[Dachs6]

January 15, foggy day out, and with the melt in full swing, everything was a muddy mess. I’ve been riding past this mural of what I assume is a series of stills depicting a woman donning her shawl. It is painted on the back wall of a school for children with disabilities in Vilvoorde, Belgium.

[Dachs6]

January 12, a street artist from Antwerp, called Dzia, paints murals under contract to dress up otherwise boring or ugly structures. This is not one of his, but the style—the geometric lines and colors—is similar to other works he has done that I know are specifically his. I will snag a few of his in the coming weeks. For now, enjoy!

[Dachs6]

January 11 (a day late), a neoclassical styled sculpture tucked into an alcove in the garden behind the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuuren, Belgium. It is titled Virgnius en Virginia, and dramatizes the moment when Lucius Virginius kills his daughter Virginia to preserve her virtue, as told in the text of Ab Urbe Condita, by Livy.

[Dachs6]

January 8, Samen op Stap. The #publicartfinder ride became one about #trafficcircleart….a thing here, in many of the circles.  This installation sets in the middle of a circle at the southeastern corner of Machelen, tucked up against the E19 highway on Konig Albertlaan where it emerges from an underpass beneath the E19.

[Dachs6]

I am resubmitting the Turkish Mosaic within the NATO HQ compound in Brussels. This time my ride met criteria #1! I grabbed it on the way out of work this afternoon.

A mosaic mural, 50 meters long and 2 meters high, consisting of 200 two-sided mosaic panels that are each 50 cm wide. It was originally installed the Turkish Exhibition pavilion along with a restaurant in 1958 at the Brussels International Expo. One of the International Staff was so impressed with it, they requested for it to be installed in the original permanent NATO HQ in Paris after the expo was finished. It was moved twice more after: first to the temporary NATO HQ when it moved to Brussels in 1967, and then to the second permanent HQ after 51 years in 2018 where it now stands.

[Dachs6]

January 6, a mural painted on the west side abutment of the L36N railway bridge at the edge of Leuven, Belgium (referenced from Openstreetmap.org). The bike is there, but it blends it with the colorful mural of a racing peloton.

This mural was painted in the summer of 2021 on this particular surface to commemorate the 2021 UCI Road Racing World Championship. The course, along with using parts of de Brabantse Pijl (the Brabant Arrow) course, finished with 3 laps in and around Leuven that went up a couple of murderously steep, but short, “walls” on the northern side of Leuven, and that loop passed this point.

[Dachs6]

Second ride of the day (January 3), with another piece of public art.  This one is not so public, as it is within the NATO HQ complex, and access to it requires permission (such as employees, or pre-approved visitors). And, per the rules, the ride despite being over 10km, was less than 10 miles.

A mosaic mural, 50 meters long and 2 meters high, consisting of 200 two-sided mosaic panels that are each 50 cm wide. It was originally installed the Turkish Exhibition pavilion along with a restaurant in 1958 at the Brussels International Expo. One of the International Staff was so impressed with it, they requested for it to be installed in the original permanent NATO HQ in Paris after the expo was finished. It was moved twice more after: first to the temporary NATO HQ when it moved to Brussels in 1967, and then to the second permanent HQ after 51 years in 2018 where it now stands.

[Dachs6]

On time, today! January 3…but, per the rules, the ride despite being over 10km, was less than 10 miles.

Just a random piece of art hung on a former primary school, now used for adult education, in Zaventem, Belgium. Located at Spoorwegstraat 25.

[Dachs6]

I am about two hours late for the same requirement, apologies…please accept my entry for January 2. 🙏🏻

This raised fist, made of “corten steel”, was constructed with the artist/designer by welders from a Renault plant in Vilvoorde, Belgium that was closed in 1997. It commemorates the struggles of the laborers who lost their jobs when the plant. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strijd_voor_Arbeid

 

[Dachs6]

REMINDER:

Please check Wandrer per the instructions I posted on February 27 (in page 3 of this thread) to find your mileage and then update your mileage in the google sheet. I cannot do this for you, as I cannot see your dashboards.

Thanks, Andy

[Dachs6]

@sszibler, the Wandrer site pulls only from Strava, as far as I can tell. In my experience, the ride you deleted from Strava will also disappear from Wandrer. At some point, Wandrer should automatically update the correct (remaining) ride in Strava…though it may not write to the activity description on Strava.

[Dachs6]

Carol, thanks for the request…I overlooked making everyone an editor! That should be fixed now. If not, everyone please send requests, as Carol did, and I will grant permission as soon as I see it.

