just had a PM from @nerdieprofessor asking to join... so that's 5 remaining (one of which is provisionally allocated)

nerdieprofessor wrote: »

The husband wants to play as well, BamaBoyScout on here and Andrew Baldes on strava
https://www.strava.com/athletes/999004

No worries - I'll happily add him in

stewartlayzell wrote: »

Morning

TheBigYin wrote: »

stewartlayzell wrote: »

Count me in if spaces are free

Fine, I'll need you're Strava Athlete Name and Athlete URL before I can sign you up though...

or - if you can confirm that https://www.strava.com/athletes/4805854 is you, I can get straight onto it...

Morning,

Sorry for the delay in responding.

Yes the above Strava user is me

Excellent, consider yourself added too...

Stages 13-16 now mapped

http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/822202933
http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/822214025
http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/822223527
http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/822229225

I'll complete the route in the next batch.

Ooooops... Sorry, I was preoccupied with sorting the maps for the climbing part of the challenge....


Okay, so far that's

1. TheBigYin
2. m1xm0d3
3. TDSeest
4. Jakess1971
5. jillyian
6. anaconda469
7. sufferlandrian
8. hawkeyegal1995
9. cowbellsandcoffee
10. check_mate
11. ntnunk
12. KitTheRoadie
13. rides4sanity
14. Dave2041
15. butters1
16. Spatialized
17. CentralCaliCycling
18. MrsCentralCaliCycling
19. canbbot
20. webtracer
21. cloggsy71
22. kupe
23. mdstamand
24. banshee1013
25. steffenson
26. anviljenkins
27. faugsu
28. lbchilds2001
29. Bram61
30. veloman21
31. @nerdieprofessor
32. @BamaBoyScout
33. @stewartlayzell
34. @Dahamac

Keep them coming folks

i've had a message on my time-line from @JediCounsil asking to take part.

Provisionally I'd say he can have the final slot, and we've got a full rosta of 36 for the final grand tour folks...

Jakess1971 wrote: »

Please avoid sticking me down as GC for this one, I'll be taking it fairly easy/light riding if at all over the first week of the challenge and will be away for the last week so this tour is going to be a bit of a bust really for me personally and I may be a bit of a liability for a team. Feel free to sub me and stick me on the reserves if someone wants a space.

Duly Noted, just turn up and ride when you can J... same goes for everyone in the challenge BTW - we've all been going a little mad in these challenges for the past couple of years, and to be honest, for me, it's been taking a little of the fun out of the whole thing (especially this year as i've been mentally beating myself up for not being able to help dig my team out of last place all the time - you want to talk about being a liability to the team Jason - try this year in my Sidi's)

So folks - it appears that quite a few people are either

• recovering from injuries
• on holiday of a substantial chunk of the 3 weeks
• have other personal issues which may quite rightly take priority over some silly internet cycling challenge.

And that's a GOD THING. Because it proves we're normal human beings, with normal lives, that just also happen to love riding our bikes. And, with a bit of a challenge to spur us on (or provide an excuse to our long suffering families / friends) we get to possibly spend just a little more time on the bike than we would otherwise. And that's all I've been running these challenges for over the past few years. I've been slightly worried by the massive distances and times in the saddle that some people have been clocking up - not only for the potential for them over-reaching themselves, or getting injured because of riding while sleep deprived, or, well, everything really - despite being a grumpy old sod, I do care about every single one of you that signs up for these challenges you know... and if I thought someone got hurt because of some silly challenge I dreamed up 4 years ago, I don't know how I'd live with it.

So, lets just get out there and ride the damned bike when we can, enjoy every turn of the crank, and not worry too much about if "we're letting everyone else in the team down", or "if I've ridden far enough today to get the distance", or "I must do a hill-repeats session today, to get my climbing figures up" or any other such crap. Let's just try and get back to the original premise of the challenge - to ride as far as a Pro does, between the 9 of us on a team... 1 lap is the target, anything else is just gravy.