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

[Fiona R]

I miscalculated on one of my rides and ended up aiming to do several laps of the local park to make up the shortfall. I only managed a few laps before I got bored and headed back onto the busy main road to finish the ride off there.

The loop round our end of the estate is 0.3km which I'll do up to 5 times, over 1.5km I continue along the long village road and turn around and come back home at half way. Mostly I have made sure to stretch the route first so it doesn't get too silly if it's a definite challenge.

 

[Aravis]

A "head's up" for the blue moon day tomorrow.

I've applied for, and been granted, a pass. I even managed to explain successfully what lunacy is about. As I've already done my RRtY ride for this month, this will be my spare, 13th ride of 200+ km. I'm intending to find Moon's Moat, an archaeological site nowadays surrounded by the town of Redditch. Its situation was rather different on my 1974 O/S map, but fortunately it hasn't been obliterated altogether.

 

[Aravis]

Sadly I've had to cancel today. What I was hoping was just hay fever morphed overnight into a heavy cold and sickness, and others in the family are also affected. Rarely if ever have I felt more disappointed.

Nevertheless I've entered the challenge, and I'll hope to do what should have been today's ride in the next few days.

 

[Sea of vapours]

Sorry to read that, and good luck with finding Moon's Moat when you do complete the ride. I had a hunt around for info. on it and it does appear to be pretty challenging, even for its own conservation group!

 

[lane]

Just off to try another ride for this challenge. However looking back at some earlier posts which seem to set out the rules, such as they are, was I supposed to start the rides March rather than May? Whatever the answer I reckon that would be a good target for next year but too late for this year now.

 

[Sea of vapours]

You can start whenever you like. People are often talking about March since that's when there starts to be significantly longer daylight and far less chance of pesky things like ice and snow. Read the first post in the ride recording thread for the full guidelines, which amount to being extremely simple and undemanding.

Edit: The 6th guideline is explicit about starting whenever you like.

 

[Supersuperleeds]

Another one bagged today, took a ride up to Harworth with @13 rider and @tallliman to see Tom Simpsons memorial

 

[aferris2]

Lovely sunny weather forecast for today and as I'm going to be busy with other things for the next few days, today was too good a chance to pass by. So, another ride done to get the count up to 5. Gentle headwind on the ride up to Finchingfield, then a sort of cross wind on the way back.
Showed my appreciation to the driver of an artic who held well back as I struggled up a hill. I know the road and there was no chance of him being able to pass safely for a couple of miles, so I pulled into a driveway at the top. Lovely wave from him (and a thumbs up from me), then lots of not so friendly waving from many of the car drivers behind.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Just off to try another ride for this challenge. However looking back at some earlier posts which seem to set out the rules, such as they are, was I supposed to start the rides March rather than May? Whatever the answer I reckon that would be a good target for next year but too late for this year now.

Don't worry, I've not yet started mine (only 50k) - I've got plenty of time to get them done though.

I'm doing this challenge just to get some motivation to get out on my bike as my annual mileage has been pathetic since I was ill in 2016.

My plan is to do 50k this year and then up it to 75k next and (hopefully) 100k the year after. 75/100k will be really challenging/really challenging for me as I usually give up at around 40 miles/65k as that takes me (or did) around 2 hrs 40 mins which is a little bit beyond my peddle turning boredom threshold.

Anyway, that's a while off and I just need to concentrate on getting back to 2-3 regular rides each week as a first step.

 

[ColinJ]

One a week from now takes you to early August. One a fortnight is into early November. There must be a happy medium around the eleven day mark in there somewhere

I have now clawed it back to the start of October at one a fortnight but I'll feel happier if/when I get it down to mid-September!

 

[lane]

All being well one more this month and then two a month until September. In October it will likely be back to 50k to complete the month challenge. It's not that I don't do winter it's just I do summer quite a lot more.

 

[aferris2]

Ride number 6 done. That means I'm not quite half way there. At least we aren't in June yet so hopefully ahead of my original schedule for completing the challenge before the cold weather kicks in. I'm lucky to be able to ride on any day of the week rather than being limited to just the weekends when I was working. I don't think this distance (100km) would have been possible without those extra days.
100km is, I think, the right disatance for me. It's hard work, but I do get a lot of satisfaction from having pushed myself just a bit harder. And I guess this is what the challenge is all about.

 

[steverob]

Nothing ever goes to plan for me in the run-up to a big event and this year is no exception. Next Sunday is the Tour of Cambridgeshire (100 miles this year) and so training for that should have given me an excellent opportunity to bag a few more Lunacy rides in the weeks beforehand.

