Machka 

Note: I know this won't fit into everyone's training plans, or life plans, and I know this will not interest everyone, so there is absolutely no pressure to participate in this challenge. If you don't want to participate in this one, that's OK. But it is do-able (I've done it many times) and may encourage some of us to get out there and ride more.


The challenge: Ride 1000 miles in at least one month this year ... or as many months as you want ... go for all 12 months if you have the time and energy!!

I know lots of you ride this amount and more during your "season", so let us know how it's going.



=======================================
If you don't quite make 1000 miles in a month, check out the 1000-Kilometer Month Challenge:
https://www.bikeforums.net/long-dist...challenge.html

PaddleFoot

My Ride With GPS miles for January (with four days to go):

1094 miles. 22 miles outdoors, all miles measured 'at the rear wheel'. Conservative number as I forgot to save about 100 miles worth of rides.

I've decided to ride 1000 miles each month this year.

kingston 

Does that mean you rode a thousand miles in January on the trainer?

John_V 

Man did I fall short this month. It was my lowest mileage January since 2012. This January was unusually cold for Florida and brought some more than usual rain days with it. Don't really have the right kind of gear to dress for those low temps we had this month. Only rode 505 miles for the month. Not even 1,000 km.

shotwellian

I've been attempting the 1000 miles per month goal since 2015. In 2015, I did 1000 miles / month in 4 months of the year, 7 months of 2016, and 8 months of 2017.

This year was my first time reaching 1000 in January, helped along by a dry, warm winter here in the SF Bay Area.

John_V 

Nice! That's pretty close to what I've done. My first 1K month was in Oct of 2014. 2015 had 2, 2016 had 7 and 2017 had 8 missing a ninth by just 36 miles.

CliffordK

I try to tick over Strava's 800 mile month goal, at least a few months in the summer.

I think I hit 1000 miles a couple of months in 2017. Hmm.. maybe just June

Anyway, as an irregular cycle commuter, I seem to average around 500 miles a month or so. Then it all depends on extra activities or long commutes that are thrown in to push me over the top.

I actually find it much easier to hit Strava's 800 mile distance goal than their 7000 to 8000 meter climbing goals.

So...
I may have to throw in a couple of 300 or 600 Randonneur events. There is a 1000km Crater Lake Randonneur event that would be fun. Whew!!!

John_V 

Short month with two scheduled ride days missed but I was still able to get 1017 miles in for February.

shotwellian

Well done! I just barely made it as well, hitting 1010 miles for Feb.

PaddleFoot

Hello,

2 for 2... Mix of indoor/outdoor miles, measured at the rear wheel, logged in Ride with GPS.

Jan - 1,182 miles
Feb - 1,018 miles


Enjoyed every mile, but it was tortuous at times when I did online Fondo's, 100km, non-stop.

Cary

PaddleFoot

I'm sorry I missed this. No, the trainer just sat under the bike I rode.

John_V 

Nice job! At least you made it. It's more than most cyclist do.

kingston 

That sounds horrible. Congratulations on making it.

joewein

I always found it strange that the Grand Fondo target it as low as 100 km, which for us here seems an almost trivial distance, yet their elevation goal is something that I can only clear if I ride a hilly century pretty much every weekend of the month (my typical centuries are about 170-190 km with 1800-2100 m of elevation gain).

I think the Strava climbing goals are designed for people who record their rides with phones that rely only on satellite data for elevation gain, which leads to greatly inflated numbers. GPS-based elevation data is much less precise than lattitude-longitude data. Furthermore, even if the data is run through elevation correction (i.e. checked against a radar-based elevation map), any latitude-longitude deviation on a road running along a hillside ends up introducing artificial elevation gains.

If you're using a GPS device measuring relatively accurate barometric elevation, you can't really compete against all that noisy data :-(

CliffordK

I use my phone. I think Strava does significant post processing on elevation. When recording real-time elevation with Ride With GPS, the numbers are at lest 2x as high (and they also do post-processing massaging the data, reducing the actual recorded climbing).

So, I believe the ultimate elevations are close between systems.

It is possible they changed data recording methods after they set the goals. However, looking at my rankings, I usually rank much lower overall with climbing than distance. In part, I think it is that most of my miles are commuting miles, and thus tend to be flatter.

I agree, 100K for the "Grand Fondo" seems short, but one doesn't want to exclude all riders.

Some of the sponsored challenges are also "easy", but those may be designed to harvest ID and customers.

joewein

That doesn't match my experience from group rides where people use a mix of equipment and I have a chance to compare the posted stats on Strava afterwards.

Here is one example of 4 people yesterday doing the same course up a volcano in Tenerife, Gran Canria, two using the Strava iPhone app, two using a Garmin Edge 520 (not my ride, just a random sample found by looking at high scorers in the Challenge):

As you can see, the two cyclists using the phone app posted almost 2x the total climbing for the course as the Garmin users, consistent with your observation for RWGPS overreadings.

Based on evidence like that, I don't think elevation gain competitions on Strava are (excuse the pun) a level playing field! ;-)

CliffordK

Hmmm...

Looking at the elevation graphs of the two rides, they are quite different, with the I-Phone elevations looking quite a bit more "hairy". And, then looking at it carefully, the I-Phone shows some steep descents in areas where one is generally climbing.

Here is a climb I did a while ago.
Android, Samsung S4-Mini

https://www.strava.com/activities/718264000/overview

One can get a generally good estimate of the climb:
Lowest Elevation (by Strava): 1151 ft
Highest Elevation (by Strava): 3764 ft
Difference: 2613 ft.
Reported: 3102 ft.

Maximum discrepancy: 489 ft

Assuming there were a couple of bumps in the flatter segments, it would have been a max of about 10% to 15% high.

However, being a relatively steep, monotonous climb/descent may be the easiest for Strava to calculate, as there should be relatively few micro-descents showing up.

Many of my other rides are relatively flat, but Strava tends to report about 1000 feet of climbing every 50 miles or so. Some of that is real including small hills, and gradual elevation changes, but some may also be spurious.

John_V 

Missed a 1,000 mile month for March due to some bad weather and a knee injury. I did make 750 miles so a 1,000 km+ is better than nothing. Let’s see what happens in April.

serhiypopoff

1000+ miles for 5 days + 23 hours ride complete reports there are directly at Peloton-Club ? Cyncling Unlimited Ukraine 2018. Stage - 1
Cyncling Unlimited Ukraine 2018. Stage - 1 - **********???

John_V 

Just completed my second 1,000 mile month for the year; two less than last year at this time. The really strange weather we've been having here in Florida this year has really sucked for riding thus far.

rhm

Looks like 1050.5 miles in June, woo-hoo! Counting the miles is a little complicated since I was on a grand brevet that started on the last day of May, riding 200 miles on the first day... and not finishing that day's riding until some time after midnight. Figuring out how many of those miles were actually in June is not beyond my ability, but ... eh.

augustgarage

I rode 1095 miles in June - my first 1000-mile month since August, 2016...

clasher

I cracked the 1000 mile mark in June, ended up with 1396 miles.

jeffpoulin

I've been delinquent in posting to this thread. I've topped 1000km every month this year (including July so far), and 1000 miles the last 3 months in a row: 1075 for April, 1379 in May, and 1508 in June.

kingston