National Bike Challenge – getting to the end

[dbb]

Select Local at the local/national and then the leaderboard

the tabs I see are riders, teams, workplaces and communities

When I say local riders I meant that you are looking at the local leaderboard with the riders displayed

[Dirt]

@vvill 28840 wrote:

How did you recharge your Garmin enroute?

The 500 and 800 are able to function with a back-up battery plugged into the GPS unit. I have a single-cell piggy back battery from Exposure lighting that I plug into the back of my Garmin when I’m riding more than 10 hours. So far I’ve finished a 14 hour ride with my 800 at 100% battery. Garmin actually makes a battery that plugs into their GPS’s to charge while running, but I like my set-up better.

[eminva]

@dbb 28856 wrote:

Select Local at the local/national and then the leaderboard

How do you do that? I can’t seem to select anything other than national. If I want to see something more specific, I have to go to the leaderboard and click on “communities.”

Liz

[JustinW]

Upper left links list LOCAL / NATIONAL (to the left of HOME | LEADERBOARD etc.

Click whichever you want to view local or national competitor data.

[vvill]

Mind blown.

At 5 secs in this video you can see there is the “NATIONAL/LOCAL” link. But I don’t get that. I just have “NATIONAL/”. I can only assume that when you sign up you are added to a local area or something but for many of us, it didn’t happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMR2mNkdyic

The only other clue I have is from http://www.endomondo.com/campaign/national/faqs where it says in one answer: “Please go to your local challenge site, if applicable.” Apparently, I am not applicable.

If you try this URL
http://www.endomondo.com/campaign/national?view=#### and change #### to various numbers you can see some of the local views.
e.g.
940 = Atlanta Bicycle Coalition
948 = Iowa Bicycle Coalition
954 = Maryland
968 = NJ Bike & Walk Coalition
971 = New York Bicycling Coalition
976 = Ohio
980 = Bike Pittsburgh
1008 = Georgia Bikes
1021 = Vermont
1025 = Kaw Valley Bicycle Club

I couldn’t find a DC or VA local page.

You can then see a local leaderboard with a similar query string:
http://www.endomondo.com/campaign/national/leaderboard?view=976

Unfortunately, I actually have no idea what Dana (or others) are seeing. Actually it looks like when you are on a local page, you can sign up for the challenge through it (assuming you are signed out of endomondo first). I haven’t tried it though.

[vvill]

This is what I see. Not a browser issue (tried in 3 different ones).

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1566[/ATTACH]

[eminva]

I see the same thing that vvill sees (but with my name and fewer miles).

Liz

[Dirt]

I tried to get this resolved before. I didn’t have any luck. I just sort of decided to roll with it.

[NicDiesel]

Serious question for those of you that put in mega mileage in the saddle – how does your body not breakdown from riding thousands of miles a week for months at a time?

[TwoWheelsDC]

@4st7lbs 28914 wrote:

Serious question for those of you that put in mega mileage in the saddle – how does your body not breakdown from riding thousands of miles a week for months at a time?

Copious amounts of beer.

[GuyContinental]

@4st7lbs 28914 wrote:

Serious question for those of you that put in mega mileage in the saddle – how does your body not breakdown from riding thousands of miles a week for months at a time?

I sure don’t do “thousands of miles a week” (talk to Dirt, Vvill, Ccrew and Consular Rider for that) but I do do (low) hundreds (~150-250). Simple answer is that I DO break down unless I take a break day or two a week but I think that for me its the lack of sleep more than the exercise. Also, I eased into it over several months of ramp up so that now I’m pretty comfortable with 4 days/week of 50 miles/day but I started with 2 days/week of 25 miles/day (drove to work one-way). Having the right bike fit and set-up makes a huge difference as does a prep routine at home that eliminates thought in the pre-dawn hours (all my stuff is lined up in the hall with a banana and a bike at the end).

Frankly, the social aspect (this forum, seeing my “Bobs” or Dirt and my Strava connections with friends around the world) really can be inspiring as well. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been listlessly leaning on a door frame brushing my teeth at o’-dark-thirty contemplating my warm bed/spouse and getting on the bike anyway because I KNOW that lots of people I like are doing the same thing… if they can do it, I can do it! And then there is the smug factor… and the rockin’ calves factor… and the saving $125/week on gas/tolls/gym thing factor…

[Dirt]

I’m at about 7500 miles for the year so far. Earlier in the year I was riding 350-600 miles per week. That has tapered off a bit now, but I’m picking it up again. The “how do you do that?” question gets asked to me a lot. There are a few answers…. GC has part of it correct… taking rest days and a down time off the bike is important. I take one easy day and one day completely off the bike each week.

