2016 MFP Grand Tour Challenge - Vuelta Now Up and Rolling...
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Well - it's FINALLY the rest day on the Vuelta Challenge folks... time to catch up with all the stuff you've been putting aside, so you can ride that little bit longer... Normally for me a "rest day" seems to be busier than the ride days, mainly as I always seem to have about 4 loads of laundry to sort (normal, bedding, and then 2 loads of cycling kit...) - plus all the routine cleaning and so forth that's been ignored as I slump in my chair post ride... Of course, that's not the case this time for me, as I've only managed 5 days out of 10, with a couple of evenings in A&E to punctuate things... Still - better than I did last year, at least I'm still at home, not in a hospital bed waiting for the Leeches to start carving...
Anyhow - quick roundup, then I'll post the linky to the spreadsheet for full details...
Team Categories are pretty close this time - less than 300km between the 4 teams - Looks like team Lotta Jumbos are making an attempt to save their season, which, in fairness has been a little lacklustre until this tour... Pastana are close by in second place, hampered by my continued absences, with Team Pie and The Twinkies only a couple of decent individual rides behind...
Individual GC is currently held by @FitterBody who's been wearing a groove in that pan flat blue tarmac loop around the airport perimiter... I'll be honest, I've never been keen on riding laps - even on roadraces I preferred the courses that had longer loops - used to hate Criteriums and Kermesses because my mind used to wander - so riding over 600km in 10 days over the same loop is just mind boggling for me...
Speed is also held by Gordon, though @m1xm0d3 is giving him a run for his money, and over slightly hillier terrain (hill factor of 3.68m/km for Joshua as opposed to Gordons 0.51m/km)
Which brings us to the Climbers shirt - that's firmly in the grasp of @lbchilds2001 at the moment - with nearly double the ascent of his nearest rival, at 6,624m, with a VAM of 336 I'd say he's well in the clear, unless one of his rivals decides to take the rest of the challenge as a holiday in the Pyrenees or Alps...
And, I must just mention the 6 hardy souls that have managed to get a ride in for every day so far of the challenge - especially tough as this tours first rest day was on the 11th day...
So there we are - a brief roundup of the state of play after 10 stages - we're as good as half way already folks - lets see how the second section of six more rides pans out...
As always, for full "data geekery" there's the mahoosive google spreadsheet...
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PH4lMsmOStuN92Vp_oSPXZi_w59bE31b-vv_yKu53eA/edit?usp=sharing1 -
It is a fairly long 23.5km loop Mark so I do get a decent bit of variety and it never seems to be the same loop twice as the large Monitor lizards or the (usually small) snakes, or the herons (I think they are Herons, at least they are Heron-like), or the 5 or 6 loose dogs, or the groundsmen on their tractors or in their trucks cutting grass, lopping branches off the coconut trees, or doing general maintenance, or walking the track with their strimmers and grass blowers, or the fisherman wading up to their necks in the waterways with their fishing nets catching fish, or the pontooned excavator digging up the floors and the reeds etc in the waterways to dump it all along the sides to help re-inforce the banks, or the ER/Rescue trucks & motorcycles zooming by to an accident or the various pools of blood and strewn injured riders are always at different points along the track! Hehehe!0
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my "basic loop" around home is probably about 20km give or take... I once rode three laps of it in a day, and by the end of the third one I felt like slitting my wrists - just don't like the whole "riding around in circles" (at least small multiple circles - big loops of 70-80 km are fine...)
Think it comes from riding 12H and 24H time trials BITD, where you'd set out on a 100 mile "out and back" TT course, do that twice (or probably 3 times for a 24), then depending how long was left you'd get a signal to "turn in the road" at a closer point on the third, fourth, fifth loop etc - the distance gradually reducing until the last hour or so you were riding up and down a 2 mile stretch of road between 2 roundabouts until the time ran out (this was of course before the advent of GPS tracking and everything was down to synchronised stopwatches and marshalls/timekeepers with clipboards)...
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my "basic loop" around home is probably about 20km give or take... I once rode three laps of it in a day, and by the end of the third one I felt like slitting my wrists - just don't like the whole "riding around in circles" (at least small multiple circles - big loops of 70-80 km are fine...)
