I’m sitting at the computer, my excuse not to have to sit in the living room and watch Strictly Come Dancing: The Results, and I realised this afternoon, with no small level of astonishment, that in 14-days’ time I will have been turfing for exactly 5-years. Yes, it was back on 21st December 2020 that I read that BBC news article featuring our very own Fearglas a.k.a. Leonne Henderson, “the night-riding mum who cycles 10-hours a day.” I’m quite amazed that I’m still turfing and finding something to blog about after over 800 posts on the topic.
Now, it is sometime later and at the time I wrote the above paragraph I did have a something in mind to blog about. But for the life of me cannot recall what it was. Perhaps it will come back to me. So, might as well blog about something else.
Planning for my attempt at the El Staminatore medal, taking 200 zones in a 24-hour period, continue with another practice session locally here in Bonnyrigg. The issue I mentioned previously, the fact that the screen kept turning off was still plaguing me. I tried adjusting screen savers and battery settings, even adding an app specifically to keep the screen on at all times, all to no avail. Finally, I tracked down the culprit, an app called Game Launcher. As it is part of the Android operating system on my old phone it cannot be removed but can be stopped and disabled. Problem sorted, finally.
For this practice session, I wanted to complete a full circuit of Bonnyrigg, taking in all of the 40 zones on the list. All went well with only one zone missed. By missed, I refer to myself not getting the assist and actually taking the zone. My plan for El Staminatore medal is to completed 5 rounds each taking 40 zones and using a couple of friendly turfers to take the zone while I get the assist, which counts towards this medal. The missed zone was one occasion when I tried to sort the screen going off on the spare phone.
Now, 39 out of 40 isn’t bad, so looks like all is ready for the attempt. Just waiting for a decent weather day to get cracking. No point spending eight miserable hours cycling in torrential rain with howling winds, like today that is. This coming Thursday/Friday looks perfect. And with 24-hours to play with no need to squeeze the five-sessions close together. Thinking I’ll start with an early session before breakfast, another after breakfast and see how it goes from there.
I’ve also been trying out different bikes for the attempt. Initially, I thought I’d use the Brompton G Line, thats’ the big wheeled verison of the tradional folding Brompton and to be fair it would do just fine. However, it is on the heavy side. My Trek Farley fat bike really isn’t the beast for this challenge, unless there’s four inches of snow lying. My Ribble gravel bike would also do the job just fine but I’ve settled for my trail bike, the Sonder Broken Road.
The Sonder Broken Road is my more comfortable bike. I’ve raised the handlebars by around 50 mm, fitted the most puncture resistant tyres around, 47mm wide Schwalbe Marathon Plus and a set of proper wide mudguards. There’s room on the handlebars for lights and two phone mounts, a rear rack and rack-top bag provides space for all my tools, spares and stuff with a small frame bag to carry the powerpack for the mobile phones. All sorted and ready to blast off.
Another aspect of this method of tackling the El Staminatore medal is keeping all 40 of the local Bonnyrigg zones in the ideal ownership for my attempt. The main issue is to make sure I don’t own any of them myself – I cannot get an assist if I own the zone – and that’s making Turf Skåne’s Christmas calendar all the more challenging. I also need to make sure that at least one of my own turfer assistants, MrTrek and MrFarley, don’t hold them either. Back soon.
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