Veloviewer Tile Bagging?

South Circular to Catford

You could visit @amey !

I've done the Severn Across multiple times and 3Down was another one I used for training a lot, but I don't really know why west of Chilterns has so much coverage. Probably quite a few TTs out that way and other audaxes did the damage out there. My longer training loops did stretch out to Bristol, Bath and Bicester

I just clicked a random line and it shows two different TT training rides, for example. I have no recollection of riding my TT bike anywhere near Witney. :)

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My notes from those two:

"AIM:10hr TT
Stealth, random ride into Chilterns - Warington, Wallingford, etc

Started slow (lots of beer yesterday). Riding easy trying to keep eye on power. Can't actually remember how I got where I did - ah yeah via Henley and then hard right up that long drag then just keep going.

Enabled Auto Pause so Garmin stops at lights etc. Finished early (but in dark) so did 25min turbo. Had bar and gel left over. Stopped at pub for coke, half and water refill. Probably not enough - felt bit of bonk at one point but had extra gel and got over it.

Tired today. Legs are a bit tender."

and

"Aim:9hr, Out to Henley via normal way, Walingford, Blewbury, Wantage, Faringdon, Lechlade, Cirencester and then back via Northleach, Burford, Witney, Standlake, Kingston Bagpuize, Abingdon, Didcot, Wallingford, Nettlebed, Hanley, Maidenhead, Slough, Iver and Hayes

Got a bit carried away (and lost) so ended up with 11hr and 317k. Started ok but died in the arse around 5-6hr. Struggled up climbs in places - legs were toast. Picked up towards home though.

Left hip flexor pain got quite bad around 9-10hr mark.

2L SIS Go 8%, 1.5L SIS Go 6%, 2 cans Pepsi, 6 large Go bars, 5-6 gels"

"Out to Henley via normal way" - I literally couldn't tell you what route that was but I guess 10 years ago this was normal for me.

Low tide at lunchtime today so I'm off to get those three river tiles near the Hurlingham Club with a walk along the shore.

All good. Boris Bike over the river to Broomhouse Lane then walk down to the river, easily onto the shore and then along hugging the water line under the railway bridge, under Putney Bridge and back to terra firma using the stairs in Bishop's Park.

More than clipped the corner of the tile I thought might be tricky so no need to fuck around and find out from the Southern shoreline.

Nice lunchtime walk that was a bit different to normal . Rewarded myself with a Pret sandwich.

You deserve it

Got some nice photos along the way.

[EDIT] D'oh. Just realised that with a 5 minute detour on the Boris Bike on the way to the start of this I could have added 2 to my Übersquadratinho. Oh well, will hopefully get out on a small ride this weekend to fix that.

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That's neat. I'll have to hit you up for advice if/when I get down there. Although if we're going by stereotypes, I should just swim the whole Thames or something.

Out to Henley via normal way

If I was doing it on TT bike I would go up the A 40, turn right after Beaconsfield, down that massive straight hill, through Bourne End, then Marlow, and main road to Henley.

Good to have those notes to look back on. The second one sounds like a decent ride, but no way could I jump on turbo after being out all day.

You've got pretty full coverage of Bristol, and basically West of Salisbury plain, and pretty dense to Oxford and beyond.

Lovely pics, good day for it!

If I was doing it on TT bike I would go up the A 40, turn right after Beaconsfield, down that massive straight hill, through Bourne End, then Marlow, and main road to Henley.

That sounds pretty familar.

Did a ride not specifically to collect tiles. I feel dirty (got 70 little ones though so not that dirty)

Antibiotics mean no pub after 5-a-side so I made my 11k ride each way to footy (which I normally do at least one way by train) into a 22km and a 24km ride respectively. Yardinho up by 247.

Also got the annoying tile to the West of the dump in Wandsworth, was passing and just decided to chance blasting past the security hut, but they didn't seem to care. Had my "sorry, someone gave me wrong directions" excuse at the ready but it wasn't necessary.

