Completing all the Strava Challenges for August 2018

I always enter all the Strava Monthly Cycling challenges. Generally I complete the Grand Fondo Challenge (100km) and in the summer months the Climbing challenge but in all the years they have been running I have never achieved the Distance Challenge at 1250km

1250km is a huge distance and subsequently requires a huge time commitment as well. On a few occasions I have ticked just about 700 miles so just over 75% but never got anywhere close.

However August 2018 will go down in my personal history as the month that I completed all 3 challenges as I rode in total 830 miles. Here's the email from Strava confirming the completion of that elusive challenge:

And here (from Veloviewer) is the proof of all 3 being completed:

The sense of achievement was immense and I had a real sense of pride

I am not sure quite how I did it but an element was consistent cycling throughout the month and a lot of cycling to work. With the prolonged good weather in August and favourable work requirements I was able to ride commute 2-3 times each week - riding on 3 days to work and back gives me 110 miles in that week. Looking at my Veloviewer summary for August it shows that I only didn't ride for 9 of the 31 days in August:

I also managed to squeeze in a number of longer (60mile+ rides over the weekends and I took 2 additional Annual Leave days over the Bank Holiday weekend. All in all this provided the time to actually churn out those miles


However the down side is that I am absolutely knackered as a result and whilst I have ridden another 180 miles in the first week of September they have been really hard and tiring - I am going to need to slow down a little in preparation for the Velo South event (100 mile closed roads) that is just 2 weeks away

I am not sure I'll be able to do it again until I retire and have the time to do so!

Rapha Exclusivity or Rapha Tat?

I normally sign up for the Strava Monthly challenges - they are there and it costs nothing

I normally manage the "Grand Fondo" distance challenge (just over 60 miles) and get just over 50% of the monthly distance challenge. The monthly climbing ones are more in my grasp and I probably get 3/4 of them through the year. Having been on holiday to the French Alps and Pyrenees for the past 3 years the climbing challenges have been done and dusted in just over a week.

This year (2017) as well at the normal Strava challenges in July there were additional challenges - the "Eurosport Peaks Challenge (ride)" and the "Rapha Rising" challenge. Given that the Strava Climbing challenge for July was 26,247ft and the Rapha challenge was only 15,092ft (4600m) the latter was a lot easier. I signed up as normal for them and sure enough duly climbed a lot more than required - 54,954ft to be precise - and thought no more about it.

Here is the evidence (Courtesy of veloviewer):

A few weeks ago a small black (and expensive looking) package dropped through the letter box, and when I opened it was a tangible Strava Achievement:

Gone now are the virtual achievements that I was used to, here is something from the Internet that I ca actually touch and feel. I really don't know what to do with it. I think I will put it somewhere safe so in a few years time my sons can get it out and it will have some tangible value. People will reminisce and say - "my I remember when a company could create value by creating an image and this overcharging customers for the same stuff you could get elsewhere!"

Just to prove the pretentiousness these are the words embossed inside:

Lets be honest - I went on holiday somewhere intersting to ride my bike up some "iconic" mountains - its not become part of what I am.

Fair play to Rapha for putting thier money where their mouth is  - but you can see why the clothes cost what they do when you have for factor in making woven bagdes and sending them to members of the public.

I also do have to admit that despite the comments above I have an item of Rapha clothing - but in my defence I was given this. Its a convoluted tale but a supplier to the company I work for is Austrian and a friend of Bernie Eisel. Some discussion later and this arrived:

 

Personally signed as you can just about see below:

Its a medium and whilst I am normally a medium this is what I guess is called a racing fit - I have to breathe in to do it up but once in and on the bike its OK. It does look great and it is comfortable. Given that it is unique to me I have worn it only a few times - not sure of the value of Bernie vs. say Chris Froome but its pretty valuable to me. Thanks Bernie.

Obsessessed?

On Saturday I went out for as short a ride as I could to do just over 2000ft of ascent. There was still some snow on the ground and it was cold - so why on earth would I do that?

Basically - Strava. I sign up for the monthly challenges and try to complete some of them. Last year (2014) I managed to do 11 of them: http://midlandscyclist.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/jlr-strava-club-longest-ride-we-21.html.

