[HAMR] New challenger - Bruce Berkeley AKA Cycle_dr 1

[red marley]

Steve, Kurt - their distance was taken from what was uploaded to Strava - the only difference was carrying a logger.

On several occasions, those Strava distances were not the ones that formed the official record. They were changed when discrepancies were spotted (such as inadvertent recording of car transfers, GPS errors, duplicated segments etc.). There was more going on behind the scenes than simply taking the headline Strava figures at face value.

[wajcgac]

Steve, Kurt - their distance was taken from what was uploaded to Strava - the only difference was carrying a logger.

I don't think that's true either as there was no requirement in the HAMR rules to upload to Strava.
 

[Exit Stage Left]

If the Strava community are the sole arbiters, then Snowandale is wasting his time here. If the approbation of 'followers' is all he needs, then there's no reason to bother with people who ask questions like 'Does he really hold any of the records he claims?'

Strava is social media, and a sort of mutual support network. This is part of the Audax world, where people cross t's and dot i's. Bruce doesn't need our approval, and we don't need to approve of him. He may even get a psychological boost from the disapproval of a bunch of old farts. But the main barriers are physiological, and the place with the highest percentage of those experienced in riding successive 200 mile days is here. So there'll continue to be an interest in what Bruce is doing, as the identification with the actual task is highest here.

[crowriver]

In 10, 20 years time, I'm sure strava will still be around.

Yeah.

Just like Atari, Aldus, Ericsson, Blackberry, MySpace, and Geocities. All thriving.

Not sure how naming those companies is in any way relevant. Even if strava is not around, another sharing your activity based on gps website will be.

It's relevant in the context of your assertion, quoted above.

Technology changes. In 10 years, let alone 20, the standard for positioning and navigation may have changed, and GPS may be obsolete, as Betamax video recorders, floppy discs, SCSI connectors and PS/2 peripherals are today.

Technology companies change even more quickly. If you hoped to stay in touch with those old classmates on Friends Reunited, tough. Similarly athletes and cyclists may have moved on from Strava to a different platform in 5 years, never mind 10.

[wajcgac]

Any significant discrepancy between wheel sensor and track length would show up, though. It's not as if you can't check this..

The vast majority of people will take what's posted up on Strava as gospel though without any further check.

And to check it properly you'd need access to the actual GPX file that Bruce uploaded, which Strava users don't have.

Jo OTP who does all the great data analysis and charts has already found that when you download the GPX from Strava it still does not contain the data for the part of the ride from the time Bruce entered or left his privacy zone although it does report the distance that was cycled within that zone. You need to refer to his Garmin Connect page for this which shows the correct distance for the reasons described by Greenbank.

You could of course plot parts of his route out on Google maps and compare to the same part of his Strava upload but if it the wheel sensor was only 2% over reading then it's not so obvious.

2% of 75,000 miles is 1500 miles or just over a weeks riding - or looking at it another way, a distance greater than that by which Kurt beat Tommy.

The continued debate on this thread is over cheating.  It does not belong here. I think that it is hugely disrespectful to Bruce.

I'm not calling Bruce a cheat either, I also believe he is doing this for real and I'm seriously impressed by his start to the challenge. My initial post and this one are in response to this

All records based on distance or time have a level of accuracy. What is the accuracy of a set of distances only recorded on Strava. What rounding, if any should we use?

Just a thought 

BB

I was highlighting a quirk of Strava and one way errors could be introduced in to the distance reported.

[IanDG]

Steve, Kurt - their distance was taken from what was uploaded to Strava - the only difference was carrying a logger.

On several occasions, those Strava distances were not the ones that formed the official record. They were changed when discrepancies were spotted (such as inadvertent recording of car transfers, GPS errors, duplicated segments etc.). There was more going on behind the scenes than simply taking the headline Strava figures at face value.

I don't think that's true either as there was no requirement in the HAMR rules to upload to Strava.
 

