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Star Wars fan’s Solo ride creates Millennium Falcon on Strava

Unsurprisingly, the ride took place on May the Fourth

A Canberra cyclist who is also a Star Wars fan marked last Thursday's May the Fourth in style - by sketching the outline of the Millennium Falcon on Strava.

Andrew Collins rode for 17.4 kilometres on his 40-minute ride around the Australian capital's Parliament House, where circular roads provided the inspiration for his work.

Initially, however, he had planned to ride on the Dark Side by recreating the Death Star.

Collins, the captain of the Vikings Cycling Club, told the Canberra Times: "I saw the goat that someone had drawn on Strava in Perth a couple of months ago and thought 'something needs to be done in Canberra'.

"So with a bit of creative stop-starting, I mapped out the Millennium Falcon," added the rider, who in his day job is an information analyst at mapping agency PSMA Australia.

Collins admitted he had an unfair advantage when it came to mapping - he spends his days working with spatial data as an information analyst for PSMA (Public Sector Mapping Agencies) Australia.

His plans almost came unstuck though due to a road that shares its name with the Rebel Alliance's sworn enemy.

"I had to do a bit of off-roading up a dirt path between the Canberra Yacht Club and the embassies on Empire Circuit," he explained.

He's far from the only Star Wars fan on Strava judging by the number of segments on the social network named after the Kesssel Run - which Han Solo, the character played by Harrison Ford, boasted the Millennium Falcon had completed in "less than 12 parsecs."

Before it gets pointed out in the comments, we'll clarify that a parsec is a unit of distance, not time, with Solo alluding to the fact that the ship's advanced navigational system enabled him to shave a third off the usual 18-parsec distance of the smuggling route.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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8 comments

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ChainedToTheWheel | 6 years ago
2 likes

Unfortunately, and I hate to be the Grinch here, but this isn't the real deal. The 'front' part of the Falcon has been drawn on manually. To actually ride would require going *through* the lake, through a number of construction fences, diagonally across a busy dual carriageway bounded and separated by guard rails, through the middle of a number of large and/or restricted buildings, and so on. Fake Strava, sadly.

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Metaphor | 6 years ago
0 likes

These are getting boring.

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DaveE128 | 6 years ago
0 likes

Stop-starting to draw straight lines seems a bit like cheating to me tho!  3

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Cozz | 6 years ago
0 likes

His bike must have wings. Land speeder?

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Aussie Rider | 6 years ago
2 likes

Ironic that this is centered around the Federal Parliment District

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Leviathan replied to Aussie Rider | 6 years ago
0 likes

Aussie Rider wrote:

Ironic that this is centered around the Federal Parliment District

I am the Senate.

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Wardy74 | 6 years ago
3 likes

I've got a ride that accidentally looks like Winnie the Pooh.

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Grahamd | 6 years ago
0 likes

This is the kind of thing my brother would do and he's got too much time on his hands as well.

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