I completed the Manchester to London ride this weekend and now have the inevitable lack of focus that comes having just completing something I have been focussing on.

So dear STW, I need a new challenge to aim for. Ideally bike based, ideally that come be done on either a road or CX/gnarmac bike. it doesn’t have to be a long ride, just something I need to train for in order to stop me getting fatter than I already am.

Any ideas?

The entire length of the Leeds Liverpool canal in a day. 204km

The entire length of the ridgeway in a day 139km

The C2C in a day 225km.

Coast & castles ncn, Newcastle to Edinburgh 273km

Amsterdam to Paris or vice versa ;o) 533kms

London to Paris in 24h, then back. Newhaven-Dieppe ferry is £35rtn.

Not sure if this helps you but mine in to ride the m25 in a day.

Around the M25 in a day on my Brompton

I did lake Geneva (126 miles) in a day on my dahon folder.
Try doing a ride on somthing wired – like the guy who did the TDF on a chopper

Wheelie the entire length of next doors drive.

Sandstone way in one day 120 miles – took me three

1000 miles in a month.

Fred Whitton Challenge.

Ride a 650b without the trail coming alive.

lon las cymru,over a few days 230 odd miles depending on which route option you take ?
had planned the first half of the route for next week but due to work and the fact im full of snot ! … ive put it off for a bit 🙁

Learnt to ride a unicyle. If you already can, then unicycle a long way. Or muni.

South Downs way in a day?

I want to give it a go next summer.

Teach me to wheelie

wash my bikes

http://londonedinburghlondon.com/

The North Coast 500

Quit Strava. 😆

Have a look on the AUDAX website.

Or THIS if you can stump up the money to fly to Japan next September.

Brecon Beast this weekend. Not too late to enter. Be fine on a CX bike

Some stuff I’ve done (to be fair, in two cases I strictly mean “attempted”):

London to Paris in 24h
Massive GPS track drawing
South Downs Way in a day
Sleeper train to Penzance, ride home
Ride from your home town to its twin town and back (probably a little ludicrous in most cases)
Cinglé de Ventoux
Friday Night Epic: take Friday afternoon off, go as far as you dare by train, ride home
Ride through all the towns called “Bez” (may not have the same appeal to everyone ;))
Find a cake shop worth riding a huge distance for and do an epic bun run

Whimsy is your friend (as are train tickets, cakes and Google Maps). Just find something daft and then build a ride around it. Make it big, then you’ve got an excuse to pencil in something else two-thirds as big as a milestone on the way. The world is your clam!

there was a similar thread to this in April. AlanSD of this manor and I ended up doing London to Paris in 24 hours (well something like 21 actually) in May. I can bore you with a video if you really want.

Just three of us, unsupported and Eurostar back same day. A great challenge and really good fun and not as difficult as you would think.

We were lucky with the weather though, think it would be more difficult given the weather we are currently experiencing where summer has come to a grinding halt.

I’m looking at doing circuit of M25 next so thanks for the link onanon

Previous thread

London to Newcastle is nicely 300 miles. There is a “sportive style” ride that does it in 24h. I did it with 4 friends but we did it unsupported just stopping at shops on the way.

As above, C2C (offroad),C2C2C on the road, Sandstone way are good bets. Many of the long NCN routes would make good challenges if you can sort out logistics.

You could set your own. 100mile mtb ride, 10000m climbing in one ride, 200mile road ride, 300 mile road ride, 600km audax, 24 hour ride.

Really depends on where you are based as a long ride that doesn’t start or finish at your home will take at least 3 days. Train out and ride home makes 200mile rides a bit more interesting as you get new roads.

Interested ideas here, very interesting. I did London to Paris in 24 hours last year and very much enjoyed it, I’ll revisit it in the future but not next year I don’t think.

Round the M25 sounds good too, as does the Stourport Ring in a day.

Ride from your home town to its twin town and back

All 16 of them?

One is do-able in a few days.
One there is actually a direct train, with space for 16 bikes (although might not be running right now).
Trondheim to Egypt via Spain might take a while.

Not sure about sticking necessarily close to the M25, but one of the road bike mags did do a London orbital ride about a year or so back, much of which might be kind of interesting, especially if you can find all the village pub detours or something.

All 16 of them?

Probably not 😉

We did mine, but then it’s not far the other side of the channel. 300km and two crossing inside 24 hours, pretty straightforward. Unlikely to work for many places, obvs.

I can’t begin to imagine actually wanting to ride an M25 loop. Surely that takes you through some of the most hideous roads with some of the most hideous drivers? I like the masochism of big rides, but not the masochism of constantly putting myself at the mercy of idiots in cars.

Is that ‘Everesting’ thing still going on. That seems a bit of a challenge

I fancy doing the Wessex Way (actually how I found this forum) – but it’s a multi-day trip.

3 Peaks Cyclocross ?

Go and marshall at this years and you will get entry for next…if marshalling doesnt put you off

Edit: by entry I mean you still have to pay, just it is so over subscribed, at least you get in.

A mate is in the process of putting together a coast-to-coast: Barmouth to Yarmouth mostly cos he likes the rhyming nature of it. He means Great Yarmouth rather than the Yarmouth in Isle of Wight.
That’s just under 300 miles, he reckons 1 day for that.

Opposite Diagonal (Beachy Head to Cape Wrath rather than the more traditional LEJOG).

Anything that Bez said ^^. He did a good cake run recently, it’s somewhere on his blog. Oi, Bez! Linky?

I’d really like to do the North Coast 500. I love Scotland, the final 3 days of my recent LEJOG were beautiful and I also added in a little extension to go out to Dunnet Head (northernmost point of mainland Britain).

Which bring me to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_points_of_the_United_Kingdom

Link up some/all of the most extreme compass points.

Mt Ventoux Cinglé/galerien or if you are a real nutter Bicinglette

Loan your bike to a work colleague and guesstimate the damage before its return

Anything that Bez said ^^. He did a good cake run recently, it’s somewhere on his blog. Oi, Bez! Linky?

CAKE! There’s the Cinglé de Ventoux on there, too.

Currently drafting up some more stuff:
– prize-winning lardy cake bun run
– following a river along its length (and back again, depending on which one it is)
– northernmost to southernmost point
– easternmost to westernmost
– four or five towns all with the same name

Flip knows when I’ll get a chance to do the larger ones of these but I like to have something to daydream about 🙂

I seem to recall a few others I’d drawn up years ago as well: we have a load of pubs called “The [n] Bells” or “The [n] Horseshoes” near us, so adding them all up seemed good: there was definitely a “Fifteen Bells” plan at some point. I’m sure there’s potential for collecting farm animals, royal figures and so on via pub names, too.

Diagonales, FYI: http://cyclo-long-cours.fr/diagonales/

What about a pop at the Super Randonneur?

I like Barmouth-to-Yarmouth, I’m tempted to steal that one 🙂 (albeit to the one on the Isle of Wight)

You could try an Everest?

I did one back in May, got plans for another one next month too – reckon I can just sneak it in before the days get too short and the weather too shit!

I’ve got everesting filed under “marginally more appealing than an M25 loop”.

Yup… has to be Everesting.

Barmouth to Charmouth to Yarmouth? 🙂

Yarmouth to Charmouth to Barmouth to Garmouth? 1500mile round trip

Ride your bike every day for a year

Come up here and do the great glen way. Fine on a gravel bike as mostly fireroad. Got 7h21m to beat me! Train to fort bill. Cycle to inverness then train back to wherever you live.