There was another wildfire this week that darkened the skies again—from a distance of over 100 miles (see the Breathe, but try not to inhale entry. Then on Friday of this week I completed the Trek Century Challenge for July. My stats garnered me an 866% rider-rating and gave me 12,090th place among the 250,138 riders who covered 76,601,737 miles in total. That last last number is astounding and yet my own ‘umble hefferts put me in the 95th percentile if I have correctly understood how that statistic should be properly calculated. Mine are modest efforts compared with the achievements of the monster-pedalers in the percentiles above me. Suffice it to say that the top slot went to Arvid Loewen from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, who is a stripling grandpa aged sixty-three years, which explains how he managed to clock 6,972 miles in 30 rides on Strava. You read that correctly: he averaged over 232 miles every day for a 30-day month.
That was a new GWR (Guiness World Record) for the farthest distance cycled in 30 days. The Strava stats and the GWR site seem not to have caught up with Arvid—his final total distance was 11,616 km, which is a staggering 7,217.85 miles.
My Friday ride of thirty-nine miles was the longest I have recorded on Strava, but pales into insignificance when compared to Arvid’s achievement. I started that last ride of the Challenge with a crick in my neck and two days off has done little to improve the problem. I am unsure about riding tomorrow. What would Arvid do?
| 
