Progression ... or lack of

I made a widget in my Google Sheets-based Strava API-calling stats cruncher to help me more easily keep track of my progress (or lack of) against the goals I set myself for 2024. Here 'tis.

The first four bars show progress (blue) a a percentage of target (orange). The last bar shows how much of the year has been ticked off (green) against how little is left (red). As you can see, at this moment in time I am behind on everything... And as you can imagine, I will update the graph (and this blog) at various points throughout the year. I know, it's hard to contain your excitement...

Goals

I'm not one for making new year's resolutions, but I have set myself some goals for this year. Now that 2024 is a quarter of the way through (already!), it seems like a reasonable time to share those goals, and check progress (or lack of). So here goes.

Goal 1: 2,000 miles in a year
This is going to be hard. I've only done more than 2,000 miles in a year twice before, once when I was cycling my commute every day (pre COVID) and once when I was training for LEJOG. By contrast, in each of the last two years I've done less than 1,500 miles. So this is going to be a stretch. In the first quarter of this year, I've notched 356 miles so, assuming an even distribution of mileage, I'm already 144 miles behind schedule...

Goal 2: 56,000 feet of elevation in a year
Again, this will be hard, and again I've only managed this amount twice before (as above, the commuter and LEJOG years). Last year I managed ~49,000ft. Oh, and I live in a relatively flat part of the country. Sigh. Assuming an even distribution of elevation, I'm already 4,000 feet behind schedule...

Goal 3: annual Eddington of 16 miles
You know the drill by now - this is going to be hard. I base that on the simple fact that I've only managed an Eddington of 14 in each of the last two years. But 16 would be a step back towards pre-COVID levels, so it's got to be a goal. My YTD Eddington so far is 10 miles...

Goal 4: increase lifetime Eddington to 43 miles
I started the year with a lifetime Eddington of 40 miles and, due to the perverse and excellent way Eddington numbers are calculated, need to notch at least eight days of more than 43 miles ths year to increase my number to 43. I currently have three sportive days booked, but I don't know where the other five days are coming from. So, it's going to be hard. Currently, I'm still on 40...

As ever, my stats, including YTD, Annual and lifetime firgures, can be found here.

Almost good

A new store has opened in the village. It's not the biggest, it's not the smallest. But it has a shiny new free bike repair station, as shown left.

As you can see, it's so new and unused that the handle of the stirrup pump still has the wrapping around it...

What else? Well, there are tyre levers, a set of Allen keys, a variety of spanners, and more, plus even a basic service stand, enabling you to life the bike up off the ground onto those two black brackets shown. It's probably not something or somewhere you'd want to do anything too serious on, but if you broke down and needed something, somewhere, well, this is brilliant... isn't it?

I hope so, obviously. But if you were cycling in the area and had a mechanical, how would you know this facility is close by? I note from the sign on the wall here that this is namechecking Sustrans and the National Cycle Network ... so maybe they have an app or a map that shows all such repair stations...?

...and maybe they do, but I'll be damned if I can find where? Anyone?

In praise of Eddington numbers...

Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington OM FRS (28 December 1882 – 22 November 1944) was an English astronomer, physicist, mathematician, philosopher and populariser of science. The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the luminosity of stars, or the radiation generated by accretion onto a compact object, is named in his honour. So says Wikipedia, whence I have more or less directly lifted the preceding lines. He also wrote a number of articles that announced and explained Einstein's theory of general relativity to the English-speaking world, and the Eddington number is named for him, being the number of protons in the observable universe.

All very interesting, but what do he and the numbers that bear his name have to do with cycling?

Well, Eddington is also credited with devising the other Eddington number, a measure of a cyclist's long-distance riding achievements. An Eddington number in the context of cycling, as opposed to astrophysics, is defined as the maximum number E such that the cyclist has cycled at least E miles on at least E days. It can be calculated over any period, and also over a cyclist's lifetime. Wikipedia goes on to explain that "an Eddington number of 70 would imply that the cyclist has cycled at least 70 miles in a day on at least 70 occasions. Achieving a high Eddington number is difficult, since moving from, say, 70 to 75 will (probably) require more than five new long-distance rides, since any rides shorter than 75 miles will no longer be included in the reckoning." In other words, the reason you'd probably need more than five rides to go from 70 to 75 is that some of the rides that got you above 70 may not already be above 75. Got that? The net consequence of all this is that improving your Eddington number gets progressively harder and harder...

But it's also exactly the performance measure I need. As someone whose work and life mean I do a lot of quite short rides, trying to increasing my average ride length is a depressingly futile exercise. But increasing my E number... that's do-able, I think. Not least because it is concerned with the miles ridden in a day, rather than the length of individual rides. In other words, if I ride four miles each way to work and back in a day that counts as eight miles towards my E number. Happy days.

The flip side of this "distance in a day, not distance in a ride" stipulation is that E numbers can be quite hard to calculate. I first saw it being offered on VeloViewer, and this website also offers to calculate it for you, based on your Strava activities. Me, I've already got my own Strava analysis tool, built using Google Sheets automation and the Strava API, so with a bit of trial and error I was able to add E number calculation into that. Eddington's own life-time E-number was 84. Mine, so far, is 40 ... but I'm not dead yet.

Pictured: Sir Arthur Eddington - physicist and cycling nerd. Not pictured: the man's bike...