2016 MFP Grand Tour Challenge - Vuelta Now Up and Rolling...
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A BIG thank you, Mark & Jason, for all of the time & effort you have both invested in to running the Tour challenges and Cycleagues! It's amazing how effortless you guys have made it for us competitors.
I would have liked to contribute more to this challenge but this summer hasn't been the typical 'summer break' for me & my daughter. Free time has been quite low. Get in where you can fit in, I suppose!
Big ups, Jason, for your rides preparing for LeJog this year. Between the 10 days of centuries & your long distance excursions up walls, you are one tough cookie, bro! Thanks for sharing your experiences with the group.
Clive, kudos to you and thanks for the competition over this challenge. It demanded performing at a higher level and pushed me to new limits. It was also a wake up call to shed more pounds! Curious if you PR avg speed this challenge compared to those in the past?
Mark, you've come a long way since last year! I hope your healthy progression continues forward, friend. And stay on the bike because I usually get a chuckle from your post ride reports!
And to everyone else, congrats! I hope you accomplished some goals over these 3 weeks.
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well - that's the TdF Challenge riding over with for another year... Once again, I've said to myself "get out somewhere different this time" and once again I've stuck to the same old circuits - okay, maybe not quite as much as @FitterBody - but still very much a restricted set of loops and locations, and all "out of the back door"...
This REALLY brings it home... not sure if this link will work, but if it does, it's a interactive map - click on the profile, and get the loop...
http://veloviewer.com/athlete/165533/wheel
I started this incarnation of the challenge with a few objectives...
1) Don't Die During It. - check
2) Ride further than last year (602.8km) - check, rode 735.8km, up 22%, also faster (it's all relative - for most of you it's still hideously slow I know) 20.92kph/19.68kph, and with more ascent 5715m/5339m
3) Really, Don't Die During it. - check
4) Try and ride "my share" of the distance and ascent (i.e. have a figure of more than 11.1% of the team's ascent and distance total) - at least that way I know I've "pulled my weight" - can't tell yet, not everyone on the teams ridden, but it's looking good at 12.1% for each)
5) Did I mention Not Dying?? - check
6) to try and get into the "top 10" on at least one "jersey category" - too early to say yet.
7) to still be alive to set up the challenge for LaVuelta, as that's the one i'm slightly scared about, after last year...
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Thanks Mark, thanks Jason! Without you two thus just won't gonna be happen.1
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I've been on MFP over five years (really?) and this is the group that keeps me going, through care-giving and medical issues and life crap. Thanks a bunch, particularly Mark and Jason. My rides get shorter and slower and closer to home every year, but I am still riding and so is the husband, and we are pretty darn happy about it.
Lord willing, and the creek don't rise... we will be riding in Europe next year during the tour and will be at the first couple of stages in person. At least, that's our goal for next year (assuming we save enough money, have good enough health, and cancer and lyme stay in the background). I've already booked a place in Düsseldorf in hope!5 -
Love the wheel graphic from veloviewer, TBY!
I made mine (roughly, using the free version) and it shows nothing but two dots because I biked only in Las Vegas and at home (western Arkansas) so the routes are too small to show at the zoomed out view that shows both locations, I just see a big swath of the USA! HA!
But, I still didn't get more than mile as the crow flies from home (or the hotel in Vegas) on any single ride the whole time. This is a product of weird health issues and having to occasionally bike for home under duress (maybe five times during the Tour) in the middle of a planned ride.
Next year I hope to have a much more interesting wheel.
I made my original goal of at least 100k a week during the Tour although I didn't expect to make it when we started. Of course, these are the slowest kilometers ever biked, but who cares. So glad to be cycling slowly and not stuck in bed or hospital or 6 feet under!
And have I mentioned how proud I am of Team Twinkie Scoff?
What an awesome group of folks on my team and in the whole challenge! 
Thanks again, y'all!2 -
Thanks Mark & Jason for making the last month a lot more fun that it would have been and getting this gerbil out and around his Skylane circuit a lot more often than he would have been leading to me becoming a fitter faster gerbil than I was last month! I will ensure the bearings are all greased up and ready to go for the La Vuelta challenge next month which I am sure will be a wheely wheely good challenge ;-)1
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Many Kudos to Mark and Jason ... the challenges definitely get me out on my bike more than I probably would otherwise, and definitely have pushed me to pick up my average speed this year especially.
