Comparing rides

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  • fat daddy
    fat daddy Posts: 2,605
    no really you dont need to sell it to me ..... at the end of the year you will have ended up with some tomatoes and a good knowledge of some TV dramas and thats an achievement, you should feel proud of yourself. Its a shame no one will put that in a book or write blogs about it which is tragic if you think about it, because these things matter.

    I guess my point was, to a 23 year old with no commitments, and her whole life ahead of her, perhaps becoming a record holder and increasing her training as a ultra cyclist is valuable time to her and will bring her the recognition she needs to continue her love for the sport that she does and give her the best chance of continuing a life in cycling.
  • maryka
    maryka Posts: 748
    Funny I don't recall threads like this about various male riders going after long-distance records. Anything said about Steve Abraham is "well done mate" "amazing feat" "what a hero".

    A 23-year-old American woman doing basically the same thing though... and she's wasting her time?
    http://www.twitter.com/smaryka
  • pastryboy
    pastryboy Posts: 1,385
    maryka wrote:
    Funny I don't recall threads like this about various male riders going after long-distance records. Anything said about Steve Abraham is "well done mate" "amazing feat" "what a hero".

    A 23-year-old American woman doing basically the same thing though... and she's wasting her time?


    Kurt whatshisname was criticised for using a recumbent and lots of flat roads i recall.
  • buncycle
    buncycle Posts: 20
    maryka wrote:
    Funny I don't recall threads like this about various male riders going after long-distance records. Anything said about Steve Abraham is "well done mate" "amazing feat" "what a hero".

    A 23-year-old American woman doing basically the same thing though... and she's wasting her time?

    I don't think she is wasting her time, I think it's incredible what she is doing; 250 miles a day is no mean feat. My only reservation would be that she's going to get to the end of the year and have cycled 80-90k miles and barely left her driveway.
  • sloppyschleckonds
    sloppyschleckonds Posts: 8,019
    buncycle wrote:
    maryka wrote:
    Funny I don't recall threads like this about various male riders going after long-distance records. Anything said about Steve Abraham is "well done mate" "amazing feat" "what a hero".

    A 23-year-old American woman doing basically the same thing though... and she's wasting her time?

    I don't think she is wasting her time, I think it's incredible what she is doing; 250 miles a day is no mean feat. My only reservation would be that she's going to get to the end of the year and have cycled 80-90k miles and barely left her driveway.

    Do you think she posts on the internet asking people to compare her rides every day?
    I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles
  • keef66
    keef66 Posts: 13,123
    pastryboy wrote:
    maryka wrote:
    Funny I don't recall threads like this about various male riders going after long-distance records. Anything said about Steve Abraham is "well done mate" "amazing feat" "what a hero".

    A 23-year-old American woman doing basically the same thing though... and she's wasting her time?


    Kurt whatshisname was criticised for using a recumbent and lots of flat roads i recall.

    Steve Abraham was trying to beat the ridiculous record set by Tommy Godwin in 1939, in a similar fashion. Riding a conventional road bike on our crappy roads and through a lot of crappy weather. OK, his bike might be lighter than Tommy's, and lighting has improved a lot, but he was still battling more than simply distance.

    So compared with that, riding round in circles somewhere warm and pancake flat sounds less challenging. Don't get me wrong, these people are all doing astounding distances day after day; they must have remarkable physical and mental resilience.

    But to commit to spending an entire year of your life just riding a bike? Bonkers, the lot of them.
  • buncycle
    buncycle Posts: 20
    SloppySchleckonds wrote:
    buncycle wrote:
    maryka wrote:
    Funny I don't recall threads like this about various male riders going after long-distance records. Anything said about Steve Abraham is "well done mate" "amazing feat" "what a hero".

    A 23-year-old American woman doing basically the same thing though... and she's wasting her time?

    I don't think she is wasting her time, I think it's incredible what she is doing; 250 miles a day is no mean feat. My only reservation would be that she's going to get to the end of the year and have cycled 80-90k miles and barely left her driveway.

    Do you think she posts on the internet asking people to compare her rides every day?

    I don't think anybody posts on the internet asking people to compare their rides every day.
  • buncycle
    buncycle Posts: 20
    keef66 wrote:
    pastryboy wrote:
    maryka wrote:
    Funny I don't recall threads like this about various male riders going after long-distance records. Anything said about Steve Abraham is "well done mate" "amazing feat" "what a hero".

    A 23-year-old American woman doing basically the same thing though... and she's wasting her time?


    Kurt whatshisname was criticised for using a recumbent and lots of flat roads i recall.

    Steve Abraham was trying to beat the ridiculous record set by Tommy Godwin in 1939, in a similar fashion. Riding a conventional road bike on our crappy roads and through a lot of crappy weather. OK, his bike might be lighter than Tommy's, and lighting has improved a lot, but he was still battling more than simply distance.

