[HAMR] Current thoughts on the record attempt?

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Steve will continue insisting that he is on track to break the record, as will his team. Which is bollocks, of course.

They are just putting off having to consider stopping and restarting or alternatively going back to real life.

[Ningishzidda]

I thought it might get a bit like the day after a General Election where all the losers throw in the towel....

or sack their leader.

Do football teams walk off the field conceding defeat when the opposition score the first goal?

[Greenbank]

Do football teams walk off the field conceding defeat when the opposition score the first goal?

It's the brave valiant football team that continues pushing hard and not giving up despite being 10-1 down with only 5 minutes to go.

They still lose the game though.

[IJL]

Steve will continue insisting that he is on track to break the record, as will his team. Which is bollocks, of course

He is still ahead of of Godwins milage at this point, a fact that seems to be mostly ignored. 

[jsabine]

Steve will continue insisting that he is on track to break the record, as will his team. Which is bollocks, of course

He is still ahead of of Godwins milage at this point, a fact that seems to be mostly ignored.

While that's true, Godwin's long days in the summer were aided by the support and pacing teams that he and Bennet (or their sponsors) later agreed to give up - at which point the mileage fell off again.

I for one am not convinced (though I'd love to be) that Steve can match these. Kurt, with an apparently higher base speed than Steve, didn't.

[HK]

Comparing Steve's miles to Godwins at this point in the 365 days of the year is a red herring.

jsabine is quiet correct about the summer distances.

Tommy riding less over the winter wasn't choice it was weather driven.  I don't think you would opt to ride the year this way.

I can see only one way that Steve can ride the year and it's on consistent daily miles - i.e. hitting the records average each and every day.

[mattc]

I can see only one way that Steve can ride the year and it's on consistent daily miles - i.e. hitting the records average each and every day.

And I disagree. Cos he's based in Milton Keynes for the winter and the summer.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Steve has not shown the resilience to consistently collect 220+ mile days, for reasons that have been done to death. With a required average daily distance around 210 miles, that means he pretty much has to hit that number every day. Now his required average is virtually 220 miles...

Check out some of the long days that Tommy managed through his second winter, which was much milder than his first. Steve has had a fairly mild first winter and an exceptionally warm winter so far, but hasn't been able to take advantage of that.

[TheRedEyeJedi]

Without going back to find the quotes  - I seem to recall a few posts which mentioned there would likely be a 5 figure sum left in the bank in August if current spending continued and there was no more donations.   If that is incorrect then disregard this...

It seems to me that if he has any chance of breaking this record then that resource should be used?

Is a trip abroad out of the question?  Quicker time trial bike, rent of private land for laps?   Rent of vehicle which he could sleep in and pay a driver?  Sports massage daily, meals delivered on route?

If this is it - then go for it.  He is ahead of Tommy still ....with money spent and changes made he could stay there?

[HK]

I can see only one way that Steve can ride the year and it's on consistent daily miles - i.e. hitting the records average each and every day.

And I disagree. Cos he's based in Milton Keynes for the winter and the summer.

Where Steve is based is irrelevant.  You have to do the miles. If you haven't got the speed for big summer miles / shorter winter miles you have to do daily average distance each and every day. If you can't do either of those scenarios then it equals no record.

[jsabine]

I can see only one way that Steve can ride the year and it's on consistent daily miles - i.e. hitting the records average each and every day.

And that's more or less the way Kurt has done it.

Sure, there's room for a bit of fluctuation, but if you look at Jo's visualisation, and scale it so you can see the whole year, Kurt's curve is reasonably flat - and his short days really stand out.

That chart brings together three sets of data on how to ride your bike for a year. Two show different ways of reaching 75k miles: Kurt's is reasonably even, while Godwin's starts slow, curves down, and then is brought back up by incredibly long days before flattening again for the last four or five months.

Steve's whole year chart doesn't really offer lessons, beyond an illustration of the rapid decline caused by his time off the bike and then the way 100 mile days don't really stem the deficit. But it's instructive (IMO) to look at the way his current mileages, substantial though they are, are causing his progress to drop down from the Godwin line.