Think it comes from riding 12H and 24H time trials BITD, where you'd set out on a 100 mile "out and back" TT course, do that twice (or probably 3 times for a 24), then depending how long was left you'd get a signal to "turn in the road" at a closer point on the third, fourth, fifth loop etc - the distance gradually reducing until the last hour or so you were riding up and down a 2 mile stretch of road between 2 roundabouts until the time ran out (this was of course before the advent of GPS tracking and everything was down to synchronised stopwatches and marshalls/timekeepers with clipboards)...
Well Mark, if you're that opposed to laps you'd have probably been sucking on a shotgun barrel if you'd joined @canbbot and myself on this little ramble then:
https://www.strava.com/activities/208917440
100 miles worth of laps on a 2km neighborhood loop for the 2014 edition of the fatcyclist.com "100 Miles of Nowhere" event.
(We did the 2015 edition on Trainers and Zwift... https://www.strava.com/activities/428421714)1 -
I can't imagine 100 miles of a trainer ride - I might kill myself1
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my "basic loop" around home is probably about 20km give or take... I once rode three laps of it in a day, and by the end of the third one I felt like slitting my wrists - just don't like the whole "riding around in circles" (at least small multiple circles - big loops of 70-80 km are fine...)
Think it comes from riding 12H and 24H time trials BITD, where you'd set out on a 100 mile "out and back" TT course, do that twice (or probably 3 times for a 24), then depending how long was left you'd get a signal to "turn in the road" at a closer point on the third, fourth, fifth loop etc - the distance gradually reducing until the last hour or so you were riding up and down a 2 mile stretch of road between 2 roundabouts until the time ran out (this was of course before the advent of GPS tracking and everything was down to synchronised stopwatches and marshalls/timekeepers with clipboards)...
Well Mark, if you're that opposed to laps you'd have probably been sucking on a shotgun barrel if you'd joined @canbbot and myself on this little ramble then:
https://www.strava.com/activities/208917440
100 miles worth of laps on a 2km neighborhood loop for the 2014 edition of the fatcyclist.com "100 Miles of Nowhere" event.
(We did the 2015 edition on Trainers and Zwift... https://www.strava.com/activities/428421714)
mad as a box of frogs...
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Jakess1971 wrote: »
We've done the 2km lap version twice, actually, once in 2013 and again 2014. You can read my ride report from the 2013 edition here if so inclined.
For whatever it's worth, I can't really say which is harder. The first year on the 2km course got tough about 70 miles in. We kept passing my truck every 2km and thinking "we could just bag this and go home." We pressed on and finished though, and didn't have that problem at all in 2014. 2015, on the trainers, wasn't really bad for me, to tell the truth. @canbbot and I set up the trainers side-by-side in my Man Cave and just listened to music, chatted, and did laps of Zwift all day. She was getting rather tender at her, umm... saddle interface point by the end of the day and ended up wearing 2 pairs of shorts for the last bit of the ride. Otherwise, it was actually a fun day. Doing either version by myself would have been torture, though.0 -
I'll see your guy and raise you this lady: https://www.strava.com/athletes/10033054 - she's doing hundreds (plural!) of miles every day, either riding round and round the same course, or on earlier ones I looked at, riding backwards and forwards along the same bit of road.0
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Jakess1971 wrote: »
We've done the 2km lap version twice, actually, once in 2013 and again 2014. You can read my ride report from the 2013 edition here if so inclined.
For whatever it's worth, I can't really say which is harder. The first year on the 2km course got tough about 70 miles in. We kept passing my truck every 2km and thinking "we could just bag this and go home." We pressed on and finished though, and didn't have that problem at all in 2014. 2015, on the trainers, wasn't really bad for me, to tell the truth. @canbbot and I set up the trainers side-by-side in my Man Cave and just listened to music, chatted, and did laps of Zwift all day. She was getting rather tender at her, umm... saddle interface point by the end of the day and ended up wearing 2 pairs of shorts for the last bit of the ride. Otherwise, it was actually a fun day. Doing either version by myself would have been torture, though.
