Pointless but entertaining challenges you've set yourself?

[foxyrider]

I’ve been to Scotland, Ireland and New Zealand in Wiltshire there’s a Canada but that’s just over the Wiltshire Border.

Also hust over the border are Pennsylvania, California and Dunkirk

[rjb]

There's a Wales in Somerset, not far from Yeovilton so you could fit it in on a flying visit.
https://www.fleetairarm.com/exhibition/ ... /4-18.aspx

Has anyone done the shipping area forecasts. There's a Fitzroy near Taunton.
Challenge for us all.

[crossy]

I took a detour to get that Wales in Somerset. I put my bike on the train to Exeter and cycled home that was before Gps. I saw Wales on the map and just had to visit.

[rareposter]

My wife and I did the Rapha Festive 500 one year, that was pretty pointless. Riding 500km over 8 days between Christmas Eve and New Years Eve in usually awful weather. We were pretty lucky with the weather as it was quite windy but unseasonably mild when we did it. We managed to complete it, but basically had to ignore the rest of our family over the Christmas holidays, so we’ve never done it again.

That's a big commitment, especially with the limited daylight hours.

I did it every year for about 10 years, finally giving it a miss last year. You kind of learn how to fit it in around family commitments - an easy one is riding to relative's houses - and you also learn to embrace night riding!

Although a couple of years, we used it as an excuse to go away at Christmas to the Canaries or Mallorca.

The Strava 100km /month challenge and climbing challenge, I've done an Everesting...

[ChrisF]

Similar to MickF's riding all the roads in Cornwall, I'm doing OSM tiles. Cornwall was completed* earlier this year; next challenge is to finish Devon:

although because of Dartmoor I think I'll need to modify the Devon challenge a bit to 'every tile in Devon that has a road in it'.
See https://rideeverytile.com/ for more background.
* apart from a few bits of coastal path

[Bike]

I'm another that signs up for all the Strava Challenges. I'm not sure why I bother with it; they literally have no bearing on my actual goals and would happen anyway so the act of signing up is pointless.

In terms of goals outside of racing, I set myself a 20 000km / year challenge and have done that for the past 2 years (I only got back into cycling 3 years ago). So far I'm on track for that again this year: 18 746km / 165 772m so far. ( 11 650mi / 543 000ft )

Entertaining (but not pointless used as a motivational training tool) is to see if I can get Strava KOM's (because I'm in my 50's and they are generally held by much younger riders). Veloviewer says I have 336 at the moment.

[carlislemike]

Love the idea of “pointless,” but as others say, pointless to one may be pointed for others! Several ideas in the first lockdowns, Cycling and photo tagging each religious venue in the boroughs of Lewisham and Greenwich. Some I already knew by site but using old o/s maps from the early 1900s and current road maps, I got a huge tally. Kept me busy over the periods as I made sure I didn’t just take on the ones in clusters but over several of my riding routes. Writing the log up with mapping was another diversion. Since then, professional football clubs in London over all boroughs and tiers with perhaps my all time favourite, a la Dante’s Inferno; Hell to Paradise taking in Millwall and its neighbourhood, Charlton Athletic and neighbouring area the turning up at Crystal PalaceFC and taking in the parks in the area. Probably a cheerful 34 miles or so in one afternoon, reading relevant quotes at each venue. Apologies to any Millwall fans or Charlton fans but as a Palace fan of nearly 5 decades, I couldn’t resist the analogies!

[drossall]

I have a cycling friend who, in the late 70s, when we were students, had a large YHA map of the country, and would ink in all the roads on which he had ridden with marker pen, the aim being to cover the whole country. He was doing pretty well back then...

In Covid, when we could go out but not ride in groups, my cycling club had a great series of challenges to ride to various places, one each week, and take a selfie. This culminated in a mince pie ride where we could collect a small goody from each of several locations, but a selfie at each was required in exchange. Kept things going well, alongside Zwift club runs, when nothing else was possible