Sure, he's still higher than Godwin's actual ride, 5 months in, and he's now at the point where Godwin was really ramping up the distances. If he can match those increases, he's 2k (ish) to the good. But 5 months into Godwin's ride was the start of June, not early January, and his on-road support was rather different.

If Steve is to hit 76k, he needs to be averaging 220mpd. From an arithmetic point of view, he could start doing 220mpd now, and keep it up till August - but that doesn't look likely. Based on Idai's comments in the CTC interview, he could rise evenly from now to achieving 205mpd throughout March, then step up to 220mpd for April, then step up again to 235mpd for May-August.

Arithmetically, that's possible (and you could juggle it to include 250 or 270 mile days too, if you wanted to demonstrate that the maths would let him continue doing 'mere' Godwins for longer) - but physiologically? Psychologically? I don't know.

[postie]

Or better still you could just support steve!!!! Some of you on here are supposed to be his friends, yet you seem happy to stab him in the back!!!  Steve will carry on and what ever happens will achieve something no one on this forum ever will.  I was taught from a early age in my cycling life not to criticize those doing things your not capable of!!!  Some on here need to have a long hard look at them selfs.

[aoxomoxoa]

Or better still you could just support steve!!!! Some of you on here are supposed to be his friends, yet you seem happy to stab him in the back!!!  Steve will carry on and what ever happens will achieve something no one on this forum ever will.  I was taught from a early age in my cycling life not to criticize those doing things your not capable of!!!  Some on here need to have a long hard look at them selfs.

What a silly post. No-one is criticising Steve or stabbing him in the back. Just pointing out the immensity of the task and hypothesising that he's almost certainly not going to achieve it. The only thing being criticised is his strategy.  Ok and the team too.

[Citizenfish]

Check out some of the long days that Tommy managed through his second winter, which was much milder than his first. Steve has had a fairly mild first winter and an exceptionally warm winter so far, but hasn't been able to take advantage of that.

Erm. Nope, Tommy's second winter was just as bad as the first. He tells us so in his mileage diary for 1940 which has a number of scribbled notes to that effect. It did not let up until end of March.

[Greenbank]

I can see only one way that Steve can ride the year and it's on consistent daily miles - i.e. hitting the records average each and every day.

And I disagree. Cos he's based in Milton Keynes for the winter and the summer.

Where Steve is based is irrelevant.  You have to do the miles. If you haven't got the speed for big summer miles / shorter winter miles you have to do daily average distance each and every day. If you can't do either of those scenarios then it equals no record.

It's not a choice between consistent miles all year or Godwin-esque big summer miles / shorter winter miles. There's plenty of room in the middle depending on how much more you think you can do in the warmer nicer spring/summer.

Tommy's graph on jo's visualisation looks like a sine wave, it's all about how tall you want to make that sine wave (the amplitude).

Tommy's monthly averages were (roughly): 154, 158, 178, 189, 211, 255, 276, 237, 222, 207, 200, 174 which has huge variation and some weeks where Tommy averaged over 300 miles a day.

So taking a requirement of 210 mpd average then a plan that starts of with months of:-

195, 200, 205

requires the following months to balance them out to average 210mpd: 215, 220, 225

then reverse those 6 months for the other half of the year to get:-

195, 200, 205, 215, 220, 225, 225, 220, 215, 205, 200, 195

Flatter sine wave and far easier than trying to emulate the huge summer miles of Tommy.

[EDIT] For reference, Steve's first attempt had monthly averages of: 185, 191, 205 (not including the day of the moped) which, given that he didn't start in great form and was aiming to beat a record that was only 205mpd, was looking in reasonable shape.

[Mr Larrington]

Check out some of the long days that Tommy managed through his second winter, which was much milder than his first. Steve has had a fairly mild first winter and an exceptionally warm winter so far, but hasn't been able to take advantage of that.

Erm. Nope, Tommy's second winter was just as bad as the first. He tells us so in his mileage diary for 1940 which has a number of scribbled notes to that effect. It did not let up until end of March.

