Turf Zone – Athena
In Game of Thrones, often expressed by enthusiasts as G.O.T., which coincidentally also stands for Game of Turf, they have a saying “winter is coming”. Well, the other morning saw the weak sunlight glistening on a thin covering of frost on the shed roofs. Okay, that might not be enough to say “winter is here” but it would certainly suggest “summer is gone” and “autumn is here”. Time to look out the cycling thermals, I would reckon.
However, while winter is still coming, there is some great news to be shared. Yes, it’s finally here, the Monumental medal is now alive and kicking. This latest medal from the Turf Gods in their great coding halls in Valhalla, require you to take unique monument zones, that’s zones with the Monument attribute. There are 4 different medals in the series, beginning with Monument for 50 zones, Monumental for 100 zones, Monumentalist for 250 and finally Mondo for taking 500 zones.
And there more good news. Seems that this medal series is retrospective. That means any Monument attribute zones you have already taken in the past will count towards the medal. This kicks into effect when you take your next zone with the Monument attribute. So, if you have taken 50 or more Monument zones you should get a medal popup appearing on your mobile.
You can find out how many of these zones you have taken to date by going to https://turf.lundkvist.com. You will need to register and instructions are in the Help section. Then enter your turf name and select My statistics. You can also see how many FTT’s or First To take zones you have taken. I was a bit surprised that the starting value for the first medal in the series was as high as 50 and not the usual lower values of 5, 10 and 25 but no doubt the Turf Gods will have their reasons.
In any case, personally, Lundkvist tells me I’ve already taken 41 unique Monument zones, much to my surprise I might add, leaving only another 9 to find for that first medal in the series. So, how many Monument zones are there out there? Well, here in Bonnie Scotland we have 237, all well spread out across the country. In the UK as a whole, there are 626 up for grabs, though attaining any of the medals above 50 will require considerable travelling.
I find myself off two minds whether having this medal retrospective is a good thing or not. On the one hand all your previous efforts visiting Monument zones is taken into account. On the other hand for those who deliberately seek out medals, actively enjoying the challenge of collecting the zones may be disappointed. I guess I’m of the latter and would have preferred to start from scratch, finding and taking all the local Monument zones. Not a complaint, just an opinion.
And to finish, the sage of the new brakes on my ultimate turfing bicycle. A family friend mentioned a local bike shop in Eskbank called Stu’s Bike Shed, who have finally got my Hope RX4+ brakes installed and working, sort of. While the front brake is just about perfect, the rear brake is not as good as it should be and seems to still have some air in the system. It works and I can lock the rear brake easily enough but still a lot of travel on the brake lever. Perhaps I am expecting too much? I’m still rather disappointed and will be writing to Hope to express that to them. Back soon.
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