virtual challenges

[mattc]

A couple of cute things have caught my eye this week.

First was an article in CW about "Everesting". Climb 8800m on your bike, using hill repeats if you're not close enough to the Himalayas.°

Then today I saw this idea - more aimed at walkers, but running/cycling/treadmilling are allowed too!

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lands-end-to-john-o-groats-virtual-race-tickets-7929303761

I predict a blizzard of similar ideas in the future. (Would be nice to see AUK put something together, preferably by someone more proactive than me! )

°n.b. I would never do this in a million years! But I like the fact that _someone_ is doing it.

[marcusjb]

Everesting is really quite a thing currently and people are going to extraordinary lengths to do it. People have been finding ridiculously short climbs and then doing them several hundred times in a day.  (here's an example on Swain's Lane in London - http://app.strava.com/activities/162564242 ).

Bonkers.

Virtual riding is an interesting one - is riding 200km on a turbo ever likely to be considered an audax?  As turbos get ever more complex and the whole virtual reality thing improves, I really do think we will see more and more people linked into a virtual racing environment where they race with people from around the world.  There may well become cyclists who never go outside.  Who knows.  It's all possible. 

[Fab Foodie]

It's not new.  I think Speer did virtual journeys in his Prison Cell by walking in circles.

My fave was some years ago a guy on a turbo decided to cycle around the world in his front room.  When the Gulf War broke out he had to make a detour to avoid it!

[Veloman]

Virtual riding is an interesting one - is riding 200km on a turbo ever likely to be considered an audax?

No

And neither me doing 200km around our local 5km circuit which is a pity as I fancied that; only 40 laps!

I have done a fair few virtual events without going anywhere for charity.  For example Coast to Coast on a stationary bike and big map behind logging distance with markers being moved along to show position and big buckets for the cash.  Easy £1400 in a relatively short day.

I was considering Sainsbury's to the Somme this year in aid of RBL.  I normally spend the Poppy Collection weeks in a local Sainsbury's collecting, but as it is the 100th commemoration of WW1 my mind thought about something different and so the stationary bike idea in the entrance and riding to the Somme.

Also done things like relay team to swim the channel in a swimming pool and climbing Everest via stairs.

Someone I know who was a very TT in his day did virtually all his training on a turbo as he had consistency; did exactly the same in the winter as in the summer.  Worked very well for him as he was time poor and could not get out during the day other than when he raced.

[Veloman]

When the Gulf War broke out he had to make a detour to avoid it!

Chaps out in Iraq (main operating base) decided to cycle home on the exercise bike to raise funds.

[mattc]

It's not new.  I think Speer did virtual journeys in his Prison Cell by walking in circles.

My fave was some years ago a guy on a turbo decided to cycle around the world in his front room.  When the Gulf War broke out he had to make a detour to avoid it!

Was Speer on S***va? If not, it didn't happen :-P

Meanwhile ... I've just seen a ride (by a gemma gilvear, one of few ladies in this ridiculous game) in Scotland - 299.7km to bag an Everest!

[Rainmaker]

Quote from: marcusjb   Virtual riding is an interesting one - is riding 200km on a turbo ever likely to be considered an audax?
 
Posted by: Veloman: Yesterday at 07:02:51 PM

No

And neither me doing 200km around our local 5km circuit which is a pity as I fancied that; only 40 laps!

What goes around comes around, I think it might have been at PBP in 1995 when our friends from across the pond had a very high percentage of DNF's there was a strong rumour that a 600 qualifier had been run around a fairly short, very flat, circuit for riders to get the necessary qualification.
Never did find out if it was true.
But I do fancy riding PBP in my garage!
 

[Wowbagger]

I seem to remember that the Gracious Annie, sadly not often of this parish any more, had some PC training programmes whereby she could do virtual rides with her turbo trainer linked to her PC. The screen would show the scenery she was crossing and the PC would control the amount of effort she had to put in to make the rollers turn, depending whether she was climbing or descending at the time.

I suppose it's a more active way of watching television, but doesn't appeal to me. What next? Virtual commutes in which the White Van comes in with a left hook and smashes you off the bike?

[Peter]

I think it's a bit obsessive, but then, obsession can be harmless.  I saw the CW article, Matt, and I couldn't help but be seriously impressed by the chap who "Everested" using the harder side of Hardknott!  I don't know how meny reps. he did to get the distance because I didn't finish the article, having passed out from shock.

[Kim]

I'm firmly of the belief that stationary cycling should be reserved for testing bike fit and physiotherapy type purposes (with a possible exception for the generation of electricity, but certainly not the liquidisation of fruit).  That said, if you *are* going to be stationary cycling, anything that livens it up makes sense to me.

I'm just wary of people quoting 'distances' for stationary cycles.  The distance travelled by the wheel is meaningless in this context - it's about power output vs time.  Only the poshest of apparatus will tie that to wheel rotations in a realistic manner.

