I've seen that location (well - they all look the same after a while, be it Wakefield, Pontefract, Dewsbury, Nottingham, Northallerton or Middlesborough...) far too often over the past year or so... can people PLEASE not go and end up there again...

jillyian wrote: »

Lambs....as in Sheep?
Where do you live...
Also sorry to hear about the accident/injuries

There's lots of the upland areas in Yorkshire where pretty much the only kind of farming that the land will support is sheep farming - the Sheep are basically free to roam all over the place "beyond the cattle grids" - a good portion of the first stage of the Tour De France was on these kind of roads... Up there however, locals KNOW that the sheep are basically a) very stupid and b) suicidal - they'll stand at the side of the road, and watch you coming towards them... then when you're 3 yards away, they bolt - but usually ACROSS your path... Difference is with what happened to Clive, is that the damned Lambs had got out from the field - fence/walls/gate in a poor state of repair, and ... well... that I said about Sheep goes double for Spring Lambs... Equally Sucidal, but probably even more Stupid than the Adults...

just a timely reminder for those of you who are participating in the Classics Challenge - the "one off" summer semi-classic - Clásica de San Sebastián - is this Saturday. As per usual, rides on either Saturday or Sunday count, but you need to pick one and add it to the logging thread. I know, you've all been spoiled by the automagic stuff on the TdF Challenge, but that's the way it Is I'm afraid...

At least I've reminded you all...

late amendment folks...

following this discussion in the ride submissions thread...

stewartlayzell wrote: »

Is it too late to get my ride in from yesterday ? Strava was playing up big time transferring the data from the Garmin. Had to manually move the file across today.

TheBigYin wrote: »

stewartlayzell wrote: »

Is it too late to get my ride in from yesterday ? Strava was playing up big time transferring the data from the Garmin. Had to manually move the file across today.

ah, thought that there may be one or two people caught up in that problem - my ride was mangled as well...

drop it in there, and I'll add it retro-actively, extra points will count for overall, but I'll not be swapping the "announcements" if that's ok with everyone.

stewartlayzell wrote: »

Ah cheers for this. First time ever i do a 100 mile ride and it was also the London Ride 100 event and the Strava servers didn't update my records. I was gutted, if it wasn't on Strava did the ride even exist - I was worried

Details:
31/07/2016 - Classica San Sabastian - 160.2km - 1,141m - https://www.strava.com/activities/660803074

the points will be adjusted in the spreadsheet to reflect Stewarts Ride. As I've already handed out the prizes and points, the points for 20 down to 2 will NOT be altered. Instead, Stewart will ALSO get 20 points for his ride. Seems fairest solution - as the delay in getting his data submitted wasn't his fault, there was a documented problem with the Strava Servers

https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/223973787-Site-Issues-Sunday-July-31st

2016 Classics Challenge year end roundup



this weekends winning rides for Paris-Tours are as follows:

In third place, we have a new starter to the Classics Challenge - @lbchilds2001 with a strong opening (and season closing) ride of 105.4km

In second place, by a very close margin, theres @jillyian with 106.8km

and in first place, with a very commendable ride of 115.2km on his 'cross bike we have Clive @cloggsy71 - Congratulations Clive, for the win, and for a strong finish to the season, after your early campaign was interrupted by the "lamb incident"...

Here's the individual standings for this event...



and, so, we move onto the overall winner of this season-long challenge... One of the things l like about this challenge is that it gives a chance for the people who only get to ride on a weekend to go out and show us what they're made of - of course the overall rewards consistency, just by showing up every race, you can pretty much get close to the podium (as you'll see later when I start the "podium ceremony") - but to win, you need to be out in the miserable weather of early spring, and riding a good few hours every time...

Anyway, here we go, the Overall Winners Podium of the 2016 Classics Challenge is as follows...

As is customary in these things, we'll go in reverse order, so...

In Third position, by the closest of margins, is Jill @jillyian with 215 points and 954.3km (narrowly shading me into 4th position (with the same points and 932.9km)) - over the duration of the competition she had 8 podiums (3G,2S,3B) and only missed 4 events of the 20.

In Second Position, with 239 points and 1144.9km's is Jason @jakess1971 - another close thing for first and second here, with only 4 points separating the top two riders over 20 rides. Jason spent quite a bit of time on the podium himself - again 8 podiums over the 20 rides, (6G,2S), and had 5 DNS's


And our Overall Winner, with 243 points and 1331.2km is Graham @BigG59 - this time with 10 podiums (3G,5S,2B) and again 4 DNS's. Congratulations Graham, you're a worthy winner of the challenge...



full details of the overall standings are in the summary sheet below, or you can always check the google spreadsheet on

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1USBZpOdSTdQu0Ia9K3Nh1nwot8aj1I7p8bxlfm_N9JE/edit?usp=sharing

if you want full-on data geekery...



Overall it was a ridiculously close run thing... indeed, if Jason had have ridden just 12.1km further on the final event, things would have been very different - he'd have won by 2 points, Graham would have been second, and I'd have sneaked onto the podium as third by two points instead of Jill... Bet you're regretting falling on you're *kitten* now Jason and not completing the Century you'd got planned...

Still - if's, buts, and maybe's aside, the fact that it was all quite so close means that I think I've got the formula right for the points, allowing it to maintain interest right to the end of the challenge... I also think that adding in the "semi-classics" has been something of a success, though I'm not entirely convinced by the "best ride of the weekend" aspect (even if I took advantage of that flexibility myself on a couple of occasions) - mainly because it means that people simply don't declare their rides until the monday morning, and unless you spend hours on Strava you don't know what you're riding against... Maybe that's something that We could address with the CycLeagues program for next season @jakess1971...

those look not too dissimilar to the Vittorias I run through the summer months, but they're just getting to be on the terrifying side of slippery on some of the adverse camber muddy paths I ride around at this point in the year...

File tread with edge knobblies is a good compromise for most of the sustrans stuff though, I agree - but as a few of my regular ones go through the woods or on heavily farm-vehicle used bridleways, theres just a bit too much "mud and roots" for them to cope with in anything much damper than "dust".

It'll not be long before they're replaced by road tyres and mudguards at this rate, with the MTB dragged back out for offroad duties, and the Dolan relegated to full-time indoors... always assuming I'm actually well enough to keep riding outdoors in the colder conditions (breathing issues rather than the ticker!)



Anyway - The challenge is pretty much over with until spring, so, guess it's time to un-sticky all the classics threads and make room in the announcements for anything interesting happening on the Winter Challenge front.