Hi everyone! during the weekend of the summer solstice (June 19th-20th), Apidura’s doing a challenge called Parallells - ride as far as you can as the crow flies in 24 hours. I’m interested in giving it a shot, but would like to do it with someone else to simplify planning and transportation to/from the start/end.
Let me know if you’re interested. I haven’t planned anything yet, but I’ve always wanted to do a point-to-point ride for as long as possible. I’m thinking of doing it in two parts with a short nap in the middle, but we can discuss specifics!
What route/direction are you thinking?
A friend of mine has done Ottawa to Windsor in 34’ 57". It’s a record.
Probably an idea to consider wind direction. Along the rail corridor for either out or back would make sense for non bike transportation.
My current idea is doing Ottawa → Waterloo, which is tough but doable in 24 hours. Really, just getting as close to Waterloo as possible is the goal! In reality, wind will dictate a lot of the route.
I thought about doing one last year, but was looking at doing an out-and-back and splitting the ride at the halfway point. Windsor and back might be possible in 24h depending on the winds. I was leaning more toward doing Tobermory and back since it’s a bit more interesting terrain. The ‘rules’ seem to indicate one can split the ride like this and get credit for both parts.
There’s a randonneur event called the Flèche that is similar… minimum distance of 360km in 24h. In Ontario 400k isn’t too hard for folks to do and I think the record is 560km. I’ve only done it once and we had a rough go of things and barely squeaked out ~370km
While you can split the ride for story purposes, it’s your final start and stops that are measured, so an out and back ride would could as zero, sadly.
Strategically, wouldn’t Waterloo-Ottawa be easier? With prevailing winds from the west, they would be working with you more, and I think there is also a slight elevation advantage as well (although likely negligible).
If your doing this you need a non wind day or a ideally a tail wind anything else will just destroy your soul. My longest ride was 482, with zero planing other than I need to get to stop and see the wife and kid camping in the morning. The problem was it led to a headwind home, the last 100km was utterly miserable, not aided by several hours without fluids, but I still had another 5.5hrs of the day left. Adam Myers did a solo 666 in 24hr last year, he did a few loops, but is also probably not human.
With a moderate tail wind no messing around you should be able to cover close to 700km in a day, especially if your not solo. My view on a nap is that you won’t make up the time you lose in extra speed, and you will still be tired/miserable afterwards.
all depending on wind that day.