However my planned 65 miler two weeks ago got abruptly stopped just 10 miles in when a spoke broke in my back wheel. Managed to coax the bike to the nearest station to get a train home (luckily was on my commuter line so could use my season ticket) and then dropped it in to the LBS to fix with the intention of picking it up the next weekend, when I had a 70 mile sportive in my schedule.

That also didn't go ahead. A health issue on the Thursday night saw me end up staying overnight in hospital (turns out it was a false alarm, but still not a pleasant experience) and I really did not feel like doing anything that weekend - managed to pick the bike up from the shop and ride it home 10 miles, but just that distance absolutely wiped me out. So with two opportunities missed, I knew I had to get a big ride in this weekend. Planned to do 80 miles and picked the most unethically flat route I could find in this area - just two semi-challenging hills - and set off.

Twelve miles in and I notice that my left foot is moving around way too much in the pedal - however it's a different kind of lateral movement to what you'd expect if the cleat was loose. Look down and find that the crank is barely hanging on to the frame and within a few hundred meters, it's not on the bike at all! My left shoe has a pedal attached to it, but it's not connected to anything else! This did happen to me a few times before about two years back (when I had toe cages on the bike), but stopped about the time I moved to SPDs. Annoyingly, for ages I'd carried around the right sized Allen key with me to fix it in case it came back, but as it never did, when I changed out my saddle bag a few months back, I didn't bring it with me from then on.

Emergency call to the wife to ask her to drive out to me with the correct sized key (thankfully she knows where in the garage I keep my tools) and I try to ride single footed to the next village (luckily it was mainly flat/downhill) to make it easier for her to find me. Whole thing from the pedal falling off to me getting it back on was about 45 minutes, but at least I got a bit of rest and a bite to eat (maybe a tad earlier than planned, but hey).

After that, the rest of the ride did go fairly smoothly, although I did re-tighten the crank every 15-20 miles or so - usually required about a quarter turn of the key, so clearly the problem is still there, but I'm able to work around it for now with regular breaks.

Crossed off "Y" in the ABC challenge by going through Yarnton and got a few extra tiles in the VeloViewer challenge by going down some interesting dead end lanes around the village of Wytham (had to take a few odd cyclepath routes to get there), including trying to weave my way through a wedding party that was walking between church and their reception venue a few hundred yards down the road. Then headed back home via Oxford and Thame - was out for about seven hours total.

 

[ColinJ]

Twelve miles in and I notice that my left foot is moving around way too much in the pedal - however it's a different kind of lateral movement to what you'd expect if the cleat was loose. Look down and find that the crank is barely hanging on to the frame and within a few hundred meters, it's not on the bike at all! My left shoe has a pedal attached to it, but it's not connected to anything else! This did happen to me a few times before about two years back (when I had toe cages on the bike), but stopped about the time I moved to SPDs. Annoyingly, for ages I'd carried around the right sized Allen key with me to fix it in case it came back, but as it never did, when I changed out my saddle bag a few months back, I didn't bring it with me from then on.

Emergency call to the wife to ask her to drive out to me with the correct sized key (thankfully she knows where in the garage I keep my tools) and I try to ride single footed to the next village (luckily it was mainly flat/downhill) to make it easier for her to find me. Whole thing from the pedal falling off to me getting it back on was about 45 minutes, but at least I got a bit of rest and a bite to eat (maybe a tad earlier than planned, but hey).

After that, the rest of the ride did go fairly smoothly, although I did re-tighten the crank every 15-20 miles or so - usually required about a quarter turn of the key, so clearly the problem is still there, but I'm able to work around it for now with regular breaks.

I assume that it is a square taper crank/bottom bracket?

I've read that once a crank comes loose there is likely to be some damage that makes it keep on happening.

I have had a crank bolt start to come loose but I spotted it before the crank itself became loose.

PS I overtightened a crank bolt once and the crank started to crack from the corners of the hole, so I suggest that you don't go OTT when tightening the crank bolts!

 

[steverob]

I assume that it is a square taper crank/bottom bracket?

I've read that once a crank comes loose there is likely to be some damage that makes it keep on happening.

I have had a crank bolt start to come loose but I spotted it before the crank itself became loose.

PS I overtightened a crank bolt once and the crank started to crack from the corners of the hole, so I suggest that you don't go OTT when tightening the crank bolts!

Erm, probably? I'm really not mechanically minded and have no idea - anything more complicated than changing an inner tube and the bike goes to the shop!

Here's a photo of said crank, just before it completely detached:


As I said, it has happened a few times before and I've had to re-tighten it, but then it just stopped happening after a while. Now these original issues did happen not long after I had a crash, so that could have been when damage happened, but then that doesn't explain why it's been fine for over two years.