The end of May saw the BikeRadar Training 1000 mile challenge come to a close, and 18 people from across the globe managed to complete the task. Mainly bike and turbo miles were logged, but the addition of swimming and running miles helped some to achieve the month-long target. Congratulations to all those who took part!
A special shout-out goes to domcarr, who just sneaked in by logging 1001 miles on 31 May, and Lisa from the USA – the only woman in the leaderboard to have completed the 1000 miles in the time allotted.
A selection of our 1000 mile challenge champions
The first person to clock up the miles, in an amazing 16 days, was Alastair Reynolds, from Devon, UK. We found out a bit more about how he fit in so much distance in such a short period of time.
"I don’t normally cycle 1000 miles in 16 days, but have never been one to turn down a challenge either, so when I saw the 1000 mile challenge I decided to give it a go," Alastair explained. "My normal commute is about 25 miles a day, so I’ve been leaving home and turning in the wrong direction to add extra miles this month. Where I’ve really struggled with motivation is when I’ve cycled practically past my front door and continued riding away from the house into a headwind in the evenings.
"As well as the extended commutes I’ve also managed to include my first ever time trial, a 300km audax (the ace up the sleeve), and a potter around the Plymouth Sky Ride. The other weekend rides were largely routes regularly ridden by my local club, the YOGi’s, who not only never seem to ride a bad route but always manage to find a decent cafe too!
"All the distance has been covered on real roads in the south-west of England, which for those who don’t know doesn’t seem to have a single flat bit! My Garmin recorded just over 20,000m of climbing in the 1000 miles, and most of the time I was trying my hardest to find the flattest areas.
"Last week I eased back a bit as I have three pretty hard sportives over the next three weekends and want to be reasonably fresh for those. Hopefully the fatigue will have died away by then and the accumulated miles will see me finishing strongly.
"Next month should see me doing fewer miles – maybe 1000 in total – but my average speed should increase significantly. I’ll also be adding some mountain biking and running too (a broken foot has prevented me from doing those activities this month).
"Later in the year I’m planning to take a road bike to the Dolomites, to ride up Monte Zoncolan and some of the other silly steep climbs over there. My final big event of the year is likely to be the Kielder 100 mountain bike race."
Here’s what Alastair used to complete the challenge:
Bikes: Boardman CX Team and Scott Addict
GPS: Garmin Edge 800 for the bike, Garmin Forerunner 405CX when running
There will be more BikeRadar Training Challenges coming up over the next few months, so if you missed out on this one you still have a chance to enter our others. To join in, sign up with BikeRadar Training today!
