2025 Annual Simplified Climbing Lunacy (aka "I Don't Do Complicated") Challenge

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FrothNinja

Veteran
Annual Simplified Climbing Lunacy (aka "I Don't Do Complicated") Challenge
Same overall concept as the Lunacy Challenge.
1. Choose a target height, for example 1000 metres, but it can be any imperial or metric height which will be challenging for you to complete thirteen times in a calendar year.

2. The height is a daily height, not a 'ride' height, where a day is defined as 'from getting up to going to bed' (which covers night rides which go beyond midnight). This means that you can add up two or more rides in one day to count towards your target height and therefore allows, for example, two commuting rides to be added to reach a target. The idea of this is to make achieving greater height a more realistic proposition for many people who struggle to find enough spare time for individual hill rides.

3. Each time you complete a day's riding which meets or exceeds your target height, post in the challenge thread, stating your target and how many times you've met it at the top and then listing each ride which meets your target below. The post should ideally include details of the rides completed including how high, a list of points on each route, perhaps the distance, and possibly a link to the route(s) if you recorded it/them. The idea of these details is to maintain everyone's interest in where people are riding, as well as their progress towards their goal. It will also be quite fun to compare different areas.

4. Chat about rides, etc. goes in the associated chatzone thread. Please don't post anything other than lists of your rides in the challenge thread. The chatzone is at Simplified Climbing Lunacy Challenge chatzone.

5. Even once you have completed thirteen qualifying rides, you can keep posting new ones where your 'top 13' has changed. Just post your thirteen highest. At the end of the year, your thirteenth highest ride is your actual achievement for the year. NB If you keep cranking out rides exactly hitting your target, you would struggle to exceed it later in the year. For example if your first 10 rides were exactly 1000 metres, you would have to do another 13 rides of 1001 metres to increase your lunacy challenge achievement to 1001 metres! If you like the idea of trying to beat your target, it is always worth adding at least a few metres/feet to as many of your hilly rides as possible throughout the year. In that respect, every duplicated ride height is 'wasted', although each will qualify for the basic challenge that you set yourself.

6. Since the only rules are to state a target height and complete it thirteen times, anyone can join at any point during the year where there are sufficient days left to complete. It also means that an unavoidable break for illness, injury, childbirth, pressure of work, mojo-loss, freak weather conditions, attack by sharpened fruit slices, [insert applicable excuse/reason here] would not bring your challenge to an abrupt finish, unless that happened to be so late in the year that you would not have time to complete the challenge once you started riding again.
6a. If you start start mid year, rides from other Challenges which already show heights from posts earlier in the year, could be added as the height has previously been disclosed.

Completing the challenge will entitle you you display the 'moon over the mountain' badge on your profile should you so wish.
 
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FrothNinja

FrothNinja

Veteran
Target ascent - 1,031m
Qualifying rides - 1

Ride 1, Jan 13 - Work commute from Pendle to Preston and back. Swung out to the north past Ribchester etc on the way back to stretch it, just, to 100 km (total 62.8 miles / 101.1 km, plus 1,042 m / 3,419 ft ascent)
 
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Willd

Guru
Location
Rugby
Target 850m

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here
 
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FrothNinja

FrothNinja

Veteran
Target ascent - 1,031m
Qualifying rides - 2

Ride 1, Jan 13 - Work commute from Pendle to Preston and back. Swung out to the north past Ribchester etc on the way back to stretch it, just, to 100 km (total 62.8 miles / 101.1 km, plus 1,042 m / 3,419 ft ascent)
Ride 2, Jan 28 - Burnley, Whalley, Preston, Langho, Wiswell, Sabden, Fence, Burnley (total 50.5 miles / 81.2 km, plus 1,059 m / 3,475 ft ascent)
 
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OP
OP
FrothNinja

FrothNinja

Veteran
Target ascent - 1,031m
Qualifying rides - 3

Ride 1, Jan 13 - Work commute from Pendle to Preston and back. Swung out to the north past Ribchester etc on the way back to stretch it, just, to 100 km (total 62.8 miles / 101.1 km, plus 1,042 m / 3,419 ft ascent)
Ride 2, Jan 28 - Burnley, Whalley, Preston, Langho, Wiswell, Sabden, Fence, Burnley (total 50.5 miles / 81.2 km, plus 1,059 m / 3,475 ft ascent)
Ride 3, Feb 3 - Burnley, Higham, Read, Whalley, Copster Green, Mellor Brook, Salmesbury, Salesbury, Clitheroe, Pendleton, Nick Of Pendle, The Ridge Fence, Burnley (total 42.1 miles / 67.7 km plus 1,082 m / 3,550 ft ascent)
 
