I am a german cyclist following the HAMR with much interest and quite thoroughly. Having read the Tommy-Godwin-Section on YACF for months now, I like to say thank you for lots of informative and helpful input (especially for this thread, Jo!) (Unfortunetaly, there seems to be much less interest in this fascinating competition in Germany.)
Why do I show up here now? I hope that my observations/ calculations on Steve Abraham’s performance on the HAMR as presented below might be of interest here:
According to the data from the UMCA’s “official results”-file (which were last updated at the end of october so that I add Steve’s Strava-entries for november) Steve’s mileage was (the UMCA-data slightly deviates from Jo’s):
1) January 1st – March 28th 2015 (= A1 as figured below).
Steve has ridden an average of 185 miles/ day in January and 191 in February. His mileage from March 1st till 28th, the day before he was hit by a moped-rider, was close to 205 miles/ day (=almost WR-pace, WR-pace = 205,7 miles/ day).
That meant he was about 1.050 miles behind WR-pace on March 28th.
2) August 8th – November 21st 2015 (= A2 as figured below).
During his 2nd attempt, starting on August 8th, Steve did 204 miles/ day till November 21st. That means he lost about 220 miles compared to WR-pace during his 2nd attempt.
3) June 2nd – July 11th 2015 (= Summer as figured below).
Steve’s best time so far ranged from June 2nd till July 11th. His average was 219 miles/ day during this period of 40 days, which translates into gaining about 550 miles on WR-pace.
If I put these numbers together and add the following assumptions:
1) 219 miles/ day is what can be expected under good (=spring/ summer) conditions (= H1 as figured below). He can sustain 219 mile/ day for about 130 days!
2) 191 miles/ day is representative for bad (=December) conditions (= H2 as figured below). 191/ miles day is assumed to be the average from November 22nd till December 31st.
then I get this picture of a year’s mileage (about 130 summer days at 219 and 40 December-days at 191 miles):
This visualization suggests that Steve Abraham might end up very close to Tommy Godwin’s 75.065 miles. Close, but he might stay below.
My conclusions:
1) Steve’s performance has to improve at least slightly in order to avoid falling short of the Godwin-line by just a few miles.
2) There is hardly any buffer for bad weather/ bad health/ bad … A successful attempt is reliant on favorable conditions.
3) I wish him luck and I hope he does not burn out hunting a realistic but very tight goal.
Putting the picture above into another timeline (starting on 8th August) shows that Steve might face a backlog of up to about 1.900 miles (at the end of March) that he has to chase. While the result stays the same (= very close to WR-pace) it shows that he might face a long process of catching up.