MFP Cycling Challenges for 2013
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Anyway - Once I've decided on the specifics of the spot challenge (hopefully by close of play tomorrow) I'll post the definitive list of spot prizes in the entries thread...
Edit: Decided...And the Obligatory "Spot Prize" post...
1 Point - Excessive Gradient (10% or steeper)
2 Points - Excessive Gradient on Cobbles (10% or steeper)
1 Point - Ride Snack - Waffles
1 Point - Recovery Drink - Hoegaarden
(there's a few Belgian classics, and We'll be having a different Tipple / Snack each time.)
Thread will open for entries around 12:00 Noon GMT on 23rd March for the convenience of any nocturnal antipodeans...0 -
I will introduce to you all the waffle - Chinese style :bigsmile:
Will try to locate the hoegaarden - or can I write the name on my water bottle :drinker:0 -
Just looked at Sundays forecast... :frown:
Strong 19mph westerly, gusting to 38mph. Temperature (in the wind) no higher than -4°C... What a jolly day for a ride! :frown:
I'm on call this weekend too :grumble:0 -
Temp is good here but "A few showers and squally thunderstorms":sad:0
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For the "excessive" gradient, how long does it need to be? Have several segments that are in the >10% range, but one I'm targeting the avergage is 9.6%, but sections ramp to 15-18+% What counts? What proof? Bummer we have no cobbles here, plenty of dirt roads that feel like cobbles though.
Oh yeah, forecast says highs in the 50's, partly coudy and light winds.0 -
Well - over here, we have roadsigns on excessive gradients, something like this...
I'd suggest that anything with one of those at the bottom with 1:10 or 10% (or steeper) would be fine... I'd probably take a shot of the roadsign as my proof rather than anything else...
As to distance - I hate climbing, so my aim would be to find something as short as possible :laugh:
I'm considering this one...
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=woolley+edge&ll=53.626234,-1.524393&spn=0.001032,0.002725&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&fb=1&gl=uk&hq=woolley+edge&hnear=woolley+edge&cid=0,0,14309836540745066848&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=53.626128,-1.524406&panoid=31cb1EeieMXH5nDRbCyR-w&cbp=12,176.09,,0,16.540 -
Wife working 12 hours on Sunday. Kids football is already cancelled and cannot pawn them off. If I get some miles in on Sunday it will be a miracle, but will still try, the cobbled hill could be incorporated into a ten minute ride, but if the snow is still around, attempting it will be plain stupid.
Wont be logging much else this weekend with the weather either.
Still smiling though.
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Above seeing the above, I reckon the spot prizes chances for me will be the waffles and beer...0
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Above seeing the above, I reckon the spot prizes chances for me will be the waffles and beer...
Considering it's been snowing for the last 30 hours or so here, I'm expecting to get on the MTB, and ride/push maybe a couple of miles and back home, declare my feeble mileage and take the bottom of the table position plus the waffles and beer bonus points.
I've even spent the morning on a mapping site, converting the Parcours map into a .GPX file so I can ride it on the indoor trainer... That way can at least get SOME exercise and feel part of the challenge this week!
it's worth a look at the route I did anyway, as theres a really neat "google earth tour"
http://www.gpsies.com/map.do?fileId=hppuabelypyxzvvj0 -
Here's were I'm hoping to go tomorrow, just realised it is one way so let's hope there's no traffic in the morning!
no gradient signs though, but you can tell its >10%0 -
No cobblestone roads here in Sunny Sandy Eggo, but living in a valley means there are plenty of routes with gradients over 10%. I'll definitely include on in my ride tomorrow, and hope I don't die in the process :happy:
Not a beer drinker so will have to miss out on that point, but I have the waffles covered... I have a friend from Holland who brings me a pack of their special "waffels" whenever he visits, this sounds like the perfect occasion to bust open the pack for a couple
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I have a friend from Holland who brings me a pack of their special "waffels" whenever he visits
I'm surprised that Customs allows the transportation of anything 'special' from Holland :bigsmile:0 -
Here's were I'm hoping to go tomorrow, just realised it is one way so let's hope there's no traffic in the morning!
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no gradient signs though, but you can tell its >10%
Constitution hill will be fine mate! 20% / 25% iirc0 -
Well - it's looking good, one or two people have managed to get a ride in... Mine was (ahem) somewhat minimal, so I decided to climb onto the trainer and ended up riding the entire Tacx VR DVD of the "Ronde van Vlaanderen" - all 103.89km of it.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/288266053
I'd never actually ridden this disc before, and after checking the profile and gradients, I decided that there was no way on earth I'd be able to ride the entire thing without making things a little easier - so I turned the power setting down to 60% and lied about my weight (75kg instead of 108!)
This made the entire thing do-able for me in around 3 hours... Of course, it also means that the elevation, slope and distances aren't 100% true to life - for me, that's academic, as really, all I'm interested in is how long, and how much power developed.
The Profile looks a little like a saw blade, all up and down, with a list of climbs that pretty much read like a littany of Flandrian Suffering...
Kluisberg, Knokteberd, Oude-Kwaremont, Pateberg, Kortekeer, Steenbeekdries, Taaienberg, Eikenberg, Leberg, Berendries Valkenberg, Tenbosse, Eikenmolen, Kapelmuur and the Bosberg... Maximum slope of 17.6% (on cobbles!) and 1.25km of climbing without an alp in sight!
But, the best bit of the whole disk, is that it's shot from what appears to be the "lead car" on race day... So, the road is lined with spectators all the way, there's banners marking the bottom and top of each 'berg, there's motorcycle outriders in front of you, and you get to ride all the way up the finishing funnel, under the finish line, and into the scrum of photographers at the end of the route. Frankly, I felt almost like Cancellara in 2010, and it was all I could do not to straighten my jersey for the photographers and put my hands above my head in a victory salute, it was THAT immersive...
