Issue 153 Last Word: Weights and Measures

Hannah proposes a new system of measurement, putting quality over quantity. Miles covered and feet gained seem to me an inadequate measure of mountain …

By stwhannah

Get the full story here:

Issue 153 Last Word: Weights and Measures

I have independently adopted something similar to what you are proposing. My activity book covers walk cycles and paddles. Every activity has a descriptive name of the activity, What I have seen of significance anything exciting that happened and distance.

For example

Ride of Goats is a road ride from home to Alderley Edge and back on a circular route in the Chesire Lanes. Things I saw 7 goats, 5 alpaca, 4 pigs and a Buzzard. Distance about 31miles.

Paddle from Plockton to Kyle of Lochalsh saw 2 Black Guilemots, 2 seals and a starfish Distance about 10 miles.

Issue 153 just landed on my doorstep. Looks awesome and can’t wait to dive into it.

Looking at my Strava feed I see a recurring themes of lack of light (waiting for the sun), pancakes, sunset mentions, puddles (return of), cold (measured by toe-ometer), and celebrations with friends.

That’s a lot like what the Focal Events guys did when they couldn’t run The Distance event during the years of the Lurghi and it became ‘The (socially) Distance(d)’, with Bingo in 2020 and Blockbusters in 2021 – “I’ll have a pee please, Bob” seemed even more appropriate.

You can still see the cards online:

And something else similar: https://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/finding-motivation-bingley-bike-ride-bingo/

I thought I’d pop a comment on this because your article really struck a chord with me, @stwhannah

I’ve never been a racer, never tried to outdo others or even myself. I started using Strava as a tool just to keep track of rides, but always in a journal type of way. It’s sometimes nice to see I managed a particular climb a bit better than previously, but I’ve never gone out to push myself time wise or speed or distance. It’s only ever about having fun. All of my Strava logs read about where I went, what I saw, and most importantly about the fun highlights that it contained.

Like the one where Shaz lost a shoe, the one where we got lost and had to put the hammer down and hightail it back to the cars to pick the kids up from school, the one where we took a short cut to the off-licence for a cheeky can which turned into an all afternoon beer garden session, the one where it pissed down and we left puddles on and under the café chairs, the one when we got chased by a boar, and so on.

Lots of people forget that it’s supposed to be fun.