The Annual Lunacy (aka "I Don't Do Winter") Challenge Chatzone

[Sea of vapours]

Mmmmm..... I see your point - neatly transposed

I'm trying to get it down to a target of one a month up to and including October in order to make it less intimidating. Given my aversion to being rained on, it makes sense to whittle it down a bit whilst the weather's abnormally dry.

 

[ColinJ]

Mmmmm..... I see your point - neatly transposed

I'm trying to get it down to a target of one a month up to and including October in order to make it less intimidating. Given my aversion to being rained on, it makes sense to whittle it down a bit whilst the weather's abnormally dry.

It makes sense.

I had hoped to have got 3 qualifiers done by now but the bugs in my nose, throat and lungs had other ideas!

Still, they seem to be on the retreat now so I will try and get another long ride done ASAP. Probably wise to do my 50 km and 100 km April rides first though ...

 

[Fiona R]

I finally managed to bust balls as a DIY 200km Ballbuster solo audax on Wednesday, my first attempt was last Saturday and I failed miserably for various reasons including bad fuelling. I walked up to Somerset Monument, it was too much, my legs didn't belong to me at all. I abandoned halfway round, had a ploughmans in Chew Magna and limped 15km home.

Yesterday I got up to Somerset Monument in Hawkesbury Upton with not too much difficulty and fuelled correctly and got round (inc West Harptree/no walking anything) it all. It wasn't easy and conditions were ideal, if a bit foggy/overcast but fairly calm/easterly. It was far further from Glastonbury to Clevedon via rush hour carnage in Banwell than I remembered and I could have routed without Portbury Hill right at the end to make life easier, but I didn't.

I didn't know I had balls to bust. I am very relieved not to have that hanging over me until the last weekend in April. Was tough cycling 5 mile to work Thursday and standing for 8 hours, and cycling home

 

[ColinJ]

Right, that's it! The sun will be shining tomorrow (later today, in fact), everybody else is getting stuck in, I will go out and do my 161 km challenge ride 100 km challenge ride 50 km challenge ride ...

Well, I have to start somewhere after hardly touching the bike for over 2 weeks!

 

[steverob]

Well today was a very good Friday, if you excuse the pun. Longest ride so far this year (and it probably will remain that for at least a month or so) in gloriously sunny weather - I even had to put suncream on. Did one of my typical rides westwards, which means it's going to be relatively flat, or at least as flat as it gets round here - e.g. only kind of undulating.

Extended the route further than previously, heading out to Heyford (where there used to be an RAF base, allegedly one that held nuclear missiles during the Cold War) and coming back via Woodstock and Kidlington, where I did miss my turn off, but managed to re-route successfully. Did climb the short, sharp Panshill on the way back, which killed my legs and reduced the fine average speed I'd been achieving up to that point for the rest of the ride. Also my cadence sensor was playing up - either my Garmin kept on not being able to find it at various points during the ride, or when it was able to find it, it was reading really erratically - possibly time for new batteries?

 

[ColinJ]

Right, that's it! The sun will be shining tomorrow (later today, in fact), everybody else is getting stuck in, I will go out and do my 161 km challenge ride 100 km challenge ride 50 km challenge ride ...

Well, I have to start somewhere after hardly touching the bike for over 2 weeks!

Ha - I got distracted by phone calls and had guests arriving later so I only squeezed in a quick 25 km, but it was a lumpy little ride including one very tough hill (Cross Stone Rd/Crossley New Rd/Eastwood Rd) which starts with 0.7 km at 14%, has 1.4 km of respite but then kicks back up with 0.7 km averaging 15%, extending to 1.25 km at 12%, or 1.9 km at 9.5%. After which, I decided not to do much more other than trundle along the Long Causeway for a while and then plunge back to the A646 and go home!