    So compared with that, riding round in circles somewhere warm and pancake flat sounds less challenging. Don't get me wrong, these people are all doing astounding distances day after day; they must have remarkable physical and mental resilience.

    But to commit to spending an entire year of your life just riding a bike? Bonkers, the lot of them.

    Agreed.
  • kingstongraham
    kingstongraham Posts: 28,166
    fat daddy wrote:
    KingstonGraham wrote:
    Seems like such a waste of valuable time.


    really ? .... out of interest what have you done with your time in the last year that's so valuable ... me I go to work and come back every day ...

    She's not doing anything more than that. Just on a bike.
  • fat daddy
    fat daddy Posts: 2,605
    KingstonGraham wrote:
    She's not doing anything more than that. Just on a bike.

    yup ... and funnily enough its the going to work and coming back everyday that I see as being the most valuable to me ... the bit inbetween is fecking pointless :D
  • kingstongraham
    kingstongraham Posts: 28,166
    fat daddy wrote:
    KingstonGraham wrote:
    She's not doing anything more than that. Just on a bike.

    yup ... and funnily enough its the going to work and coming back everyday that I see as being the most valuable to me ... the bit inbetween is ******* pointless :D

    That's the bit that pays for me to be able to go somewhere and do nothing but ride my bike.
  • kingstongraham
    kingstongraham Posts: 28,166
    maryka wrote:
    Funny I don't recall threads like this about various male riders going after long-distance records. Anything said about Steve Abraham is "well done mate" "amazing feat" "what a hero".

    A 23-year-old American woman doing basically the same thing though... and she's wasting her time?

    The time's hers to spend as she wants. Just that if you have chosen to do one thing all day every day for a year, it seems a waste of an opportunity to decide to spend it cycling the same road over and over again. Nothing to do with her being female (from me anyway).
  • buncycle
    buncycle Posts: 20
    I still think it's incredible what she's doing, certainly puts today's 1 hour best effort of 19 miles in a bit of a shadow!
  • sloppyschleckonds
    sloppyschleckonds Posts: 8,019
    buncycle wrote:
    certainly puts today's 1 hour best effort of 19 miles in a bit of a shadow!

    I guess it was a very hilly won
    I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,313
    fat daddy wrote:

    really ? .... out of interest what have you done with your time in the last year that's so valuable ... me I go to work and come back every day ... if I died, I would just be replaced by another mindless soul

    At least she will walk away with a record and achievement and a good base and recognition as an ultra cyclist to be sponsored to take on other challenges etc.

    Doesn't seem too bad for a 23 year old that could just be doing the normal year out gap thing and going to Thailand pretending to be cultured

    What she is trying to do is to beat a number, but not by fair means... it's not a like for like situation with Tommy Godwin or Steve Abraham. She basically has removed any element of chance and made it into a routine... if you can cope with the boredom, you can bag the record. If it rains, you pop home and take a coat, it stops, you drop it... if you puncture, you pop home and fit a new wheel, if the weather turns nasty, you go inside, have a brew and then go back out when the storm has passed...

    I'll give you a similar comparison in mountaineering: in the 1970s technology had made virtually all the routes in the alps and Hymalayas accessible to any reasonably strong climber. Anyone, with a bit of weather luck could bag Everest or Lothse (or even the harder K2 from the Abruzzi line) with an endless supply of bottled oxygen, an army of Sherpas and supplies to last for months, as well as a strategy to "siege" the mountain as a large expedition. Basically you could "buy your way" up the mountain.
    That had little to spare with the efforts of Hillary or those who died on the mountain before him.

    The all movement was revived by Reinhold Messner and Jerzy Kukuzka, who began to climb mountains "by fair means": no bottled oxygen, no large expeditions, no sieges to the mountain.

    What I am trying to say is that the means are there to make any challenge easy enough to the point that even a slightly above average athlete can achieve it, but if you can't compare efforts like for like to a certain extent, then any record is utterly pointless. This particular effort seems utterly pointless to me and certainly not worth to stand as a milestone in cycling

    I am not even sure as a gap year it is any more formative than backpacking around the world, to be honest
    left the forum March 2023
  • rolf_f
    rolf_f Posts: 16,015
    ugo.santalucia wrote:
    I am not even sure as a gap year it is any more formative than backpacking around the world, to be honest

    She'll come out of it with the material for an almost certainly very dull book which will nevertheless probably earn her more than she would otherwise expect to earn as a young person with no relevant experience in a normal job.

    If she does write it, I won't be buying it! I think Keefs plumbing a sink is more of an achievement albeit a less time consuming one.
    Faster than a tent.......
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,313
    Rolf F wrote:

    She'll come out of it with the material for an almost certainly very dull book which will nevertheless probably earn her more than she would otherwise expect to earn as a young person with no relevant experience in a normal job.