Thanks for correction - I mis-understood, thought that there was a requirement to upload to Strava within a given time and that this was then used for the distance total.

[Greenbank]

Technology changes. In 10 years, let alone 20, the standard for positioning and navigation may have changed, and GPS may be obsolete, as Betamax video recorders, floppy discs, SCSI connectors and PS/2 peripherals are today.

The obsolescence of the GPS system may be forced rather than chosen. If the human race doesn't sort itself out then there's a chance that there will be no satellites left functioning and no way to safely get a new one up through low earth orbit. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

[mattc]

Today is quite unusual; there have been _2_ posts about how far he rode!

[red marley]

*Diverted cyclist*

The obsolescence of the GPS system may be forced rather than chosen. If the human race doesn't sort itself out then there's a chance that there will be no satellites left functioning and no way to safely get a new one up through low earth orbit.

As GPS are in Medium Earth Orbit, we should be OK (I think it's just hanging around in LEO that would be the problem, not travelling though it).

[mattc]

Thare are other threats; today I built a (small but vital) component that will go into a GPS satellite. Just sayin ...

[jochta]

Today is quite unusual; there have been _2_ posts about how far he rode!

But do we know with any certainty how far he rode? 

[mattc]

The continued debate on this thread is over cheating.  It does not belong here. I think that it is hugely disrespectful to Bruce.

I asked [the moderators] for the thread to be split a while back but nothing happened. It'd be quite a job to split the thread in two now, but still possible, but the "Strava isn't a great standard of proof" and "why Strava isn't a great standard of proof" discussions are too intertwined now.

I have no doubts that Bruce is out there riding every single mile he is uploading to Strava. But convincing the majority of people he is/has at a later date is another matter.

Who are the majority of people? You may notice that for all Kurt, Steve, and bruce, on all their social media pages the highest following is on strava. If the strava users are convinced, the majority is already convinced.

"social media" isnt the internet. There are plenty of people following Kurt/Steve/Bruce who dont even have social media accounts.

(plus a few without internet connection - but I'll admit they're a *very* small number!)

If the Strava community are the sole arbiters, then Snowandale is wasting his time here. If the approbation of 'followers' is all he needs, then there's no reason to bother with people who ask questions like 'Does he really hold any of the records he claims?'

Strava is social media, and a sort of mutual support network. This is part of the Audax world, where people cross t's and dot i's. Bruce doesn't need our approval, and we don't need to approve of him. He may even get a psychological boost from the disapproval of a bunch of old farts. But the main barriers are physiological, and the place with the highest percentage of those experienced in riding successive 200 mile days is here. So there'll continue to be an interest in what Bruce is doing, as the identification with the actual task is highest here.

I agree with all that.

[Greenbank]

(I think it's just hanging around in LEO that would be the problem, not travelling though it).

Ah, yes, misread the page.

Still, it got my brain working on a more localised GPS 'mesh' using ground based transmitters (I know some form of these exist already with DGPS) and line-of-sight and all the rest.

Quite what this has to do with Bruce's attempt I don't know, so I'll stop.

[crowriver]

(I think it's just hanging around in LEO that would be the problem, not travelling though it).

Ah, yes, misread the page.

Still, it got my brain working on a more localised GPS 'mesh' using ground based transmitters (I know some form of these exist already with DGPS) and line-of-sight and all the rest.

Quite what this has to do with Bruce's attempt I don't know, so I'll stop.

A ground based system already exists and trials ongoing with clients, including US military apparently

http://www.locata.com

[wilkyboy]

It is possible to set the wheel size manually on a 1000.  its in the menu for the wheel sensor when the head unit is connected to the sensor.  Not surprised you haven't found it actually!   And it has found the size of the wheel on my turbo bike accurately.

Genius, Aidan, many thanks for the info!   