Normally the ones I managed to complete were the Grand Fondo - made easier last year as the distance was reduced to 80 miles from 100 the year before. I managed all of them from April to December. I also completed two others by a lucky alignment of when they fell in the months (a 5 weekend month always stands a higher chance of higher mileage). I have not yet managed to complete an MTS challenge at 1250km for a month though

For 2015 there were some new challenges introduced in January - there was a shorter Fondo of 100km (64 miles), a Grand Fondo of 150km and a climbing challenge. I felt I was in for a good chance for the shorter Fondo with a planned ride on 1 Jan from my parents to my sister in law in Billingshurst which was just under 60 miles. I thought that a few extra loops near the end would strike that one off, but I ended up being 0.5miles too short - I was really quite annoyed. Here's the ride: https://www.strava.com/activities/235324641

Given 60+ miles in January is 4+ hours for me in the Winter I felt that that was it for any of the January challenges. I plodded on riding miles through January and because there was some ice I rode a few trips over to Rose Hill in the Lickey Hills to do repeats (the roads there and back are mainly bus routes so clear of ice). The first time I rode the Bilberry Hill ascent and the second time the other side of the Old Birmingham Road ascent. These rides are not really climbs but the roads over from home are rolling and it is easily possible to get over 100ft/mile - not bad for a city. I managed a couple of 50 mile rides and commuted to work twice. All in al this riding resulted in me getting to Saturday 31 Jan "needing" just over 2000 feet to a challenge. So I did, back over to Rose Hill again:

I also completed 381miles in January - most definitely a PB.

And on Sunday 1 Feb as it was dry I rode the Scott again for the first time in several months - it was a pleasure and always feels "better" than the Giant. With the massive tailwind I achieved a 20mph average for the first 20 miles although I paid for it when I turned back into the wind.

Target Exceeded

I have a personal target to cycle 5000 miles per year. That's about 100 miles/week. When I started cycling "properly" in 2010 (after getting back into it in 2009) I set a target of 4000 miles that I thought would be tough. However I achieved 5000 that year without really trying, so have kept the target at 5000/year since then. I achieved this distance in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and even got a few hundred extra through December as well. However in late 2012 and 2013 my wife was seriously ill so I did not make the 5000. I did a huge distance in the middle 6 months of 2013 but this did not make up for the slow start and to be honest I was exhausted by September and after this my priorities were elsewhere. 4700 miles or so was as good as it was going to be.

The start of 2014 saw poor weather and priorities still elsewhere and by the time the weather started to get better in March I'd decided that 4000 miles was a more practical and acceptable target for the year. However a set of circumstances came together and I did a lot of commuting to work in 2014 and these are a relatively easy 36 miles a day. As well as this the weather was pretty good for a lot of the year and I rode most weekends as well. By week 20 (April/May) I had done more than enough miles to get back on target for 5000/year and from then until the end of September I was able to keep turning the miles out with a mix of commuting and riding. We also had a few UK holidays when I was able to get some riding in which included a  week in the Lake District and the 2014 Ride London. I was pretty tired however by this time and a big ride at the very start of October saw the 5000 miles roll past. I then had a long weekend away for our 25th Wedding Anniversary and it was the first weekend I'd not ridden since March and a much needed break it was.

At this point I felt "mission accomplished" and that whilst I would not stop riding I could take it easy and any more miles would be a pleasant bonus. However a continuation of reasonable weather meant that I was still doing more miles that I realised and by the start of December 6000 miles was very possible. At this point I tried much harder, and with the benefit of some days holiday to burn before Christmas I was able to bank more miles in. By the last weekend before Christmas I had just over 100 miles to go, so I pushed on and finally, with a 50 mile ride on Boxing Day passed the 6000 mile mark. (In actual fact I'd passed it a few weeks before by the target is Strava miles and I have a 3rd bike that I don't record on Strava but barely does 1-200 miles per year).