    I don't think it's book material... too dull... If an employer was after a determined, hard working person, she will stand out, but if an employer was after a creative, curious and imaginative person, it might work against her
    left the forum March 2023
  • buncycle
    buncycle Posts: 20
    On the subject of my own riding, I'm going to be riding weekend warrior style this weekend with a hilly 50 mile (similar elevation and hills to the sportive) tomorrow and an even hillier 65 Sunday. Should be interesting!
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,313
    buncycle wrote:
    On the subject of my own riding, I'm going to be riding weekend warrior style this weekend with a hilly 50 mile (similar elevation and hills to the sportive) tomorrow and an even hillier 65 Sunday. Should be interesting!

    Especially so as it's icy around...
    left the forum March 2023
  • pastryboy
    pastryboy Posts: 1,385
    I agree with Ugo. I couldn't do what Steve Abraham is doing - seriously impressive, I could do what Coker is doing though - just need plenty of chamois cream, some music and money to tide me over.
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,313
    pastryboy wrote:
    I agree with Ugo. I couldn't do what Steve Abraham is doing - seriously impressive, I could do what Coker is doing though - just need plenty of chamois cream, some music and money to tide me over.

    You also need someone to cook 6000 Kcal of food every day, do your laundry, make sure your bike is serviced and a few other bits and bops... more than anything you need the mental attitude to go out when you can't be bothered and stay out when you've had enough of it... it's not that easy, but it is not the same thing as SA was doing... and the fact that she can clock much bigger mileage per day shows it

    The real sad thing is that when she will beat the record by quite some margin, nobody will be able to come anywhere near it, cycling by fair means, which means it will either be forgotten or more of these pointless attempts will pop up.

    Eventually the association of ultra cycling, whatever is called, will be forced to restore Tommy Godwin's record and give some other name to the other ones... we have seen this with the hour record, of course
    left the forum March 2023
  • sloppyschleckonds
    sloppyschleckonds Posts: 8,019
    buncycle wrote:
    On the subject of my own riding, I'm going to be riding weekend warrior style this weekend with a hilly 50 mile (similar elevation and hills to the sportive) tomorrow and an even hillier 65 Sunday. Should be interesting!

    Or normal as most cyclists think.
    I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles
  • ugo.santalucia
    ugo.santalucia Posts: 28,313
    Just had a look at A. Coker stats on Strava... she averages 34 km/h, I seem to recall Steve was about 26... so basically she covers her daily 400 Km in less than 12 hours, whereas it would have taken in excess of 15 hours for Steve to cover the same ground... those 3.5 hours a day of extra rest in the long run make all the difference
    left the forum March 2023
  • pastryboy
    pastryboy Posts: 1,385
    ugo.santalucia wrote:
    cook 6000 Kcal of food every day, do your laundry, make sure your bike is serviced and a few other bits and bops... more than anything you need the mental attitude to go out when you can't be bothered and stay out when you've had enough of it.

    That's pretty much my life anyway just with some office work in between.
  • buncycle
    buncycle Posts: 20
    ugo.santalucia wrote:
    Just had a look at A. Coker stats on Strava... she averages 34 km/h, I seem to recall Steve was about 26... so basically she covers her daily 400 Km in less than 12 hours, whereas it would have taken in excess of 15 hours for Steve to cover the same ground... those 3.5 hours a day of extra rest in the long run make all the difference

    Yeah, her moving time is generally 12 hours a day @ 20-21mph. I'd be interested to see what she does for the 3-4 hours that she's awake - surely she is getting 8-9 hours sleep a night? I'd guess she eats and gets a massage/stretches. What a way to spend a year.
  • rolf_f
    rolf_f Posts: 16,015
    It reminds me a bit of that depressing "attempt" Richard Branson made to win the Blue Riband. In a speedboat. Thankfully he got told to stuff off though he did achieve the fastest Atlantic crossing. There's a difference between a passenger liner and a toy boat but Richard didn't get that. Unfortunately here, it is harder to make a meaningful distinction.

    Of course, her record will be broken. If she is at it for only 12 hours a day then it is reasonable to assume that someone will attempt it via overnight sessions in a Velodrome. Only retention of sanity would threaten that approach but strangely it would be more admirable than Crokers approach.
    Faster than a tent.......
  • buncycle
    buncycle Posts: 20
    Just a quick update: I completed the Kentish Killer sportive in 2:52 today. Very happy with the time for my first sportive. A couple of weeks ago I found this website: http://www.wolfgang-menn.de/powerhill.htm I have found it a great way to estimate average power on a ride (how accurate it is I'm not sure but it's consistency is what I am after when comparing rides). I found the tool really helped me to work out just how hard I couple push (along with RPE) and meant I ended up pacing the ride really well. I knew I could average about 17-18mph on the flats where I'm strongest and survive up the climbs.

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