My 1000 thought my wheel was very small the other day and it gradually "grew" over the course of several kilometres to the correct size.  I'm running an 800 side-by-side with it on GPS-speed mode, so I can compare figures in some sort of pseudo long-term nerd-fest test, just because I happen to have kept my old one when I upgraded for PBP, and it would've been useful to have overridden the auto setting 

[Justin(e)]

Bruce doesn't need our approval, and we don't need to approve of him. He may even get a psychological boost from the disapproval of a bunch of old farts. But the main barriers are physiological, and the place with the highest percentage of those experienced in riding successive 200 mile days is here.

Recall that Alicia had some really dark days.  I assumed they were to do with comments emanating from here.

The small chips at psychological aspects of a competitors attempt may make a large difference.  Constant questioning of Bruce is likely to make it harder for him.  When all is said and done, this forum is the epicentre of the HAMR. Convincing this community counts for quite a lot.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

If so, perhaps he should try following the accepted rules, rather than making up his own?

[Greenbank]

I assumed they were to do with comments emanating from here.

Possibly (only Alicia can answer that), but some of the comments I saw posted on Kurt's Facebook page were orders of magnitude worse than the comments on here.

[Exit Stage Left]

Alicia didn't ride, and she said they liked to have a laugh at YACF.
If you follow PBP you have access to a very large sample of why people can't ride 200 miles a day for multiple days. Failure of will is one reason certainly, but it's mainly contact points, knees, achilles and Shermer's Neck.

The average Strava or Facebook poster won't know this.

[hillbilly]

I assumed they were to do with comments emanating from here.

Possibly (only Alicia can answer that), but some of the comments I saw posted on Kurt's Facebook page were orders of magnitude worse than the comments on here.

And in the Strava feed.  There were a few spiteful attention seekers who revelled in rattling The Beast's cage bars, taunting him about being a hill dodger, or a wheel sucker, or an all-round charlatan whose HRM reading defied the laws of nature.  The internet brings out the worst in some people.

[Aunt Maud]

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

[red marley]

Quiet everyone! Aunt Maud's fallen asleep. Let's draw a comedy moustache on his face!

[Whip]

Alicia here

Was I asked to comment?
It would be easy to assume that derogatory postings anywhere would "rattled the beast's cage," but for the most part, he never had time to read the comments and if he did he was not phased. If anything he laughed, he knows what is truth (and he's an Alpha male). So, psychologically this was the least of his problems and a nonissue for him. I was very in tune to his mental and physical state. It was how I recognized what approach in motivational support he needed. Now, on the other hand, rivalry was just rivalry, although, I would get a bit bent when I read anything that was not true or a false accusation. It would only last for a few minutes and I would have to hold back and not respond. "Forgive them for they do not know..." would play in my head. I realize nobody knows what we are really doing or going through. Any experienced cyclist could theorize, but that's all it is - an experiential guess.

I don't know Bruce Berkley personally. We have chatted only a few times. From what I can tell so far, he has what it takes to do this. My concern for him is that things almost never always go wrong. Garmin has glitches and Strava has glitches, it's not enough. Does he have a backup and backup proof? Does he have a qualified official verifying body to check and cross check for discrepancys or a failure? If it is Guinness, we will not know until he is finished. I do wish him well, but if he doesn't get his ducks in order it appears to be playing out as stubborn self sabotage. I say, kiss and make-up with UMCA and get on with it! IMHO

Of course, my bias thoughts on anyone attempting this challenge that neglects to recruit 100% support or immediate available support at a phone call away is overlooking the fact that SHIT HAPPENS! It just does. I know from a fairly recent memoir that "a dame with a van" works... I suppose a dude with any vehicle would too, but...

[hillbilly]

Quiet everyone! Aunt Maud's fallen asleep. Let's draw a comedy moustache on his face!

Dirty Sanchez...

[hatler]

Alicia here

Was I asked to comment?

Sheesh !!  You never need to be asked to comment here.  Just look at 99% of the other postings.