Plus, as LWaB himself pointed out upthread(?) post-September '39 he was subject to the blackout restrictions.  Lights of that era were shit enough even before taking precautions against the
Luftwaffe dropping a Big Fritz in your saddlebag.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Check out some of the long days that Tommy managed through his second winter, which was much milder than his first. Steve has had a fairly mild first winter and an exceptionally warm winter so far, but hasn't been able to take advantage of that.

Erm. Nope, Tommy's second winter was just as bad as the first. He tells us so in his mileage diary for 1940 which has a number of scribbled notes to that effect. It did not let up until end of March.

Plus, as LWaB himself pointed out upthread(?) post-September '39 he was subject to the blackout restrictions.  Lights of that era were shit enough even before taking precautions against the
Luftwaffe dropping a Big Fritz in your saddlebag.

Bugger, brain fade on my part. My copy of your book is about a 5 hour flight away.

Some of Tommy's second winter days are pretty long despite the conditions.

[Citizenfish]

I'm going to publish the 1940 mileages soon, it is a massive job verifying them all as, let's just say that whilst Tommy could ride a bike, his arithmetic was lacking. It took me eons to verify the 1939 ones against official records and correct mistakes he'd made. He started with 79 on the clock and clearly had a few subtraction issues when adding them in post ride. Remember though that he was canny, his contract with Raleigh paid out the most if if finished almost on the nail of 500 days, as he had a daily wage and 500 day bonus. There were a few 240/240 days in there but I think he rode to the clock during this period rather than aiming to get the 100k done as quickly as possible.

[HK]

I can see only one way that Steve can ride the year and it's on consistent daily miles - i.e. hitting the records average each and every day.

And I disagree. Cos he's based in Milton Keynes for the winter and the summer.

Where Steve is based is irrelevant.  You have to do the miles. If you haven't got the speed for big summer miles / shorter winter miles you have to do daily average distance each and every day. If you can't do either of those scenarios then it equals no record.

It's not a choice between consistent miles all year or Godwin-esque big summer miles / shorter winter miles. There's plenty of room in the middle depending on how much more you think you can do in the warmer nicer spring/summer.

Tommy's graph on jo's visualisation looks like a sine wave, it's all about how tall you want to make that sine wave (the amplitude).

Tommy's monthly averages were (roughly): 154, 158, 178, 189, 211, 255, 276, 237, 222, 207, 200, 174 which has huge variation and some weeks where Tommy averaged over 300 miles a day.

So taking a requirement of 210 mpd average then a plan that starts of with months of:-

195, 200, 205

requires the following months to balance them out to average 210mpd: 215, 220, 225

then reverse those 6 months for the other half of the year to get:-

195, 200, 205, 215, 220, 225, 225, 220, 215, 205, 200, 195

Flatter sine wave and far easier than trying to emulate the huge summer miles of Tommy.

[EDIT] For reference, Steve's first attempt had monthly averages of: 185, 191, 205 (not including the day of the moped) which, given that he didn't start in great form and was aiming to beat a record that was only 205mpd, was looking in reasonable shape.

I'm perfectly aware of this.  If you take a look at my year on year miles if I didn't understand and use the sine wave I wouldn't be so close to 300,000 miles with a yearly average of 14,800 miles since 1999 or ridden 19,007 miles around a full time job in 2015.

However, if your variation in speed is quiet limited, which Steve's appears to be then your sine wave is going to be pretty flat. Hence the simplified statement of keep riding round about 205 (probably 210) miles per day plus or minus a bit.  This is precisely what Kurt has done and he's quicker than Steve.

Steve's plan is for the Tommy sine wave. So he has to have speed and replication to achieve this. Evidence?

Theory is all well and good but you have to be able to put it into practice.

[Mr Larrington]

Do football teams walk off the field conceding defeat when the opposition score the first goal?

It's the brave valiant football team that continues pushing hard and not giving up despite being 10-1 down with only 5 minutes to go.

They still lose the game though.

José Mourinho would, of course, blame this entirely on the referee.

[Legs]

Citizenfish, how likely do you think it is that Tommy spent the summer months crystal-cranking 18" from the back of a 20mph lorry on the A1?  Having seen the toll that consistent high mileage has taken on Steve, and assuming that if Kurt was finding it easy to knock out an average of 210mpd he'd have done more, it seems difficult to believe that from 17/7/39 onwards Tommy managed 5 straight days of 300m+ rides and that his midsummer 361m was followed by more than a month of Godwin+ rides, many nearer 300m than 200m.

