My obsession

Strava has become an obsession.  Let's just add it to the list of obsessive black and white but completely harmless to anyone but me behaviours.

I don't understand.  Let me explain.  The Strava Spring Classics challenge popped up onto the dashboard at the end of March.  It suggested that during the forthcoming 40 days folk take on the challenge of riding the arbitrary distance of 1266 km.  This apparently in a world of clever statistics adds up to the distance ridden by a theoretical rider who takes part in all the so called Spring Classics; the one day epic events in Europe at this time of year.  They are a glorious, spectacular and beautiful dance, these one day races which specialise in routes of particular "interest".  This can mean cobbles.

So in the spirit of something, of exploration, of solidarity, of curiosity, of rising to the challenge, I signed up.  After a very short time, I did the maths.  It would mean averaging 32km per day on the bike.  Hmm.  Not a problem, I reckoned.  If I added bits into my daily commute and did that four days a week and used the weekends for longer rides, it seemed do-able.  But there wasn't much room for slippage.  And slippage there has been.

I am now staring at a 400kilometre target to make up in ten days.  That would mean 40k a day, and no rest days.  Yet today I did just 10k and tomorrow I can't see a way of getting a ride in.  Oh.  I'm in a bit of trouble now. I think it means every commute next week is going to need to mount up to 50k.

I have, however, a new bike which is making it easier.  It's a cyclocross bike so it's quicker on the tarmac than a mountain bike but also allows me to take routes the road bike doesn't love. Hard packed grit, gravel, mud, tree roots, rocks, tow paths, linear routes, and it's been quite a joy to explore.  There's a way home from work which is 30k of off road fun as I ride alongside canals and through bluebell woods.  It's not all bad, really it's not.

Brought to you by you're my obsession, who do you want me to be?