[Dachs6]

@cvcalhoun said:

“I’m trying to figure out how the March 18 tally works. A whole lot of us ride until 11:59 at the FSLNHHP. We then have to turn off Strava to make sure that ride counts for Freezing Saddles. However, we have to ride home from there, so we immediately start a new ride. And Wandrer does not seem to recognize miles immediately. I’m not sure how long it takes, but my impression is that it’s sometimes more than an hour. So how do you ensure it will record the March 18 miles without recording the March 19 miles before you do your count?”

Carol, et al., in my experience, the lag in tallying new miles on Wandrer is most prominent at the “busiest” times, which historically for me has translated to (East Coast) mid-day to early evening hours on Saturday and Sunday, and early evening M-F. YMMV. My recommendation is that you take a look at Wandrer on your phone (if you can) and see if the ride you uploaded get counted. If it doesn’t populate within a minute or two on the activity page, so that you can then check your dashboard for the total mileage, just screenshot the activity (even if it is not crediting new miles yet), and continue on home (or wherever you’re headed), then send me a note and we will work it out. I trust that everyone here is being on the up and up and we can get this arranged, ev en if I have to do it with you manually.

BTW, just so everyone knows, my mileage is going to be posted for posterity, but if I wasn’t clear, I am not counting myself in the leaderboard for the prize, since my goal is encouraging you all to find the new roads. So keep Wandrerin’!

[Dachs6]

Hey friends, I’ve been a bit hands off on this Pointless Prize for a few weeks. You may have noticed I’ve been riding my bike…but, it’s time to refocus my training because the Barry-Roubaix Psycho Killer is in a little less than 7 weeks and that means less volume, more structure, and some free time off the bike not just eating, sleeping, and working!

But, I’m here and ready to focus full attention on Wandrer’ About now. Fortunately, given the nature of how this prize works, it doesn’t require a whole lot of work on my part to maintain it. That falls on you! You have to go ride on new roads and ways. So, that said, here’s some updates and general thoughts:

• I should have everyone captured now, please check post #2 in this thread and verify you are on there, if not, let me know and I’ll get it updated…this is important because,
• At this link you will find a Google Sheet that has 3 dates (1 Mar, 9 Mar, 18 Mar) to post your “new miles” total. Remember, these are “new to you” as captured by Wandrer based on your subscription level.
  • For 1 and 9, it is not important to be exact, if you miss by a day, that’s fine, it’s just a way to start tallying where each of us are at for BAFS24.
  • The 18 Mar tally requires precision to work. You must post your Wandrer total AFTER you finish your ride on 18 Mar, even if that ride finishes at 11:59:59pm, but before you log any new miles. The cutoff for accrual is the same timing as BAFS.
  • I will aim to validate your mileage with the Wandrer team by Friday 22 Mar. To help toward that end, please look on the linked Google sheet and compare the number in parenthesis with that on your unique Wandrer ID (you can find it by selecting “Settings” from drop down on the top, far right in the menu bar of the page and then scrolling to the bottom of the settings page). If I have NOT added your Wandrer ID (appears to only be drevil right now) to the sheet by 9 Mar, DM me.

Also, final decision…for this year, there is only one category of Wandrer: anyone who Wandrers. Yes, as @matteblack noted above, if you’ve ridden the main roads, and now have to fill in neighborhoods, it’s not efficient or fast. But, if you are a serious Wandrer, you were going to have to do it at some point anyhow. So, why not now?

[Dachs6]

Still figuring this out…there will be a pointless prize. As for concerns about premium accounts vice non-premium accounts and mileage accrual.  Here’s the deal: when you make account, it pulls the data from your last 50 activities, credits only those rides fro your starting history (unless you opt in for premium, then it pulls ALL of your Strava data), then begins adding to it. Non-premium accounts DO NOT do a 50 activity rollover, meaning if you pulled 50 rides, and go ride, it does not erase the data on ride #1 so it can add ride #51. Non-premium accounts start the Wandrer count from the 50th oldest ride at time of joining.

As some have pointed out, this may put long time users are a disadvantage, since most of us do most of our rides from the same 2-3 places, meaning we have limited options for adding to our map. Take me for instance, I live in a place where I can ride extensively, and rides of 100km from my house typically add 50km if I am judicious about route planning, but those routes are inefficient and my avg speed is low and I am forced to figure out the trade off between total ride distance and new Wandrer miles. If fact, I often have to get 20-30km from my house or work to find a few new miles.

More to follow…waiting on a reply from the Wandrer admin.

Also, one other note, I am NOT able to provide troubleshooting/support if you cannot get Wandrer to sync with Strava, for any reason. I don’t know how the API works, I just know that it does. And, obviously, I have no connection to the web-app beyond being a user myself. Thanks for your understanding.

[Author]

Posts