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Is this The World's Most Festive Festive 500?!

Checkpoints:

• 94km - Partridge Lane & Pear Tree Close - Bedford
• 172km - Turtledove Close - Coventry
• 183km - Hen Lane - Coventry
• 187km - Bird Street - Coventry
• 318km - Goldring Way - St Albans
• 350km - Goose Green - Leighton Buzzard
• 383km - Swans Close - St Albans
• 420km - Milk Street - London
• 458km - Ladies Grove - St Albans
• 464km - Lords Meadow - St Albans
• 465km - Pipers Close - St Albans
• 533km - Drummer Street - Cambridge

It was a 31-hour ride with no sleep, one gear (50/18) and 12 Christmas themed roads.

I had numerous segments of feeling great and feeling terrible - I tried to smooth it out by focusing on just cruising along, no thought of the distance or time left to go.

2 years ago, I dreamt up the idea of riding to the streets named after Christmas carol items, in order, to form a 500km+ trip and complete the Festive 500 in one go.

Unfortunately, on that attempt I had my worst ever crash - I lost traction on a patch of black ice, landing head-first on a cattle grid, dislocating my shoulder, smashing up my hip and consequentially being off the bike for almost a month.

Since then it has been rather tame for me in terms of anything ultracycling related - with my longest ride being a mere 220km and dreams of international bikepacking races quashed.

So I am super happy, and relieved, to put this challenge to rest. It was incredibly difficult but incredibly rewarding - at least if I regain function of my knees and ankles I think it will have been.

Strava data: http://www.strava.com/activities/8299102742

Upcoming alleycat races:

The @pigeonkillers_leeds Sundown alleycat race last weekend was wild.

15 checkpoints had to be hit with a full photo of your bike with the specific detailed location in-shot. There were a cluster around the city centre so the start of the race had a lot of us bumping into each other before heading out by myself into the surrounding area. The hills in Leeds were expected so I had geared-down to 50/18 for the race but they still felt like a massive grind at times - including a road marking that told me 'DEAD SLOW' as if I wasn't already doing less than 5mph.

Flying into what we thought was the finish we were then surprised with a second manifest of 5 more checkpoints deep inside dark parks. I was often questioning if I had got the wrong pins on my map because there were some vast distances between spots. Having to locate exact points within unlit parks also made riding fast very anxiety inducing - who knew if a railing or fence or set of stairs or invisible dogwalker was looming ahead.

I ended up with 3rd place out of 17 racers which I was super stoked with as an out-of-towner and making a few mistakes with navigation choices. At 64km / 40 miles distance and with 820m / 2,700ft of climbing it was definitely a shock to the system as I'm so used to pan flat London. It took me 3 hours and 15 minutes to complete which was a lot longer than I was expecting and it's remarkable I finished despite not eating or drinking anything during.

Excellent race, great people and I especially loved the psychological devastation of a second gnarly manifest.

1st place - @trackloscotia
2nd place - @fhuzsi
3rd place - Ya boi

STRAVA - https://www.strava.com/activities/7710962702

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(I've done some looking around to the contrary and have crunched my stats.)

I hereby declare myself as the world record holder for the furthest distance cycled on a fixed gear bike within a one-month time period.

My crossing from Cairns, Queensland to Perth, Western Australia totalled a distance of 7,189.4km (4,467.3 miles) from 10:23 on 9th July to 19:46 on 6th August 2018. A total elapsed time of 28 days, 11 hours and 23 minutes. Annoyingly a hair over 4 weeks but well within your standard month. This ride was an impeccably fast and dedicated section of a full solo fixed gear loop of Australia.

Average daily distances cycled of 252.3km (156.7 miles) including my 2 rest days - or 271.3km (168.6 miles) without. Although most of my rides were actually quite a bit longer than this due to not really following any sort of pattern - often doing all-day, all-night, all-day then sleep efforts. Faster? Maybe not. Enjoyable? Ha. Trippy? Very.

The sunrise photo on the coast is from up in Darwin, the most northern point of my route, from where I ‘slept’ on a little patch of grass trying to avoid getting soaked by automatic sprinklers. Many dreams of being eaten by crocodiles that had crept up from the ocean.

I would love to see someone break this. Australia is definitely the place to do it. Super flat and nothing but open highway through a captivating landscape. And if this isn't actually the fixed gear 1-month record - I'd love to know what is!

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Damn, I really did NOT update this thread with how this project got on.

Well, 2.5 years later I've almost done 40,000km on this frameset and just won the biggest alleycat ever held in London on it. Here's a little breakdown of the set-up for that.

The race-winning set-up. This is what I used to nail 1st place in @thegreatalleycatoflondon last weekend.