OP
OP
FrothNinja

FrothNinja

Veteran
Target ascent - 1,031m
Qualifying rides - 4

Ride 1, Jan 13 - Work commute from Pendle to Preston and back. Swung out to the north past Ribchester etc on the way back to stretch it, just, to 100 km (total 62.8 miles / 101.1 km, plus 1,042 m / 3,419 ft ascent)
Ride 2, Jan 28 - Burnley, Whalley, Preston, Langho, Wiswell, Sabden, Fence, Burnley (total 50.5 miles / 81.2 km, plus 1,059 m / 3,475 ft ascent)
Ride 3, Feb 3 - Burnley, Higham, Read, Whalley, Copster Green, Mellor Brook, Salmesbury, Salesbury, Clitheroe, Pendleton, Nick Of Pendle, The Ridge Fence, Burnley (total 42.1 miles / 67.7 km plus 1,082 m / 3,550 ft ascent)
Ride 4, Feb 11 - Work commute from Pendle to Preston and back, targeting climbs on the way back to qualify for this challenge (total 50.4 miles / 81.1 km, plus 1,089 m / 3,575 ft ascent)
 
OP
OP
FrothNinja

FrothNinja

Veteran
Target ascent - 1,031m
Qualifying rides - 5

Ride 1, Jan 13 - Work commute from Pendle to Preston and back. Swung out to the north past Ribchester etc on the way back to stretch it, just, to 100 km (total 62.8 miles / 101.1 km, plus 1,042 m / 3,419 ft ascent)
Ride 2, Jan 28 - Burnley, Whalley, Preston, Langho, Wiswell, Sabden, Fence, Burnley (total 50.5 miles / 81.2 km, plus 1,059 m / 3,475 ft ascent)
Ride 3, Feb 3 - Burnley, Higham, Read, Whalley, Copster Green, Mellor Brook, Salmesbury, Salesbury, Clitheroe, Pendleton, Nick Of Pendle, The Ridge Fence, Burnley (total 42.1 miles / 67.7 km plus 1,082 m / 3,550 ft ascent)
Ride 4, Feb 11 - Work commute from Pendle to Preston and back, targeting climbs on the way back to qualify for this challenge (total 50.4 miles / 81.1 km, plus 1,089 m / 3,575 ft ascent)
Ride 5, Mar 1 - Burnley, Whalley, Brown Hill, Mellor, Salmesbury, Middleforth, scary roads to Much Hoole, Tarleton, up through Hesketh Bank, cake binge (1x choc, 3 x ginger), back through Tarleton, then South and North Roads, Moss Side, terrifying roads to and past the Muddy Moss Centurion, Farington Moss, Bamber Bridge, Gregson Lane, Hoghton, Salmesbury Bottoms (rough road with bags of gravel wash), Further Lane (fun), Mellor, then more or less reversed route out. (total 70.2 miles / 113.0 km, plus 1,196 m / 3925 ft ascent)
 

Willd

Guru
Location
Rugby
Target 850M

1 22/02/2025 1,071 here
2 09/03/2025 915 here
3 19/01/2025 857 here
 
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Dogtrousers

Kilometre nibbler
Target 1200m
Total rides 2/

Rides (in descending order of elevation, numbered in time sequence)

2. Mar 8th. SE4, Thornton Heath, Tattenham Corner, Box Hill, Ranmore Common, Leith Hill, Capel, Padgate, Crawley 102.5 km 1,459m *
1. Jan 18th. SE4, Titsey, Ide Hill, Charcott, Hildenborough, Chiddingstone Causeway, Chiddingstone Hoath, Hever, Crockham Hill, Limpsfield Chart, Titsey, Hayes. 102.5 km 1291m *

* Also in metric century a month challenge.
 
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OP
FrothNinja

FrothNinja

Veteran
Target ascent - 1,031m
Qualifying rides - 6

Ride 1, Jan 13 - Work commute from Pendle to Preston and back. Swung out to the north past Ribchester etc on the way back to stretch it, just, to 100 km (total 62.8 miles / 101.1 km, plus 1,042 m / 3,419 ft ascent)
Ride 2, Jan 28 - Burnley, Whalley, Preston, Langho, Wiswell, Sabden, Fence, Burnley (total 50.5 miles / 81.2 km, plus 1,059 m / 3,475 ft ascent)
Ride 3, Feb 3 - Burnley, Higham, Read, Whalley, Copster Green, Mellor Brook, Salmesbury, Salesbury, Clitheroe, Pendleton, Nick Of Pendle, The Ridge Fence, Burnley (total 42.1 miles / 67.7 km plus 1,082 m / 3,550 ft ascent)
Ride 4, Feb 11 - Work commute from Pendle to Preston and back, targeting climbs on the way back to qualify for this challenge (total 50.4 miles / 81.1 km, plus 1,089 m / 3,575 ft ascent)
Ride 5, Mar 1 - Burnley, Whalley, Brown Hill, Mellor, Salmesbury, Middleforth, scary roads to Much Hoole, Tarleton, up through Hesketh Bank, cake binge (1x choc, 3 x ginger), back through Tarleton, then South and North Roads, Moss Side, terrifying roads to and past the Muddy Moss Centurion, Farington Moss, Bamber Bridge, Gregson Lane, Hoghton, Salmesbury Bottoms (rough road with bags of gravel wash), Further Lane (fun), Mellor, then more or less reversed route out. (total 70.2 miles / 113.0 km, plus 1,196 m / 3925 ft ascent)
Ride 6, Mar 27 - Fence, Barrowford, Colne Edge, Laneshaw Bridge, Keighley Rd (big big mistake - bloody terrifying), Cowling, Dick Lane (specifically to take a pic which I forgot to do because of the scary ride), Buck Stone Lane, Ickornshaw, Stone Head Lane, Lothersdale, Babyhouse Lane, Carleton Lane, Skipton Old Rd, Colne Edge, Barrowford, Nelson, Fence, scary Greenhead Lane, Duke Bar, Townley, Brierfield. (total 50.1 miles / 80.6 km, plus 1,463 m / 4800 ft ascent)
 