[mattc]

Found this rather more accessible version of Everesting. I rather like it:

The premise: Each county of the world has a highest point. Form the Maldives at 8ft, through to China/Nepal at 29,029ft.

The Aim: Record the climbing you do on your rides and tick off each country as you accumulate enough climbing to pass that countries high point.

The Resource: High points will be as stated at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_highest_point

  _{As a benchmark,  I've done Turkey in a day. But in the French Alps. This could get confusing ...}

[contango]

I'm firmly of the belief that stationary cycling should be reserved for testing bike fit and physiotherapy type purposes (with a possible exception for the generation of electricity, but certainly not the liquidisation of fruit).  That said, if you *are* going to be stationary cycling, anything that livens it up makes sense to me.

I'm just wary of people quoting 'distances' for stationary cycles.  The distance travelled by the wheel is meaningless in this context - it's about power output vs time.  Only the poshest of apparatus will tie that to wheel rotations in a realistic manner.

Even the poshest of apparatus may not turn it into anything useful.

One rotation of the wheel does translate into a theoretical distance "travelled" but in the absence of wind resistance it becomes relatively easy to maintain unnaturally high "speeds" on machines. Measuring power output over time (which more expensive machines do accurately) doesn't translate into distance without having the concept of covering terrain. If the resistance meter simulates a gradient rather than a higher gear the extra power merely takes the rider up a virtual hill rather than increasing their virtual speed.

I suppose you could translate power output into a theoretical speed based on a theoretical route on a map, although it would be an interesting question to consider just what such an algorithm would do with situations where the power recorded by the machine was inadequate to climb the hill that the rider would have encountered based on the training profile.

[contango]

I seem to remember that the Gracious Annie, sadly not often of this parish any more, had some PC training programmes whereby she could do virtual rides with her turbo trainer linked to her PC. The screen would show the scenery she was crossing and the PC would control the amount of effort she had to put in to make the rollers turn, depending whether she was climbing or descending at the time.

I suppose it's a more active way of watching television, but doesn't appeal to me. What next? Virtual commutes in which the White Van comes in with a left hook and smashes you off the bike?

A couple of years back the ad breaks during the Tour de France frequently featured a stationary bike that had a screen to do just that sort of thing, where you could enter your proposed "route" and follow it, and the bike would change its angle of inclination and difficulty according to the virtual gradient. It looked like a really good idea in theory, but I have yet to see a stationary bike that lets you freewheel at ever-increasing speed down a big hill (or gives you the wind-in-the-face feeling as you do so) even if it can tip downwards to give you the sense of descending. Most of the reviews of it that I read were variations on the theme of "great if you want somewhere to hang your coat, crap if you want to use it as an exercise bike".

[Bledlow]

I seem to remember that the Gracious Annie, sadly not often of this parish any more, had some PC training programmes whereby she could do virtual rides with her turbo trainer linked to her PC. The screen would show the scenery she was crossing and the PC would control the amount of effort she had to put in to make the rollers turn, depending whether she was climbing or descending at the time.

I suppose it's a more active way of watching television, but doesn't appeal to me. What next? Virtual commutes in which the White Van comes in with a left hook and smashes you off the bike?

Done that, & it didn't appeal to me either. It didn't simulate wind resistance, but that wasn't the main reason. I'd rather be out on the road & have real scenery.

[mzjo]

Quote from: marcusjb   Virtual riding is an interesting one - is riding 200km on a turbo ever likely to be considered an audax?
 
Posted by: Veloman: Yesterday at 07:02:51 PM

No

And neither me doing 200km around our local 5km circuit which is a pity as I fancied that; only 40 laps!

What goes around comes around, I think it might have been at PBP in 1995 when our friends from across the pond had a very high percentage of DNF's there was a strong rumour that a 600 qualifier had been run around a fairly short, very flat, circuit for riders to get the necessary qualification.
Never did find out if it was true.
But I do fancy riding PBP in my garage!
 

I regularly use PBP videos for turbo sessions to avoid boredom. Never done PBP and unlikely to 

[PAC]

I find Sufferfest ISLAGIATT does it for me

[bikenrrd]

I like the monotony and boredom of the turbo trainer.  In a world that's permanently connected to some information stream or other, strapping your bike to a turbo, putting on some pounding pounding techno beats, staring at the garage wall with the occasional glance to your cycle computer, emptying your head and just concentrating on your legs and breathing is a great form of escape.

[teethgrinder]

When I was about 11 my mum and dad bought me a cheap and heavy single speed roadster bike. It must have been about 20 years old.
They wouldn't let me go out of sight of the kitchen window and spent some time riding around in circles.
I had one of those plastic cyclometers that worked by a peg on a spoke clicking a plastic wheel one notch on each revolution of the wheel

I did 21 miles riding in bloody circles! Surprised I never got dizzy.

I must have wore them down. They let me go a bit further afterwards.
It was my longest ride for quite a while IIRC.

Does that count?