 

[Fiona R]

Ha - I got distracted by phone calls and had guests arriving later so I only squeezed in a quick 25 km, but it was a lumpy little ride including one very tough hill (Cross Stone Rd/Crossley New Rd/Eastwood Rd) which starts with 0.7 km at 14%, has 1.4 km of respite but then kicks back up with 0.7 km averaging 15%, extending to 1.25 km at 12%, or 1.9 km at 9.5%. After which, I decided not to do much more other than trundle along the Long Causeway for a while and then plunge back to the A646 and go home!

I feel sick reading that

 

[ColinJ]

I feel sick reading that

I didn't fancy going straight up that thing without a warm-up so I did another little climb first - 600 metres at 12%, but didn't fancy doing the warm-up either without a pre-warm-up so I did 350 metres at 6% before that - ha ha!

 

[Aravis]

As hinted a bit further up, if ever there's a day for lunacy it must be the blue moon on May 18th.

Fortuitously, it falls on a Saturday. The exact moment of fullness is 22:11 BST, shortly after nightfall so with a little organisation there'll be no difficulty still being out on the bike at that time.

This instance doesn't follow the most familiar definition, that being the second full moon in a calendar month. It is the third of four full moons in a season, the significance of which I don't fully comprehend but apparently it also makes it blue. For this purpose, a season is the period between a solstice and an equinox.

Having grasped this, I then found myself confused, since a full moon just after the spring equinox - necessary if the May moon is to be the third of four in the season - would mean that Easter should've been very early, which it wasn't. It seems that the March full moon fell on the equinox, and it all comes down to interpretation.

Anyway, whichever way you look at it, May 18th is a prime date for lunatic activity and I'm hoping to take full advantage. Am I striking an appropriate note?

 

[ColinJ]

Anyway, whichever way you look at it, May 18th is a prime date for lunatic activity and I'm hoping to take full advantage. Am I striking an appropriate note?

Probably apt!

I, OTOH, not only do not 'do winter' (except in small doses), I do not 'do night riding' either, except for the minimum amount needed to get back from any daylight hours ride which overruns.

 

[steverob]

Every now and then I check in on the chatzone threads of challenges I'm not actually doing, mainly to mark them as read, but also to see what other people on the board are doing cycling wise in case I can glean any ideas. Obviously from time to time I notice a post from someone having to pull out of said challenge, either due to injury, work commitments, weather or what have you.

Do you think it'd be a good idea to put a reminder into these threads from time to time about the Lunacy Challenge, just in case these people aren't aware of what we are doing here, as these would be the ideal candidates to bring on board - this way they can still keep a challenge going, even if it's not the one they originally started on. Or would it be considered a little intrusive to be constantly plugging our challenge on someone else's thread? Or perhaps you think everyone's probably already aware of this and just aren't all that interested? Your thoughts...

 

[Aravis]

Probably apt!

I, OTOH, not only do not 'do winter' (except in small doses), I do not 'do night riding' either, except for the minimum amount needed to get back from any daylight hours ride which overruns.

I was forgetting that with the long hours of daylight in late spring/early summer the full moon does of course rise well before sunset:

So on reflection, I think that waiting for the moment of total fullness would be unnecessarily geeky. And you'll get a much better photograph at about half past 8 - if the weather gods place nice.

I have my plan.

 

[Supersuperleeds]

@ColinJ another clarification question please. Is the target distance the days distance or one single ride distance?

 

[ColinJ]

@ColinJ another clarification question please. Is the target distance the days distance or one single ride distance?

I could refer the gentleman to the very clearly stated rules at the start of the official ride thread, but to save him a few seconds he can read a copy of the relevant rule below instead...

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.

 

[Supersuperleeds]

I could refer the gentleman to the very clearly stated rules at the start of the official ride thread, but to save him a few seconds he can read a copy of the relevant rule below instead...

I did look, in my defence I've been out for 11 hours today

I thought I'd seen a daily distance reference somewhere, glad I did some extra miles on the second ride, 4th one in the bag