I'm on 15x15 but getting beyond maybe 17x17 is very unlikely to happen. I'm as much a prisoner of geography as Sean is.

benp1 wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 4:18 pm Shall we start a little leaderboard?

You dont need to, its in VV already, just with Strava names rather than BB names

People just need to join the BB Strava club
https://www.strava.com/clubs/bear-bones-bikepacking

Then on VV, go:
Summary > Overall/Club Leaderboards > Clubs = BB >All Years > Explorer Max Square

Haven't seen that feature before, very cool!

Although makes me a little sad, some of those figures are unbelievable!!

Being sandwiched between the Peak District and South Pennines i'm usually hampered by a few awkward squares, so have been focusing on riding new places and playing the long game of just picking up new tiles and letting my max square grow at it its own pace.

Currently on 27 x 27, but have a ride planned which fills in some gaps and should take me to 29 x 29 shortly

3 x 3 here. Dammit now I’ll have to use strava more and actually start riding

Blackhound wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 4:45 pm I looked at the VV leaderboard only yesterday (it is on your VV summary page) and saw that I am in 7th place for 2020 with 18x18. Just ahead of me on 19x19 are Jack Petersen and local rider to me Pete Johnson or PeeJay. Hope to catch them by the weekend although they may have pushed on further. I have added my score to Ben's table


Bearbones VV max square leaderboard
41 - Blackhound
29 - Pickers
23 - bigdummysteve
21 - Composite
20 - slarge
19 - benp1
9 - sean_iow
9 - Alan63
7 - mikehowarth

I noticed that the other week Kevin and meant to big you up on it!
JP is still top 10 in the world, right? 67x67 or something...

I think it might be a little while before my square gets bigger but I have been doing a lot of groundwork, and I think it will jump quite a bit when it does move next.

ScotRoutes wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 4:54 pm I'm on 15x15 but getting beyond maybe 17x17 is very unlikely to happen. I'm as much a prisoner of geography as Sean is.

That’ll teach you for bragging about the right to roam

BigdummySteve wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 7:30 pm

ScotRoutes wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 4:54 pm I'm on 15x15 but getting beyond maybe 17x17 is very unlikely to happen. I'm as much a prisoner of geography as Sean is.

That’ll teach you for bragging about the right to roam

I'm aware of the irony!

composite wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 7:26 pm
JP is still top 10 in the world, right? 67x67 or something...

100x100 has been done

It looks like you don't show up in the table unless your rides are Public. Either that or Strava has broken something (maybe only for non-subscribers)

ScotRoutes wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 7:35 pm It looks like you don't show up in the table unless your rides are Public. Either that or Strava has broken something (maybe only for non-subscribers)

Something must be up for me to be that far up the table

Hmm, thought I was in the BB Strava group? Will have to check.

Anyway I'm at 22x22 and have been for a while. My max cluster is 1709 and I've visited 9436 squares

Steve - if you click on "map settings", the cog icon on the right of the map you can fade out the ride tracks so the squares appear more clearly.

You can tell those who are now retired / bugger all else to do by their max square. Birmingham city centre for me this weekend. Wish me luck!

ScotRoutes wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 7:35 pm 100x100 has been done

Sure the guy who is top is 100x100, but JP was actually an active member here for a while and it seems somehow different when you have actually interacted with them. In fact, I saw him in December at an Audax and we briefly spoke. I had forgotten.

ScotRoutes wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 7:35 pm It looks like you don't show up in the table unless your rides are Public. Either that or Strava has broken something (maybe only for non-subscribers)

My understanding was that you show up in the table just your name isn't clickable to see your square unless you make you Veloviewer settings public. That might have changed since the Strava change though.


I think the Club leaderboard is broken though. I'm a member of a few and none are showing up at all.

EDIT: Seems to be loading now!

composite wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 10:52 pm
My understanding was that you show up in the table just your name isn't clickable to see your square unless you make you Veloviewer settings public. That might have changed since the Strava change though.


I think the Club leaderboard is broken though. I'm a member of a few and none are showing up at all.

Aye - could be a Strava thing

slarge wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 9:35 pm You can tell those who are now retired / bugger all else to do by their max square. Birmingham city centre for me this weekend. Wish me luck!

I reckon the next 3 weeks could the last best chance to do those sorts of areas. Although honestly, I don't think the centre is that bad at all. I think the areas North will be the worst when lockdown starts to decrease as there are just so many horrendous A-roads that slice up those areas. Far worse than south Brum. It was far more difficult to avoid them when I was route planning. Luckily they turned out to be so quiet I stopped trying to avoid them.

Actually it was quite odd deliberately planning routes on dual carriageways knowing that they would be almost empty. I did almost the whole of the journey back from Wolverhampton, on Wolverhampton Road which would be woeful to ride on normally.

Here is the link in for the BB leaderboard but it might user-specific. Does it work for others?

https://veloviewer.com/leaderboard/y/0/ ... /-/c/23204

With that link...

{"curl error":"401"}

However, I can now see the leaderboards via my own Summary page. It definitely wasn't working earlier

Yep I can't see the board either.

I've added myself to the Bearbones strava group so should make life a bit easier climbing myself up that leaderboard

Are you logged into Strava?
The link Works for me when logged in and I get the error message when not.

slarge wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 9:35 pm You can tell those who are now retired / bugger all else to do by their max square. Birmingham city centre for me this weekend. Wish me luck!

Suspect the retired/ bugger all else to do was aimed at the likes of me. Can't say it isn't true- or hurts

It has taken a few years but a couple of audaxes and various overnighters have helped some of the further squares. . I have never been good at sorting a strategy out like Neil/ Composite has or 'the nutter' on 100x100. I just go out grab a few squares and fill in the gaps later. ThendecideI could extend further. Last year I caught a few train and rode home over summer and had planned similar this year but not going to happen for a while as us retired sorts not allowed on trains.

Blackhound wrote: ↑Thu May 28, 2020 5:10 pm Suspect the retired/ bugger all else to do was aimed at the likes of me. Can't say it isn't true- or hurts

Yes Kevin - aimed at anyone above me in the leaderboard!!

But don't get upset - I would love to be in that position

A rather delightful ride out around the bits between Otley and Harrogate.
Some great little roads and times where i honestly didnt know where I was.

Dont think i've ever regretted an explorer ride

2 targeted rides will get me to 30x30

Haven't had much inspiration for explorer tiles since I made it to 30x30 Dec 2018 and the South Coast pretty much stopped me from going bigger without a massive recentre-ing. So it's nice to see I'm still joint third in the BB list, but where did JP go from that list? Kevin and Jack were always the ones I aspired to but new I would never catch.

slarge wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 9:35 pm You can tell those who are now retired / bugger all else to do by their max square.

Working (more than!) full time with two young kids; not retired, just really selfish and don't sleep much.

slarge wrote: ↑Wed May 27, 2020 9:35 pm You can tell those who are now retired / bugger all else to do by their max square.

Not retired yet, but no kids and an understanding wife.
In fact, she's joined me on many a VV ride on the tandem.