56/18 gearing. Rear cog attached to the disc rotor side of a road wheelset. A cog with drillings for a 6-bolt attachment - however the hubs are Centrelock. So had to use an adapter and that seemingly had a tendency to loosen and was impossible to centre. I just used a load of threadlock and elbow grease and it appears to have survived over 100km of hard riding. Brand new Izumi chain installed 2 days before the race. Fully degreased and relubed for best efficiency.

Frame bag by @mackworkshop housed 2 spare tubes, required tools, a bottle of Coke (deployed at end of 2nd manifest) and some sweets. A bottle with electrolytes and sugar. Another with Red Bull. I'm always bad at hydrating on the bike but knew I couldn't mess around with this effort. The bag and cages were also used on my ride around Australia so they had a heap of residual adventure energy to them which helped fuel the smashfest in a metaphysical dimension.

Ergo grips paid off nicely for stopping hands getting sore. They also make it easier to hold a phone whilst riding. Which is crucial when navigating on the fly and for selecting the perfect Spotify soundtrack.

I also started the race with a rear puncture. I was running tubeless and it would occasionally spurt out some juice towards @the_sprinting_sanchez and @robroskoo who were chasing me. Like some sort of flare or octopus ink defense method. However, the tyre maintained 60-70PSI the whole race which is what I wanted anyway so it was all good.

Loved the set-up. Love this frameset. Running 25mm tyres on a gravel bike did make pedalstrike a hazard - and did cause me to have one minor crash. Derp!

Fun fact: The handlebars are 66.6cm wide and my route ended up being 66.6 miles.

YEP! It was the final manifest, just that one single checkpoint from Hop Kingdom near Tower Bridge to Hampstead. My legs started cramping badly just past Chalk Farm as the climb kicked in - so I just dropped to the lowest sustainable speed and rode out of the saddle for a bit and gradually my legs came back around. So nice to get to the top and know the hard riding was pretty much over.

You probably did as there were 91 entrants so plenty of people sending it around town. One of the checkpoints was Gee's Court just off Oxford Street.

Yours truly came out on top with a 107km route, 4:20 elapsed, 3:51 moving. Apparently a ~30 minute gap to 2nd place.

Dibs on the GP5000s. PM already sent.

This race is coming up on Saturday 6th August. It's gonna be wild.

100km+ route, over multiple manifests.

37 racers confirmed so far - some coming internationally.

thegreatalleycatoflondon.co.uk

Let's go.

Team Pulawski!

I guess no one told them Everest has recently been remeasured and is taller than before. 8,848m of climbing won't hit the summit anymore:

'Its elevation (snow height) of 8,848.86 m (29,031.7 ft) was most recently established in 2020 by the Chinese and Nepali authorities.'

I managed to redeem myself and snag 1st place out of 7 racers - Gabriel coming 2nd, who won the Neko alleycat 2 weeks ago. Hotting up nicely for the 100km+ race on the 6th August.

Price drop.

£39.9999999

Tomorrow ! ! ! ! ! !

Fantastic race. Bagged 2nd / 14. A naughty 5 minutes behind 1st place and 11 minutes ahead of 3rd. Super hot day. Quads cramping towards the end. Didn't expect it to be such a long one! All the checkpoints were cat related. I didn't realise London had so many feline sculptures.

The start was very unique. We didn't get handed the manifest at the very beginning. We had to ride off and hunt for someone situated at a random location on the Marshes and then begin our race after receiving the list of checkpoints from them. This process took me a little over 10 minutes... eek!

Shout out to @nekohomedelivery for a great organised race!

Next race in Hastings on Saturday 16th July.

Price drop.

£50.

Reminder: This Saturday!

I initially rode mine singlespeed with a single cog and spacers before switching to fixed by flipping my wheel and using a 6-bolt cog from VeloSolo when the snow and ice disappeared. Also set it up with gears briefly for a loop of Scotland. Majority of mine has been set-up fixed though. Haven't seemingly had a problem with chainline.

You could use a centrelock-to-6-bolt adaptor for your wheel to allow for a 6-bolt cog to be used but something feels off-putting about too many interfaces.

I've amassed over 36,000km on mine now and absolutely love it!

Planet X track forks.
Used.
Undrilled.
205mm steerer.
1 1/8" diameter.
No bung.
No crown race.
Small chip under crown at front.
Some tiny scuff marks.
Red.

£69
£50
£39.9999999999999

Pick-up in Leytonstone or can meet / drop-off around Central-ish.

Cheers,
Joseph

Thanks, @andyp! Just looking forward to slaying some of these cheeky races.

One not to be missed, by the way.

https://www.thegreatalleycatoflondon.co.uk/blog

Yes, that is indeed me. Hello!

Roll call?

I will be endeavouring to race all. Bring the heat.

Saturday 6th August
London
Projected to be ~100km in distance