[Greenbank]

I'm perfectly aware of this.  If you take a look at my year on year miles if I didn't understand and use the sine wave I wouldn't be so close to 300,000 miles with a yearly average of 14,800 miles since 1999 or ridden 19,007 miles around a full time job in 2015.

However, if your variation in speed is quiet limited, which Steve's appears to be then your sine wave is going to be pretty flat. Hence the simplified statement of keep riding round about 205 (probably 210) miles per day plus or minus a bit.  This is precisely what Kurt has done and he's quicker than Steve.

Steve's plan is for the Tommy sine wave. So he has to have speed and replication to achieve this. Evidence?

Theory is all well and good but you have to be able to put it into practice.

Steve's plan was to ride for longer in the summer months both by being out longer, but also requiring fewer/shorter stops in the summer months.

Instead of 14 hour days with 11.5 hours riding time he would build to 16 hour days with 14.5 hours riding time. Even at his current average speed that's close to the upper limit of that plan that peaks at 225 miles/day. It requires much better planning and optimising his rides (and time off the bike) otherwise his sleep will suffer, but that's going to be easier than magically pulling an extra few mph from nowhere. I also remember reading that the recent diet change is also to move from 4 big feeds a day to 3. If that middle feed is the only big feed during a ride (along with eating whilst riding) then that'll really help.

His big summer miles plan was predicated on also getting much faster which, when coupled with the longer riding days, gave some seriously big miles. There's obviously little chance of the fast speeds now, but his average speed has crept up slightly recently enough that if he can push the days longer as the light/temperature/etc improves then he has a chance.

So, he has a chance of this without needing to get considerably faster, although it that does start to happen then it's an unexpected bonus that can only help.

In short I disagree with the idea that the only hope he has is to increase his average speed significantly (by more than 1mph, some say 2mph+), but any increase will make it significantly less onerous.

If there was any evidence for being able to do any of this then he wouldn't be in quite this mess. As I said before, I doubt Steve had ever managed 5000 miles in a month before starting this challenge, but he still managed to do that for the first 3 months of the challenge until hit by a moped. If he's going to succeed he's going to be doing stuff he's never done before.

[HK]

Greenbank,

If you want to believe in fairies and woodland folk and their magic in the context of this record, fine go ahead.

However, my palmares both racing and randonneuring bear out that I do have the experience and results to back up what I'm saying.

Your waffle about diet doesn't stand up to what happens in real cycling world it you want to go fast and far.

[mattc]

Or better still you could just support steve!!!! Some of you on here are supposed to be his friends, yet you seem happy to stab him in the back!!!  Steve will carry on and what ever happens will achieve something no one on this forum ever will.  I was taught from a early age in my cycling life not to criticize those doing things your not capable of!!!  Some on here need to have a long hard look at them selfs.

What a silly post. No-one is criticising Steve or stabbing him in the back. Just pointing out the immensity of the task and hypothesising that he's almost certainly not going to achieve it. The only thing being criticised is his strategy.  Ok and the team too.

Pretty key parts of the equation! So in fact you are only criticising the things that he has control of.

Hmmm ...

[Polar Bear]

Or better still you could just support steve!!!! Some of you on here are supposed to be his friends, yet you seem happy to stab him in the back!!!  Steve will carry on and what ever happens will achieve something no one on this forum ever will.  I was taught from a early age in my cycling life not to criticize those doing things your not capable of!!!  Some on here need to have a long hard look at them selfs.

What a silly post. No-one is criticising Steve or stabbing him in the back. Just pointing out the immensity of the task and hypothesising that he's almost certainly not going to achieve it. The only thing being criticised is his strategy.  Ok and the team too.

Actually, I think that you are criticising Steve, his strategy and his team.   

I completely agree with Postie's sentiments and am amazed at the level of un-niceness and bitterness towards Steve in this thread.   There is far too much in this thread with fails the forum rule about being nice to each other.