Will try and fill in the big hole around Battersea over the next few weeks going to footy (will do it one way on a Boris Bike) and focus on West/South (Sheen, Richmond, Roehampton, Wimbledon, etc) with lunchtime rides from home.

North I can extend one more row up but that involves paying £17.50 to go round the Wetland Centre.
West I can extend one more until I run into the very tricky tiles on the Roehampton Club golf course (although I have a plan for these...)
South and East are easy. Jonathan France is at 82x82 bounded by the same "impossible" tiles to the North/West.

Antibiotics mean no pub

Mostly not a thing. Depends on what ABs you're banging.

I did a short lunch ride and got some more little ones. I'm basically expanded to far (HIF) now so weekends are the only really interesting ones.

Send me the impossible and I shall make them possible.

I used to use Bike Tag as my 'motivation to ride', but am becoming tempted by this tiles malarkey.

What is the minimum I need to get started? I have no Garmin and use Linux as my operating system.

I suppose there is probably an FAQ I could read, but I'd rather hear it from those I trust and have got the scars.

What is the minimum I need to get started?

Activities need to be in Strava so app on your phone.

Antibiotics mean no pub

Mostly not a thing. Depends on what ABs you're banging.

Metronidazole, and heavy doses of it at that. It's one of the ones you really do not want to drink on. 1 more day of tablets and then 2 days of it getting out of my system and I'll be in the pub Monday.

I'm basically expanded to far (HIF) now so weekends are the only really interesting ones.

Yeah, I reckon I've got a good few weeks until I'll have expanded (GBIF) to cover everything within an hour return ride from home. From there I've just got to plan things a bit better. Tube/train and Boris Bike should help cover other random bits of London but the general plan is that this gets me back to fitness and then I start working on big tiles again in the Spring. I had planned on getting the whole of the inside of the M25 covered (again, big tiles) and a couple of strategic rides to Cambridge should extend my big tile yard all the way up there. Similarly I'm a couple of rides away from the yard going as far West as Newbury, and a few rides away from it going to Dungeness/Folkstone thanks to a few Audaxes down there.

As jellybaby said, an app on your phone is good enough. You don't need paid Strava (I don't have it) and squadrats.com is free to (for now at least).

A lot of my next year will be overseas during events. Other than the little stuff in London I might get some bigguns trying to get another SR series done towards that 10x SR ultra rando badge thingie. Annoyingly they've scheduled two or three of the 600s I want to do on the same weekend! Mind you, I've been threatening to do Kernow & SW 600k / 8.25A as a DIY for ages so that might happen if I'm not in a hole already during the warmer months. Old me would've done it over xmas or something stupid like that.

Kernow & SW 600k / 8.25A

That was my 600 qualifier for PBP, the second day was also my birthday so I went to an offy 300 yards from the finish and sat in the arrivee (a church) chugging warm lager. #winning

I went to an offy 300 yards from the finish and sat in the arrivee (a church) chugging warm lager. #winning

Other than it being warm lager, that does sound like a nice finish. Different organiser now but the last time I rode one of Ian's events was perms on Xmas day and Boxing Day and we were fucking drowned both days! Literal rivers of water.

When I did the KSW main things I remember are that the road layout had been changed so my satnav couldn't find that church - I was driving around for ages looking for it.

Then I had planned to ride right through, but I got bad saddle sores and a storm came in, so I stopped at the sleep control.

The next day I got pissed off with the endless, slow, bumpy, winding, shitty lanes, so did a detour involving about 20 miles of the A303 - which was an experience. And the last stage had the series of detours off a straight, flat road to go down / up steep winding lanes to every fishing village.

And the last stage had the series of detours off a straight, flat road to go down / up steep winding lanes

But think of the tiles! :D

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/42596349

And the last stage had the series of detours off a straight, flat road to go down / up steep winding lanes to every fishing village.

I'd spotted this in advance and so I binned the official route in favour of climbing out of Seaton (penultimate control) and riding along the A3052 most of the way back.

and miss BEER? Are you mad?