Here's one of the graphs I generate with my Excel sheet :

And here's the source data (by month)

The green cells are where I have cycled more miles that the target requires (based on amortising the miles evenly over the whole year)

The other motivator was the Strava Grand Fondo challenges - the problem I had this year is that I missed the first 3 (Jan to Mar) but after than I got all of them up to Octobers and then felt motivated enough to push for the Nov & Dec ones - although the Dec one was about 10 miles too far in all honesty - after the miles I had done earlier in the year by the time Nov came around 60 miles was pretty close to my limit - especially when the weather is cold.

Interestingly (?) according to my Excel spreadsheet the split of miles between my Giant (commuting and bad weather riding and with mudguards) and my Scott (shiny summer bike) is this year is an almost 50:50 split within 100 miles or so. I think this reflects a lot more commuting miles and a reluctance to keep cleaning the Scott after winter rides - and the value of mudguards even if they are only Crud RoadRacers.

Here's the split of mileage between bikes:

I am ecstatic with 6000 miles - its a fantastic personal achievement. However it came at a bit of a price because by October I was pretty well exhausted and needed a rest. I think 5000 miles is a much sensible target given the time balance with the family. I consider commuting miles as "free" in terms of family commitment as I am out before anyone gets up anyway and back home only 30 minutes or so later at most. Next year, while I want to try for the 5000 again I'd like to try and push average speed up by 0.5mph or so which I think is a much tougher target

Here's the Strava data:

JLR Strava Club - Longest Ride w/e 21 December 2014

I wanted to get the Strava Grand Fondo 12 badge as this would mean that I achieved 9 of the 12 in 2014 - starting with the April one and getting them every month. It meant a long ride on Friday 19 Dec that I was not sure that I'd make.I had been feeling pretty tired again - it's been a long year both at home and at work and my mileage had been dropping off, as expected as the year end approached. The Friday was the first day of my holiday, the weather was dry and not too cold although the wind was strengthening. I decided to ride one of the routes to the North of Meriden which is about 75 miles and then add some distance on the way back. The problem with the Meriden routes is that there's only one way to get to the routes and that's to Meriden, and hence it means its often the same route back as well - so there's nearly 20 miles of "there and back" whatever else you do on the way out of Meriden.

Anyway I set off and felt reasonably good. I had a few energy bars and gels on the way. It was windier than I had expected and seemed to build as distance went on. The sun was out though and it was "warm enough". The turn back at about 40 miles was welcome although I was feeling quite tired by that point. My Giant is not a bad bike but it currently has the original Giant wheels with 25mm Gatorskins on for winter use and these are about 1.5kg heavier than the normal wheel/tyre set (Cole Rollens). The return leg was about keeping the pace sensible and making sure I got the distance in rather than any chasing of segments. The last 10 miles was hard as I was really tired, and I needed to do a couple of local roads to make sure I got the distance - 82.2 miles and the Grand Fondo was mine.

Here's the route http://www.strava.com/activities/230801673:

As an added bonus I also rode the furthest of the JLR Strava club:

And thanks to the great Veloviewer site I can see all my completed challenges for 2014 in all their glory:

In fact Veloviewer is so good that I paid the pittance of about £9.50 for a year - its about £60 for Strava Pro and I don't think that Strava matches the features - I certainly don't need to set a target in Strava to work towards it.

A Training Ride for my Upcoming 100 mile Rides

On 13 July my son and I are riding the Dynamic Rides 100 (link) and I'm doing the Ride London 2014 in August. I have not ridden 100 miles for quite a long time 2012 although I have done a lot of 80 mile rides in the last few years. I have no issues riding the London route - its pretty flat, but the Dynamic Rides is likely to be a bit more challenging I think, based on the other Mac Rides that I have ridden - its included Saintbury Hill for example which is a reasonable slog. Given that the Dynamic Rides event is only 4 weeks away I felt that I really needed to push up the mileage - mainly to get used to sitting on a bike for 6 hours or so again, and also getting the food and drink better over the ride so that I still felt OK at the end. Finally I really wanted to get more time in the sun as during the Parkinsons ride I was feeling a little too much sun by the end. A 100 mile ride is more of a whole day and if the sun is too strong it can be unpleasant.

