Highest Annual Mileage Record - women

The Rookie

Anyone else following Amanda Coker's effort?
https://www.strava.com/athletes/10033054
She'll beat the womens record in a few months, but the overall/mens record stands at 76,229 miles and she isn't far off the schedule for that to be more than possible.

Analysis
http://ultracycling.com/sections/records/data/hamr/

kingstongraham

It must be really difficult to mentally overcome the tedium of it after a few weeks. It looks like it is 12 hours a day up and down 5 miles of the same road. Day after day.

fenix

Jesus christ. That's bloody awful. The monotony. That's not what cycling should be about at all.

imatfaal

And it isn't half flat where she is riding. I ride mostly in Essex which is not known for its hills- she has ridden 5.5 times further than me so far this year - but I have climbed twice as much

rower63

and there I was thinking it was all about eating as much honey as possible

fat_tail

imatfaal wrote:

And it isn't half flat where she is riding. I ride mostly in Essex which is not known for its hills- she has ridden 5.5 times further than me so far this year - but I have climbed twice as much

I don't understand the ride profile. if she is going over the same bit of road over and over then there should be more cyclicality in the profile. but it seems to be a drop and then a rise. could be wrong though.

The Rookie

If you look at the segment names she is doing each one about 18 times a day, so the loop is just over ten miles.

singleton

I'm sure that just like everyone else, it's inevitable that I ride on the same bits of road quite a lot. But I can't imagine doing something like this day in and day out.

dhope

There was something like 350ft of climbing over 250 miles. Even Balham Hill isn't that flat.

Hugely impressive but looks absolutely mind numbing.

The Rookie

It's Florida, it makes the bonneville salt flats look almost hilly!

rolf_f

That's well over 1% of her entire life she is wasting for nothing more than the credit for having achieved something pointless - I think you could do a single day event and have just as big a buzz at the end of it. I don't mind doing pointless things but a bit of variety please! Hopefully the book will sell though really I can't see much fun in reading about such a dull way to spend a year.

There ought to be something in the rules for the year record stating that you can only repeat the same road so many times (for the sake of the riders).........

timothyw

fat_tail wrote:

imatfaal wrote:

And it isn't half flat where she is riding. I ride mostly in Essex which is not known for its hills- she has ridden 5.5 times further than me so far this year - but I have climbed twice as much

I don't understand the ride profile. if she is going over the same bit of road over and over then there should be more cyclicality in the profile. but it seems to be a drop and then a rise. could be wrong though.

Probably down to the discrepancy between elevation the Garmin measures via air pressure and actual elevation - if she turns on 'correct elevation' in strava then it ought sort itself out. As it is, with the air pressure changing with the weather over the course of the day, it distorts the figures.

As for the record, jesus, that's one boring way to set an annual distance record. Might as well set the record on a turbo trainer... then she could watch the telly.

Still, I understand the hour record can be pretty monotonous. At least that's only an hour though.

kingstongraham

I give it another month.

fenix

I used to know a bloke whose 100 mile rides would be on a 10 mile loop round his village.

I thought he was missing the point - and this one to the millionth degree.

All the things you could see in a year of cycling and she's just going to see the same stretch of road.

The Rookie

KingstonGraham wrote:

I give it another month.

Why?

kingstongraham

The Rookie wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

I give it another month.

Why?

I think you can put up with a high degree of tedium for a while when it is in a worthwhile aim, but surely at some point the realisation that what she is doing (in the way she is doing it) isn't worth it will hit home.

Or she'll fall asleep on the bike.

rolf_f

KingstonGraham wrote:

The Rookie wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

I give it another month.

Why?

I think you can put up with a high degree of tedium for a while when it is in a worthwhile aim, but surely at some point the realisation that what she is doing (in the way she is doing it) isn't worth it will hit home.

Or she'll fall asleep on the bike.

Ahh, but the further you get, the less there is still to go and the more you have already invested in the project. Once you are past half way, it becomes very difficult to give up no matter how much you want to. She'll probably never want to see another bike again when she is done though........

fenix

On her blog she does mention having to change the route slightly to avoid flooding. And gators. It'd be awful if she got eaten by a gator half way through the attempt.

(might explain why she's so fast though !)

Snakebite the 2nd

Can't see the point myself, but on the other hand it doesn't need a large capacity assault rifle to do it.

And being American I can only see that as a bonus.

itboffin

there's a fella not to far away from her that rides 100-200 miles a day and not for any challenge he just enjoys it, not always the same route but not a lot of variation and apart from one or two small bridges its all pan flat

I find that hard to understand why

The Rookie

I guess if you live in Florida you are used to pan flat rides, must help her bike as she certainly only needs the one chainring (less aero drag) and can loose some other appendages to go with that!

itboffin

my father in law used to have a house not far from her, i went for one bike ride in all the years we visited, the combined humidity and heat plus the bugs made for a seriously unpleasant ride.

God forbid you ever need to cross a main road, 10 lanes or monster trucks and MASSHOOF lorries with no concept of cyclists, in fact when I first worked in Boston i was really surprised at just how polite drivers are to cyclists there and how many people cycle.

bigmonka

rower63 wrote:

and there I was thinking it was all about eating as much honey as possible

Just so you know, I got the joke and thought it was quite amusing. Although now the typo in the title has been changed your post looks a bit odd!