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New Strava target for New Forest - as cyclist creates massive 'bicycle' segment

Who will take the lead on 301km segment?

Fancy a big bike ride in the New Forest? Strava user David Taylor has set a new mark with a 301km, 12-hour challenge that takes in a large swathe of the forest and the countryside to the North of Poole and Bournemouth.

The big bike segment was part of Taylor's Tommy Godwin Challenge ride on September 20. The idea is to cover in a day 1/365th of Tommy Godwin's 1939 record of 75,065 miles in a year. That's just under 206 miles; Taylor's 341.5km ride is 212 mile, and included over 2.000m of climbing.

He took 13:02:03 for the full 341km, and 11:26:31 for the 301km segment he's drawn up as a challenge.

Taylor says he had to amend the route as he went along, as a result of a getting a bit navigationally challenged on the way. But as you can see, his route still looks like it's supposed to:

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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22 comments

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BearstedCC | 9 years ago
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Chapeau Indeed Mr David Taylor

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Dave Moore | 9 years ago
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I honestly have not laughed so much about cycling in a very long time, it is a shame that the cock is not in the new forest?

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Leviathan | 9 years ago
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I get it, do a very long route that no one else will ever follow, then make it public so you can get the KOM, but its okay because you say it is 'Art.' Very convenient, I know your game, I am watching you mister. I am going to take some very 'artistic' routes home, then I will have all of the Kings of the Mountainses, all to my own, ha ha ha ha ha ha.

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Northernbike | 9 years ago
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beautiful - the modern equivalent of those white horses carved into chalk hillsides.

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MaxP | 9 years ago
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Men are weird!

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horizontal dropout | 9 years ago
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Brilliant bit of artwork! Is anyone clever enough to change the image so that the bicycle is perfect and the map is distorted?

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backflipbedlem | 9 years ago
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But did he get the KOM?

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notfastenough replied to backflipbedlem | 9 years ago
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backflipbedlem wrote:

But did he get the KOM?

Haha, imagine doing that ride, uploading it and finding that someone had already done it, and faster than you!

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Dobbsy | 9 years ago
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mmm this has me thinking about previous rides, what have i drawn?

http://www.strava.com/activities/165797257

A butterfly maybe?

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parksey | 9 years ago
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I wonder if it was deliberate that the "saddle" is just beneath the Sandy Balls resort on the map?!

Chapeau to him though, I think he's going to have that segment to himself for quite some time!

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martincashman | 9 years ago
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Fredtastic, just what you want when you are riding somewhere picturesque and peaceful... your head buried froome style in your gps screen while racing imaginary friends.  41

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Sevenfold | 9 years ago
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Looks like a perfect 300km Audax or better still how about Road.cc sportive...

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i_want_one_of_those | 9 years ago
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Excellent!

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chokofingrz | 9 years ago
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Awesome - I'm not inspired to ride 300km yet but I am inspired to get busy planning my own local "picture route"!

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zanf replied to chokofingrz | 9 years ago
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chokofingrz wrote:

Awesome - I'm not inspired to ride 300km yet but I am inspired to get busy planning my own local "picture route"!

Like this, for instance?

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bendertherobot replied to zanf | 9 years ago
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zanf wrote:
chokofingrz wrote:

Awesome - I'm not inspired to ride 300km yet but I am inspired to get busy planning my own local "picture route"!

Like this, for instance?

Quite, I mean, this is all very impressive but drawing a cock with Strava is just about the coolest thing anyone can do  4

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Jonny_Trousers replied to zanf | 9 years ago
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zanf wrote:
chokofingrz wrote:

Awesome - I'm not inspired to ride 300km yet but I am inspired to get busy planning my own local "picture route"!

Like this, for instance?

Awesome! I'm a forty-four year old man, but I still find a comedy cock drawing hilarious.  1

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ColT | 9 years ago
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He might want to get those wheels trued.

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gazza_d | 9 years ago
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Chapeau!

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pmr | 9 years ago
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aweome!!  41

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Das | 9 years ago
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Thats gonna upsets the New Forest NIMBY's, no end!!!!!

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notfastenough | 9 years ago
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Well done sir! That's a good effort, and while I can manage that average speed for 50-60 miles, doing it for 200+ is quite some effort. I hope he had company.

I tell you what though, he didn't do that with a Garmin 200 - when the routes cross over it gives you no clue as to which line is supposed to be followed next, so it certainly wouldn't look like that if I tried it!

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