So this weekend I decided to go for another 80mile ride and go down to Evesham, loop back and do enough miles to get the 80 (there was another carrot in that this would complete the June Strava challenge as well. The weather was a bit overcast, but there was a reasonable tail wind and the pace was really high down to Evesham - in fact I had 19.7mph average by the time I got to the bridge over the river. However after riding up the pedestrianised section to get heading back I was turned right into the wind and realised at the point that there was no chance of keeping anything like that pace home - especially as its uphill back. It was a drag but I felt that despite this I was able to keep some level of pace. At Astwood Bank I turned off to go up to The Lickeys. My legs were start to feel it but I was still able to keep a reasonable pace. The flat run from Beoley to Hockley Heath was OK - 20mph cruise - and that sort of pace is useful to bring the overall average up. 

Back at home I was very pleased - 86miles, 18.2mph average, 4:44 ride time. I had thought of doing another few miles to do a hundred but the high pace that I was pleased with was not really doing me any favours by then - and I wanted to be home for other things for the day. 

The only downside was that it stayed overcast for the whole time, so no benefit for the time in the sun objective! But I felt much better prepared for a 100 miler

Here's the Strava data:

Big Miles after Easter

I've just had a weeks holiday after Easter and was able to get out and do some big miles this week. It ended up being 261.6 miles for the week - one of the biggest I have done. It culminated in an 82 miler in the Sunday - I stuck out the dubious weather to get a ride this long as a) I wanted to try and complete one of the Strava challenges (Grand Fondo 4 to be precise - a single ride of over 130km/80miles) and b) also complete the Spring Classics Challenge (1266km between 26 Mar 14 and 5 May 14). An 80 mile ride would complete these both in one fell swoop. What surprised me was that after 180 miles in the week already was how good I felt for the distance. I managed 17.2pmh over the 80 miles and got 56 Strava PRs which I was also pretty pleased with, although I had to do some dummy loops around home to make sure I made the distance.
Here's the achievements:

For the princely sum of $109 + $20 postage I have "earned" the right to buy one of these from Strava:




 
But I don't think I will..

I also entered the the Velobici Spring Classics Challenge. This was similar to the Strava Spring Classics Challenge but ran from 9 Mar 14 to 27 Apr 14 (it finished the same day as the Liege-Bastogne-Liege race) - 1098 miles in 50 days. I was 100 miles short of this challenge, finishing 6 of the 7 races:

I was disappointed to not achieve all 1098 miles but was pretty happy to get as far as I did. There are prizes on offer so lets keep my fingers crossed.

Finally this weeks mileage meant I figured strongly on the JLR Strava club:

It's worth noting that Steve Jefferies and Chris Spencer had ridden the Liege-Bastogne-Liege race (the Sportive on the Saturday) and this was why they only just beat me. Well done to them both.

Strava Challenges

Strava - the primary motivator? Or just a means to talk the talk?

Every month on Strava there's at least one challenge, possibly two. What is this challenge? Normally some absurd target that mere cycling mortals like myself can't hope to achieve. Until about 1/2 way through last year I never really bothered as I knew I wouldn't be able to complete them. Then on the excellent veloviewer site a new page appeared showing how well you were progressing against these challenges whether you had signed up for them or not. As a result I now sign up to them regardless of chance of completion as I'll see the desperately low level of achievement regardless.

On the veloviewer page there are 35 challenges listed. I have completed just 2. There is about 2 others that I got close to completing but most of them I am lucky to have achieved over 50%. 

Any in the winter are non-starters. The Rapha 500 is such an example. I just don't have the time to ride 500km in the 10 days or so that it runs for. And even if I did the weather is likely to stop riding and I can't and don't want to be that selfish to the rest of the family.

One way to possibly look at achieving this challenge could be to take this approach: http://cyclingtips.com.au/2014/01/riding-the-festive-500-in-one-go/

Maximum kudos but they had to be somewhat mad to attempt it! 

If I achieve another 2 this year I'll be ecstatic, but as I mentioned in an earlier post it cost me pretty dear to do the miles.