Last Sunday saw my first ride of more than 50 miles in 2018 when I managed 60 miles riding round the Vale of Glamorgan. When I uploaded the ride on to Strava it was a little disappointing to see I was less than 4 km short of riding 100km ! Regular riders will be aware of the saying “If it’s not on Strava, it didn’t happen !”. There is nothing worse than getting home from a long ride and finding that your cycle computer has failed to save all the details from the ride.
For non-cyclists, Strava is an application that can be used to show where you’ve ridden. It also adds an element of competition by dividing routes into “segments” which are timed on the basis of your speed. The quickest riders get the King or Queen of the Mountain for that segment. The times can be broken down into All Time, Yearly and That Day. If pay for a premium edition, you can also see how you compare against your age group and weight category – no cheating by claiming you are 110kg when you are actually 85 kg ! Strava segments can get quite competitive, although I only use it to see how I compare to other rides I have done over the same route. The only problem is that it can get very demoralising when you’ve noticed that your quickest time on a segment is from two years ago.
Here is a link to my last ride Strava ride in the Vale of Glamorgan. It has quite a lot of data which great for a bit of data geek like me. I like to compare “numbers” and see if I’m getting fitter from an empirical point of view rather than just “feel” on the bike. Other riders may just rely on whether their jeans have a looser fit….
Normally during the week, I have some training to do in the evenings set by my personal trainer, Lawrence Cronk at Enduraprep Lawrence knows by now that I won’t do the training the in the mornings before work – it just will not happen ! I’m afraid this week Lawrence is going to be very disappointed. I’m a volunteer on Challenge Wales, a charity run 72 foot sail training yacht, and we had a volunteer strategy meeting on Monday night. Tonight saw me attend a Penderyn whiskey tasting event (for work) as a guest of the Wales Millennium Centre (very nice !) and tomorrow I have a visit with my sailing club to Penarth RNLI centre. It’s a very good job that the Ride Across Britain is not for another 27 weeks!
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Riding from Pasties to Haggis 