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Fantastic ride! the scenes look so unbelievably real!0
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I didn't get in as long of a ride as I would have liked but I still managed to get about 15 miles, including one stretch which ended up being about an 11% grade and took me two stops to get up it
But hey, combined weight of 200lbs (me + bike) up an 11% grade, I think 2 stops while going up it is fair If I could have taken a screenshot of my phone I could have shown Ipbike reporting the grade percentage, but since I didn't know how to do that, I took a picture instead... and if I ever figure out how to attach pictures to posts, I'll post it
As for the "waffel" snack, I didn't have pockets to store them to eat during the ride, and really didn't have time to stop for a snack during the ride anyway, I had them post-ride. The aforementioned Dutch import, they were stroopwafels, and *delicious* I'll also post a pic of those as well once I figure out how to do so.
Lastly, I got my first sunburn of the season Sadly, only on my arms, but my leg tan lines from last year haven't faded yet 0 -
Fantastic ride! the scenes look so unbelievably real!
They are real - in that they are screenshots from the HD quality video that is speed-linked to your riding... As I said, it's incredibly immersive!0 -
Hope everyone go their ride finished - I'll be closing the entries thread down at around 9pm GMT tonight, anyone without details posted by then will get a DNS I'm afraid... This is the third time around, we allshould "know the drill" by now - if you've some "special problem" that prevents posting, put a "placeholder" entry in the entries thread and PM me with the reason...0
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Thread Now closed, final submissions in, and results posted. Well done everyone who got a ride in :drinker:0
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Yay, finally made it onto the podium! Although I feel a bit of a cheat seeing as most of the UK is under several feet of snow yet on this tiny corner there's not so much as a snow flake!
Well done to everyone who managed to get out and hard lines to those whose efforts were hampered by the white stuff
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Same here, finally a podium place :bigsmile: Feeling a bit unfair as I have the absolute advantage of nice weather here.
This Classics Challenge is really fun & motivating, love it. Can't wait for Sunday, another cycling day of cycling in the morning then watch the race in the evening (just guessing... no idea what the time is)!0 -
Sunday was the longest ride by me in a long time, I tried to do this exact route when I first moved to where I live and had to call for extraction about 1/2 way in I was so cooked. So while I didn't podium, it was a huge deal for me, beating a demon!
Totally digging the challenges as they're getting me off the couch on weekend mornings instead of being ensconced playing CoD for hours. I figure that if I keep incrementally adding the mileage I'll be riding to New Mexico and back before the end of the season! (sounds more impressive than it may be, but it's oinly 62 miles to the border :bigsmile: )0 -
Glad the challenge is providing a little motivation to get out there and ride, that was one of the main reasons behind the whole thing - the other being to perhaps give some of the newer riders in our midst a little insight into and background behind the sport that I love so much!
It would be so much more simple to just post a list of dates and let everyone get on with it, recording the information once a week, but to be honest, it helps me get into the spirit of things preparing the "potted history" of the race, and trying to dream up spot prizes. I'll say one thing though - Unless I find an easy way of checking, I'm not doing any more excessive gradient ones - it takes bloody ages to trawl manually through some of the GPS files to check the gradients...0 -
Forecast Looking good for Sunday (Since when was 6°C considered Good for Easter Sunday?!)
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Forecast Looking good for Sunday (Since when was 6°C considered Good for Easter Sunday?!)
I hope your Right the last couple of classics have been run in more like this sort of weather..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWL54Abw1Go&feature=youtube_gdata_player 0 -
I hope your Right the last couple of classics have been run in more like this sort of weather..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWL54Abw1Go&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I'll be honest - if I hadn't have been organising this challenge, there's no way on earth that I'd have been out on the bike this past Sunday (even for the minimal 20-odd minutes or so I spent!) It just felt wrong somehow - that I was encouraging all you lot to go out there, when I didn't have the cojones to pull on the lycra and turn a crank myself...0 -
I hope your Right the last couple of classics have been run in more like this sort of weather..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWL54Abw1Go&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I'll be honest - if I hadn't have been organising this challenge, there's no way on earth that I'd have been out on the bike this past Sunday (even for the minimal 20-odd minutes or so I spent!) It just felt wrong somehow - that I was encouraging all you lot to go out there, when I didn't have the cojones to pull on the lycra and turn a crank myself...
All part of the Challenge and will make the warmer summer days all the more enjoyable0 -
Warmer Summer Days... In Yorkshire... Are you on crack ??? :laugh:
we've just had a 19 month winter!0 -
Okay, I've decided that the RVV Bonus Points will be awarded as Follows:
In Ride Bonus - 1 point for 500m of ascent, 2 points for 1000m, 3 Points for 1500m or above.
Snack Bonus - 1 point for Waffles OR Belgian Chocolate (eat both if you want, but there's only 1 point for it...)
Post Ride Recovery Drink - 1 point for any GENUINE Belgian beer... so, Hoegaarden, Leffe, Duvel, Orval or any fancy trappist stuff you can find... I reserve the right to withold points if someone posts "wifebeater", or award extra if someone gets a really exotic one!
Nothing for Pavé this week - I'm saving that one for Next Week.
And finally, what I'm calling a "Billy No Mates" bonus - 1 point extra for anyone who's riding solo... extra kudos to the poor benighted souls out in the freezing conditions for 4-5 hours with only their Garmin and that irritating creak from the rear mudguard for company smile0 -
Some great ride reports coming in from todays ride... Cloggsy71 in particular taking things to another level with a in-ride video diary. Really did think he was going to have the Discovery at one point...
Keep 'em coming people, it's a great way to spend an evening for me, looking at everyone's rides and the fun they've had...0
This discussion has been closed.