Having just moved to Anglesey last month, and having got into road riding over the last year, I’ve come up with a little challenge to keep myself motivated over winter and to stop the (minimum) 18 mile each way commute from becoming tiresome.
My plan is to cycle every road on the island. To keep it realistic and prevent myself from cycling in circles around housing estates, I’m defining a road as anything that’s coloured on a 1:25k OS map. So far this pointless challenge is doing its job and giving me the little extra push to get out in all weathers, thanks to my slightly OCD tendencies, and my progress can be nicely visualised with Strava’s heat maps.
I think I’ve made a pretty good start of colouring in the island:
https://www.strava.com/athletes/1048361/heatmaps/5a4d5486#11/53.31447/-4.32518
The hardest part of the challenge is going to be the 200k ride that I’ve got planned that goes around the whole island as close to the coast as possible. That’s going to have to wait for some less windy/rainy weather though.
Anyway, just thought I’d share in case it inspires anyone else with similar OCD issues to do something similar to keep themselves motivated over the winter.