I still can't believe we did it 3 years in a row. Self flagellation, but damn it feels good that we did it. (not at the time of 2 shorts, but after a couple days)
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I'll see your guy and raise you this lady: https://www.strava.com/athletes/10033054 - she's doing hundreds (plural!) of miles every day, either riding round and round the same course, or on earlier ones I looked at, riding backwards and forwards along the same bit of road.
Cripes. I'm gonna guess she doesn't have to go to work every day...0 -
Jakess1971 wrote: »
We've done the 2km lap version twice, actually, once in 2013 and again 2014. You can read my ride report from the 2013 edition here if so inclined.
For whatever it's worth, I can't really say which is harder. The first year on the 2km course got tough about 70 miles in. We kept passing my truck every 2km and thinking "we could just bag this and go home." We pressed on and finished though, and didn't have that problem at all in 2014. 2015, on the trainers, wasn't really bad for me, to tell the truth. @canbbot and I set up the trainers side-by-side in my Man Cave and just listened to music, chatted, and did laps of Zwift all day. She was getting rather tender at her, umm... saddle interface point by the end of the day and ended up wearing 2 pairs of shorts for the last bit of the ride. Otherwise, it was actually a fun day. Doing either version by mmonyself would have been torture, though.
I still can't believe we did it 3 years in a row. Self flagellation, but damn it feels good that we did it. (not at the time of 2 shorts, but after a couple days)
check out our 100 mon jerseys on zwift
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Sorry TS but am taking off a couple of days. I am physically wiped out. Have been feeling more run down with each day trying to juggle everything and I am ready to crash so I am going to be smart. Doctor has been screaming at me for 2 weeks that I needed to back off on all of my MFP challenges.0
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Take care Hawkeyegal. Health and safety comes before MFP challenges every time despite how great they are!0
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hawkeyegal1995 wrote: »Sorry TS but am taking off a couple of days. I am physically wiped out. Have been feeling more run down with each day trying to juggle everything and I am ready to crash so I am going to be smart. Doctor has been screaming at me for 2 weeks that I needed to back off on all of my MFP challenges.
Listen to the Doc. Take a break - always remember, you don't get stronger/fitter when you're training, you get stronger/fitter in the rests you take between training.
It's so easy to grind yourself into the floor with endurance type stuff like cycling - mainly because (unless you fall off) it's low/no impact - so you can keep going for much longer. I think i'm on "light duties" if i'm fit and well and my training plan only calls for 8 hours in the saddle in a given week... Try that running and I'd be in the hospital before the end of the week!
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Sorry team. I'm not going to get in any kilometers for a few days. I've been praying to the porcelain gods all weekend.0
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Second "Rest Day Roundup" of the Vuelta Challenge available over on https://www.facebook.com/groups/118072208643394/permalink/142009939582954/0
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sufferlandrian wrote: »Sorry team. I'm not going to get in any kilometers for a few days. I've been praying to the porcelain gods all weekend.
rest up and get yourself right mate - being healthy is more important than any silly internet challenge...
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Should be back on the bike tomorrow. Mark, that's almost blasphemy to say health is more important than this challenge.
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sufferlandrian wrote: »Should be back on the bike tomorrow. Mark, that's almost blasphemy to say health is more important than this challenge.
The amount of rides Ive missed this challenge, I can't really say otherwise, can I
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He looks a tad 'unhinged' TBH!
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That's Awesome! 0
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Finally back on the bike. It wasn't fast or long, but it was a ride. 1
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Anyone who's joining in with the Vuelta Challenge, if you've a ride in your garmin that you haven't updated yet, then today would be a really good time to do so... if anyone has an issue with any rides not loading to GC / Strava and needs a "manual adjustment" posting, then contact me via PM on MFP and I'll look into it.
Basically, I'm looking to "cut off" for the results tomorrow morning (as in, whenever I wake up, finish my breakfast and decide to open the spreadsheet!) - likely to be around 9:00am BST... So, if there's anything you need adding in, get off you're backside and sort it, or lose the km's...1 -
well folks, I guess that's it for the grand tours 2016 - it's been a pleasure riding with you all - and hopefully we'll have something similar to go for in 2017.
time to close this thread and un-announce it for now.
see you all in the classics challenges, and maybe Jas's winter challenge.
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This discussion has been closed.