Annual Simplified Climbing Lunacy Challenge chatzone

[FrothNinja]

This chatzone thread is for discussion of your Annual Simplified Climbing Lunacy (aka "I Don't Do Complicated") Challenge rides and supporting other riders in theirs. There will be a new rides thread every year where you should post details of that year's qualifying rides.
This intro may grow.
Please record your rides and check the rules by clicking here
2023 Annual Simplified Climbing Lunacy (aka "I Don't Do Complicated") Challenge
Many thanks and I hope everyone enjoys the challenge.
2022 Annual Simplified Climbing Lunacy (aka "I Don't Do Complicated") Challenge.

 

[FrothNinja]

I have posted my rides to date that qualified for my target - I have done fewer qualifying rides than I thought 😢
My new pyschy jersey arrived today so I might try and give it some hill work as an initiation. I think it's an elaborated lion, which would be appropriate

 

[ColinJ]

Could a mod please add a link to the ride recording thread?

Type in the text you want for your link (something like LINK TO RIDES), highlight it, and either type CTRL-K ('K' as in linK) or click the link icon (looks like 2 chain links looped together, next to smilies icon) above the text entry box, then paste your ride recording thread link into the space provided in the box which pops up.

 

[ColinJ]

That worked!

 

[FrothNinja]

That worked!

Thanks for the pointer - should I stick a point 7 in the rules & mention the wonderous moon over the mountain

 

[ColinJ]

Thanks for the pointer - should I stick a point 7 in the rules & mention the wonderous moon over the mountain

It wouldn't hurt to mention it, but it isn't a rule to use it!

 

[Dogtrousers]

Best of luck with the challenge! I may join in this year ... Or maybe next.

I may add some personal extra complicated rules in just so that I have my own degree of complexity

PS ... I'm in. And no extra personal rules this year, at least.

 

[Sea of vapours]

Yes, best of luck with the challenge and people joining it.

I'm trying to decide whether to post mine at all or not, and if I do where to choose the 'target'. Using ''round numbers', I've either comfortably done thirteen already or don't have a hope at this point in the year (2,000m versus 3,000m). I'll try and post in the interest of getting the challenge thread to look 'busy' :-)

 

[Dogtrousers]

I won't be displaying the badge in my signature. That's already crowded enough with metric and imperial stars. But I will be using the challenge for motivation to prevent me from doing easy flat routes!

 

[steverob]

I am tempted to enter, but I am not much of a climber, so if I do I'll probably have one of the lowest targets out of anyone who joins.

And it's not as though I have the excuse of living in a completely flat area of the country either - it's mildly rolling hills to my north and the Chilterns to my south and east. I'm just lazy and prefer routes that are flat-ish or just have one big climb and that's it. But entering this would give me the motivation to increase my ride elevation at least and I suppose that's the main aim.

What I set that target at though is another matter. I think 2000ft (~610m) sounds a nice round number. I've already done 7 rides above that figure this year, plus looking up previous year's figures, I would have got my 13 rides qualifying rides in 2021 (but only just) at that elevation. However the two years prior to that I would have fallen way short (admittedly lockdowns and injuries probably did affect those numbers), meaning it's not an easy target but at the same time it's still achievable.

 

[Ridgeback Roller]

I'm in. I need some additional motivation to seek out some hillier local routes, which isn't too difficult with the South Downs on my doorstep. I've taken it a bit too easy over the last couple of years, net result I just didn't have the legs needed to make the climbs on this year's trip to the Massif Central as enjoyable as on previous trips.
I'm still old school, miles ridden and feet ascended, so I'm going for an achievable rather than over ambitious target for this year, 3000ft. Checking my records, there's 9 in the bag to date this year. I'll post them up when I have time.

 

[Alex321]

Not sure whether to join this one or not.

If I did, and set a target of 600m (or 2000 feet), then I would have exactly the same set of qualifying rides so far this year (6 of them) as in the general lunacy challenge.

If I set it even 50m or 150ft higher, then it is down to 2 qualifying rides and I'm not sure I'd manage another 11 this year.

I already do tend to try and seek out fairly hilly routes, to complete the monthly strava climbing challenge (7500m in a month) as often as I can.

 

[Sea of vapours]

Not sure whether to join this one or not.

I thought much the same for much the same reasons and finally decided that it's good to get some posting on the thread to bring it to the fore, garner interest, and all such good stuff. I may try and do a Lunacy Challenge ride that's flatter than the others to differentiate the two lists, though that's quite tricky around here.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Just a note. @FrothNinja You should edit the title of this thread to remove the 2022. Chatzones aren't broken down by year, they just go on ... and on.

To honour this challenge I piled on the climbing for this month's Imperial Century challenge ride and ended up with 2,314m. And my legs were unusually fine. Taking it slow works!

I've been double posting my rides from the Imperial Century challenge into this challenge. I don't see this as a problem, esp as I'm just using this as extra motivation to keep me honest and avoid "unethically flat" routes and I'm not planning to display the moon thingy in my sig. Others may disagree.

 

[Sea of vapours]

I'm double posting too, triple in fact, since most of my rides are Metric Centuries, Lunacy Challenge and now Simplified Lunacy Climbing Challenge. Oh! And one a month is an Audax AAA brevet for my on-going AAA round the year (which is my 'main thing' really), so that's a splendid four for the price of one :-)

As I may have said before, it's all about personal motivation anyway, and I see keeping threads active as useful in its own right, to encourage people to 'sign up' for challenges and get some use out of the threads' existence. That seems especially true of the climbing challenge as, at least historically, such things don't get much traction for reasons discussed at length in the past.

Oh, and I did try and split my Lunacy Challenge and Simplified Lunacy Climbing Challenge lists by doing a somewhat flatter ride last Friday, but failed. It would have worked, but on the way back I couldn't face the relatively flat route around the Forest of Bowland so I popped over the Cross of Greet and hence exceeded the 2,500m 'climbing budget' quite comprehensively. I may have a go at approaching it from the other end once the Lunacy Challenge is done. i.e. plan a route which is less than my 150km Lunacy target but with more than 2,500km climbing. That'll be somewhat painful though.