OP
OP
FrothNinja

FrothNinja

Veteran
Target ascent - 1,031m
Qualifying rides - 7

Ride 1, Jan 13 - Work commute from Pendle to Preston and back. Swung out to the north past Ribchester etc on the way back to stretch it, just, to 100 km (total 62.8 miles / 101.1 km, plus 1,042 m / 3,419 ft ascent)
Ride 2, Jan 28 - Burnley, Whalley, Preston, Langho, Wiswell, Sabden, Fence, Burnley (total 50.5 miles / 81.2 km, plus 1,059 m / 3,475 ft ascent)
Ride 3, Feb 3 - Burnley, Higham, Read, Whalley, Copster Green, Mellor Brook, Salmesbury, Salesbury, Clitheroe, Pendleton, Nick Of Pendle, The Ridge Fence, Burnley (total 42.1 miles / 67.7 km plus 1,082 m / 3,550 ft ascent)
Ride 4, Feb 11 - Work commute from Pendle to Preston and back, targeting climbs on the way back to qualify for this challenge (total 50.4 miles / 81.1 km, plus 1,089 m / 3,575 ft ascent)
Ride 5, Mar 1 - Burnley, Whalley, Brown Hill, Mellor, Salmesbury, Middleforth, scary roads to Much Hoole, Tarleton, up through Hesketh Bank, cake binge (1x choc, 3 x ginger), back through Tarleton, then South and North Roads, Moss Side, terrifying roads to and past the Muddy Moss Centurion, Farington Moss, Bamber Bridge, Gregson Lane, Hoghton, Salmesbury Bottoms (rough road with bags of gravel wash), Further Lane (fun), Mellor, then more or less reversed route out. (total 70.2 miles / 113.0 km, plus 1,196 m / 3925 ft ascent)
Ride 6, Mar 27 - Fence, Barrowford, Colne Edge, Laneshaw Bridge, Keighley Rd (big big mistake - bloody terrifying), Cowling, Dick Lane (specifically to take a pic which I forgot to do because of the scary ride), Buck Stone Lane, Ickornshaw, Stone Head Lane, Lothersdale, Babyhouse Lane, Carleton Lane, Skipton Old Rd, Colne Edge, Barrowford, Nelson, Fence, scary Greenhead Lane, Duke Bar, Townley, Brierfield. (total 50.1 miles / 80.6 km, plus 1,463 m / 4800 ft ascent)
Ride 7, Apr 3 - Pendle to Preston and back, targeting climbs on the way back to qualify for this challenge, but different route to Ride 4 (total 50.4 miles / 81.1 km, plus 1,287 m / 4,225 ft ascent)
 
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Dogtrousers

Kilometre nibbler
Target 1200m
Total rides 3
Total distance: 309 km
Total ascent: 4996 m
Overall % 1.6%

Rides (in descending order of elevation, numbered in time sequence)

3. Apr 5th. Otford, Row Dow, Fakenden Lane, Bates Hill, Carter's Hill, Ide Hill Cafe, Bayley's Hill, Toy's Hill, Brasted, New Road. Back Lane, Emmet's Road, Ide Hill, Hubbard's Hill, Mote Road, Ivy Hatch, Otford Station. 104 km 2,246m * 2.2%
2. Mar 8th. SE4, Thornton Heath, Tattenham Corner, Box Hill, Ranmore Common, Leith Hill, Capel, Padgate, Crawley 102.5 km 1,459m * 1.4%
1. Jan 18th. SE4, Titsey, Ide Hill, Charcott, Hildenborough, Chiddingstone Causeway, Chiddingstone Hoath, Hever, Crockham Hill, Limpsfield Chart, Titsey, Hayes. 102.5 km 1291m * 1.3%

* Also in metric century a month challenge.
 
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