Clevedon-Nailsea-Home
3: Sat 23rd Feb Efengyl/Gospel Pass 200km Audax 208km 2643m Filton/Bristol-Chepstow-Caerleon-Usk-Bwlch-Llangorse-Hay on Wye-Gospel Pass-Abergavenny-Raglan-Chepstow-Almondsbury/Bristol
4: Sat 9th Mar GWR Wells Mells and a little Broader 200km audax 205km 3134m
Bristol/Whitchurch-West Harptree-Wells-Bruton-Stourhead-Wincanton-Sherbourne-Yeovil Junction-Batcombe-Sturminster Newton-Zeals-Kilmington-Mells-Radstock-Woollard-Bristol/Whitchurch
 
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steverob

Guru
Location
Buckinghamshire
Target distance: 65 miles (which I'm already regretting choosing!)
Today's ride: 65.61 miles - https://www.strava.com/activities/2234541454 - First ever ascent of Kop Hill, one of the toughest climbs in the Chilterns. Paced/pulled up it by @Sbudge, which certainly helped!
---------------------------
Rides in order of distance so far this year:
1. 65.61 miles - 23rd March - Kop Hill with Simon
 
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