I keep an eye out for signs that I’m working too hard. Tracking my waking heart rate helps. If I find that my heart rate is elevated first thing in the morning, that means I’m not getting enough rest. Another sign is that my legs don’t warm up and put out power for my morning commutes. Having one off day isn’t necessarily a sign of a problem. Having 2 or 3 in a week is a sign that I need more rest.

The other way that people can ride high mileage is that they have many years of high mileage in their legs. I don’t know many humans that wake up January 1 and say , “I’m going to ride 13,000 miles this year” and manage to pull it off. I’ve put in more than 10,000 per year for the last 5 years. I had many years when my mileage was closer to 5000. I had time in the mid-late 90’s where my miles were a lot lower than that due to injuries.

I’ve been riding pretty big miles for most of the last 35 years. That’s probably the easiest way to answer that.

How does someone else get to the point where they can do high mileage week after week? Start from where you are now and add a few extra rides. If speed is important, add some workouts that increase your speed. If power or climbing is important, add things that build those strengths.

On the most fundamental level, you need to figure out the “why” part of it. Find a goal that motivates you and make it happen.

I probably answered more than you asked.

Hope it helps.

Pete

[NicDiesel]

@GuyContinental 28920 wrote:

Having the right bike fit and set-up makes a huge difference as does a prep routine at home that eliminates thought in the pre-dawn hours (all my stuff is lined up in the hall with a banana and a bike at the end).

Assuming you use one, would you mind sharing what pannier and rack setup you use? I usually have to lug a laptop between work and home (I have two offices) in addition to food and some clothes and need a decent pannier setup.

[NicDiesel]

@Dirt 28926 wrote:

I keep an eye out for signs that I’m working too hard. Tracking my waking heart rate helps. If I find that my heart rate is elevated first thing in the morning, that means I’m not getting enough rest. Another sign is that my legs don’t warm up and put out power for my morning commutes. Having one off day isn’t necessarily a sign of a problem. Having 2 or 3 in a week is a sign that I need more rest.

My goal this year is to hit 2,500 miles and right now I’m at 1,200 miles so I’m going to have to put in some serious saddle time (~100 miles/week) to make that. One thing that’s been difficult is staying healthy – not having an immune system tends to sideline me for days at a time if I get a simple cold/infection and being this large inflammation and strains and sprains happen far too often. It’s getting better thanks to my diet improving and my body recovering faster (thank g-d) but it gets frustrating taking time off just to be safe when you’d rather be out there racking up the miles.

@Dirt 28926 wrote:

I probably answered more than you asked. Hope it helps.

Not at all, that was really helpful. You actually answered another question I was going to ask – outside of being tired/run down how do you know when your body isn’t getting enough rest? Obviously lugging around 150 extra pounds makes it hard for me not to feel tired after doing what most would consider short rides (~20 miles) but I’m finding I recover much faster now then I did when I first started riding back in February. I definitely need to start paying attention to my waking heart rate though. Regardless, I really appreciate the feedback!

[creadinger]

@4st7lbs 28933 wrote:

My goal this year is to hit 2,500 miles and right now I’m at 1,200 miles so I’m going to have to put in some serious saddle time (~100 miles/week) to make that. One thing that’s been difficult is staying healthy – not having an immune system tends to sideline me for days at a time if I get a simple cold/infection and being this large inflammation and strains and sprains happen far too often. It’s getting better thanks to my diet improving and my body recovering faster (thank g-d) but it gets frustrating taking time off just to be safe when you’d rather be out there racking up the miles.

Wow, that’s an ambitious goal. You may have to come to grips with re-evaluating it in the next couple of months and that’s totally ok. I think I come from the perspective that I’m slightly more normal than Dirt in that my annual goal for the past 7 years is to ride >3,000 miles. One year I almost hit 5,000, and another year I had to ride on New Year’s Eve to get my 3,000. Anyway, I say that you may need to re-evaluate because once you get really into it, riding will become a career instead of one or two BIG years.

1300 miles left to do in only 4.5 months is not only a lot of miles, but very dependent on outside influences (weather). I’m currently on pace for 4000 miles, but that is because the spring was so nice and long I was able to get way ahead by May. During the brutally hot June and July I had to train for our big charity ride so that got me out on days that I normally would not have even considered riding. Hopefully fall will be as nice as spring was this year and we’ll have many many great days to be out, but you never know.

Anyway, I certainly do not want to be discouraging, but maybe just say that missing an annual goal isn’t the end of the world and in fact if you kill yourself to do it, you’ll likely ruin at least part of next year too. In a few years when you’re regularly doing 4,000 miles, 2012 will have been one of the building blocks, but only if you still enjoy it once January rolls around.

[Author]

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