Pretty sure I got it all sorted. Hope the way it's set-up for the daily doubles works ok. If I'm off let me know.

Spot on now - to be honest, I could pretty much see what had happened, but i'd not had much sleep and couldn't trust myself to just edit it back and sort it - so I posted it into the mileage thread "on trust" and left you to pick up the pieces...

Cheers for sorting things

Last day folks... well done to the two who've already declared as finished, and to everyone else - have a good final days riding... I'll keep the entries thread open for a day or so, just for those who may be in the "backcountry" and sans internet, but if you COULD try and submit your final rides (or the DNS notice if applicable) asap it'd make the whole process that much easier.

Cheers - or should that be Santé!

Right - i'd better get out there - I sort of promised myself i'd get 1,000km+ in over the duration, and i've been a bit lazy, so there's still a good chunk to ride!

Well - once again, it's been an excellent challenge - and really gratifying to see it motivating people to get out there and ride.

And just to be clear - to anyone feeling like they've "let down" their team-mates by not riding as far as they thought they were going to... if you made one ride, you contributed, if you went out on the bike once "because i've signed up to the challenge" then the challenge has been a success...

I know that not all the declarations are in, but there are a few interesting stats already emerging...

Team #1 completed the overall distance with over 63% extra...
Team #2 completed the overall distance with over 51% extra...
and Team #3 (with only 5 riders after the first couple of days) have managed 84% of the distance (with another 9 rides still undeclared) - grossing up their distance to a 9 person team would have meant they rode over 40% extra...

In total, between the lot of us we've ridden over 13,300km - 2.8 times the distance of this years RAAM...

We've climbed at least 63 vertical miles - thats over 11.6 times the height of Everest!

Frankly, we've all done pretty damned well...

Well, what can I say... every time when I start one of these challenges, I go through a whole roller-coaster.

First I'm worried that I'll hold a party, and nobody will turn up...

Then Everyone arrives, and we get started and i'm on a high...

Then people spit their dummy out because they get moderated a little, and I wonder if it's worth it...

Then it settles down and people get stuck into the riding, and I get to see all the amazing places some of you ride (google streetview is a wonderful thing for "virtual exploring"), so I'm back on a high again...

Then towards the end of the final week, and I'm shattered through being too over-competitive and riding more than is good for me, I get low again - especially when it becomes clear I need to average 200km (all uphill) for the last 3 days...

Then it finishes, and I'm partly relieved it's over, and partly depressed that i'm at a loose end all day again...

And Finally, everyone starts chiming in and telling me how much they've enjoyed the challenge, and it's back on a high again.

I'll be honest - after 4-5 days of this challenge, I was at the point of making it the last one I ran. Just a combination of people flouncing out because they couldn't multiply a couple of numbers by 0.621 and type 30 characters or so a day, or people taking the "key slot" in a team, then packing in - it just gave me a complete feeling of "why do I bother". As you've probably guessed, it's no small undertaking to run this - building the spreadsheet for logging and display was a few hours in itself - never mind the on-going ride posting. Even the fun little details like the "dossards" takes time - fortunately i've now got a full set of these for the 3 major tours, so it's a simple job of just swapping numbers to match the names/flags for the usual suspects - but even then it's 2-3 hours of faffing in the run-up to each tour.

At the moment, I am hoping to be able to set up the Vuelta, though I'm not 100% sure if I'll actually be around to update the rides file... I've not actually had a holiday (or even a overnight away from home for that matter) in 7 years, due to being tied to the house looking after my parents, but now I'm just about in a situation where I can take a break - It would also be fair to say that I've bigger issues in my life at the moment than worrying about my weight or fitness...

Little things like being 50 years old, deciding if continuing being self-employed and having to fight to grow my business into a liveable income to pay all the bills or to try and get a "day job" when I've been out of the employment market for over 15 years...
You know, little things...

But - there's still the Classics Challenge to complete, and after this response, I'm happy to set things up for the Vuelta - though I'm not promising to be there every day to enter things up, and I SERIOUSLY doubt i'm going to be clocking in 1,000+ km. So with that in mind, if anyone's still up for it, it's going to be a bit tougher (especially as FDS has announced he's taking a MFP break...)

And now - the grand finale of the Grand Tour Series... La Vuelta.



1 Saturday, August 24 27 km Vilanova de Arousa → Sanxenxo
2 Sunday, August 25 177 km Pontevedra → Baiona. Alto Do Monte Da Groba
3 Monday, August 26 173 km Vigo → Mirador de Lobeira/ Valagarcía de Arousa
4 Tuesday, August 27 187 km Lalín / a Estrada → Finisterra
5 Wednesday, August 28 168 km Sober → Lago de Sanabria
6 Thursday, August 29 177 km Guijuelo → Cáceres
7 Friday, August 30 196 km Almendralejo → Mairena de Aljarafe
8 Saturday, August 31 170 km Jerez de la Frontera → Estepona. Alto de Peñas Blancas
9 Sunday, September 1 174 km Antequera → Valdepeñas de Jaén
R Monday, September 2 Rest day
10 Tuesday, September 3 176 km Torredelcampo → Güéjar Sierra. Alto de Hazallanas
11 Wednesday, September 4 38 km Tarazona → Tarazona
12 Thursday, September 5 157 km Maella → Tarragona
13 Friday, September 6 165 km Valls → Castelldefels
14 Saturday, September 7 164 km Bagà → Andorra. Collada de la Gallina
15 Sunday, September 8 233 km Andorra → Peyragudes
16 Monday, September 9 148 km Graus → Sallent de Gállego. Aramón Formigal
R Tuesday, September 10 Rest day
17 Wednesday, September 11 185 km Calahorra → Burgos
18 Thursday, September 12 186 km Burgos → Peña Cabarga
19 Friday, September 13 178 km San Vicente de la Barquera → Oviedo. Alto del Naranco
20 Saturday, September 14 144 km Avilés → Alto de L´Angliru
21 Sunday, September 15 99 km Leganés / Parquesur → Madrid

Total Distance 3322 km

Bye 'Eck it's filling up quick isn't it