MANY thanks for doing away with the need to put up a text file every day to log rides ... PyschLeagues has been a boon as far as I'm concerned!
I always feel bad for the team I end up on, because my little slices of time don't amount to much mileage ... but I do my best with what time I have (you have 6 kids in the house and see how much time you have to ride LMAO)1 -
Thanks for a great challenge once again!
Great riding with/seeing everyone's rides and special thanks to Mark and Jason for their work getting and keeping things running. It definitely motivated me to get out and ride at least double what I would have otherwise!1 -
many thanks to Mark and Jason, it was so much easier not having to go on and log the rides manually. Gutted we came last...
Lol! But pleasantly surprised and happy to be near the top of the VAM table :drinker:
looking forrward to the next challenge!1 -
Thank you guys -- this is a great group. I wasn't as consistent as I wanted to be but you guys sure inspired me to get out and try to get some miles as often as possible.
Cheers everyone... thanks again.1 -
I'll not try and reply individually to all the Thank-You's folks - as I'm bound to miss someone out, and they'll feel like they're being ignored
... let me just say I've read everything on here, and I'm just glad you've all enjoyed it...
My own thanks go out first of all to Jason - without that wonderful little routine he's written in the CycLeagues app, we'd still have been entering everything manually... which means, well - frankly, this years challenges wouldn't have happened, as I've been struggling to manage to ride and tidy the sheet up twice a day, never mind adding a hour or so worth of data entry into the equation...
And, while I'm on the subject of thanks due... the biggest thanks go out to all of you who signed up and rode - be it all 21 stages, or just a few, short distances or stupid km's - without you lot, it'd just have been me and Jason, sitting at computers, inconveniencing a bunch of electrons for no real reason.
Stay tuned tomorrow for the official "prizegiving" thread... I've got a bunch of shirts to prepare, so I'll leave you all for now, hopefully enjoying your rest day off the bike - I know I have been!
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well - that's the TdF Challenge riding over with for another year... Once again, I've said to myself "get out somewhere different this time" and once again I've stuck to the same old circuits - okay, maybe not quite as much as @FitterBody - but still very much a restricted set of loops and locations, and all "out of the back door"...
This REALLY brings it home... not sure if this link will work, but if it does, it's a interactive map - click on the profile, and get the loop...
http://veloviewer.com/athlete/165533/wheel
I started this incarnation of the challenge with a few objectives...
1) Don't Die During It. - check
2) Ride further than last year (602.8km) - check, rode 735.8km, up 22%, also faster (it's all relative - for most of you it's still hideously slow I know) 20.92kph/19.68kph, and with more ascent 5715m/5339m
3) Really, Don't Die During it. - check
4) Try and ride "my share" of the distance and ascent (i.e. have a figure of more than 11.1% of the team's ascent and distance total) - at least that way I know I've "pulled my weight" - can't tell yet, not everyone on the teams ridden, but it's looking good at 12.1% for each)
5) Did I mention Not Dying?? - check
6) to try and get into the "top 10" on at least one "jersey category" - too early to say yet.
7) to still be alive to set up the challenge for LaVuelta, as that's the one i'm slightly scared about, after last year...
Everyone that puts their time in working this out. Big Thank you! You guys do an awesome job. I love these challenges1 -
The triple tours didn't go quite to plan but I'm still pretty happy with the training stuck in since April, six weeks to LeJog and now it's just standard training to the event in September to keep the fitness up. Stats so far are: 6,780 km over 108 rides with 58,323 meters of climbing, 294 hours in the saddle.
All in the name of charity:
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Jason-Savage3
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I'm really looking forward to the epic write up Mark usually composes; it's a superb 'finishing touch' to the whole thing...
Wait no Longer Clive...
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10433397/2016-tdf-challenge-prizegiving-thread#latest
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Okay folks, as I'm starting into Setup for the Vuelta Challenge, I guess it's time to throw the "sign-ups" open...
Same 4 basic teams as Giro and TdF, but as always, I reserve the right to do the odd transfer to balance the teams out a bit...
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I'm going to have to pass on this one0
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Count me in.0
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I'm in0
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I should probably skip it as I am travelling from 19th Aug to 3rd Sep (although i might hire a bike a couple of times)
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Count us in, me and BamaBoyScout.0
