Rules

Your ride must take place during an uninterrupted 24-hour period during the weekend of the Northern Hemisphere’s Summer Solstice (0:00 20/06/2020 to 23:59 21/06/2020 in your local time zone). Your time zone remains fixed based on your start location (you can’t gain an hour by crossing a border!).

The distance for your ride will be measured in a straight line from the start to the end of the ride. If you ride 300 kilometres, but your finishing point is 200 kilometres from your start point ‘as the crow flies’, your ride will be listed as being 200 kilometres for the purpose of this challenge.

Your ride must be self-supported, with no pre-arranged support, supply drops or friends and family meeting you on your route. Much like in other ultra-distance events, we won’t be able to tell if you’ve dodged this rule… but you’ll know and trust us, it won’t feel good!

The clock starts with the first turn of your cranks and runs continuously for 24 hours. While you can (and should!) stop to rest, eat, and sleep as often as you want, the clock doesn’t stop. The challenge is based on elapsed time, not moving time.

Technical

You have until 23.59 Sunday 28th June (GMT) to upload your ride.

You can upload it in a number of ways:

Tag your ride on Ride with GPS by adding #parallels24 to the ride name or description

Email a link to your ride recorded on another platform to [email protected]. Please remember to set your ride to public so we can see it and download it. If you forget, we may not have the time to reply to remind you.

Email a GPX file to [email protected] along with your name.

Results will be posted by Monday 6th of July. Some rides may be added to the Parallels map before then.

All rides and results will be found on apidura.com/parallels.

Still have questions? See our FAQ’s.

COVID-19

Government Restrictions and advice on travel vary around the world. Please take any local laws and advice into consideration when planning your route and during the ride itself. There are more important things in life than bike riding, so keep yourself and others safe by planning appropriately. If now is not a suitable time for a long bike ride in your region, start planning for 2021 and take advantage of the extra time to perfect your route.

OBEY LOCAL LAWS

Familiarise yourself with all the local riding laws along your route. Alongside temporary COVID-related rules, please ensure you obey all laws concerning rights of way for bicycles, visibility and places you are allowed to rest.

YOUR SAFETY

Apidura Parallels is a personal challenge, shared with others and a great chance to safely experience what 24 hours during an ultra race or challenge feels like without having to wake up and do it all over again the following day. It’s not important enough to risk your life over! If you are tired, stop. If it’s overcast or dark, light yourself and your bike up. If your route turns out not to be safe or sensible for cycling, turn around.

DISCLAIMER

Apidura Parallels is intended as a personal challenge and is by definition an unsupported event. Responsibility for the welfare of you and others is your own, please act responsibly and stay safe.

Why are you doing this in such a difficult year?

Parallels will become an annual challenge. We chose to go ahead with the launch this year to try to bring some joy to our community. While primarily a long distance cycling challenge, it is also a challenge of riders’ creativity and route planning skills – if riders can’t go for a long ride this year, we hope they can enjoy showing their creativity with shorter routes or take the extra time to plan the perfect route for 2021.

Can I drop supplies for myself on my planned route?

This challenge is about the spirit of bikepacking and self-supported racing, but is not policed and we would encourage you to do whatever you think is sensible to stay safe and enjoy the challenge. It’s down to you to choose how to safely resupply and whether that fits with the ethos of the challenge.

What if I plan to ride a loop?

Your parallels distance is measured from the start to finish of your uploaded ride. If you are planning to ride a loop or there-and-back, make sure you split your ride, ending your first recording at the point furthest from your start. You can upload as many rides as you wish during your chosen 24 hour period.

Lockdown rules mean I can’t ride as far as I want. Can you measure in another way?

We are measuring straight line distance because it creates an interesting route building challenge and every line will tell an interesting story. The most interesting rides won’t necessarily be the longest line, particularly this year.

We want to see your creativity – whether that be making your line perfectly North or South, making it cross water, fitting the longest possible ride into the shortest possible line or making your line go through a city when you actually rode around it.

Parallels is our way of encouraging people to get outside for the longest ride they can, while being responsible, knowing that others around the world are doing the same. Your longest ride this year might not be the same as your longest ride next year, but it’ll tell an interesting story and we can’t wait to see it and share it with the world.

Can I do more than one ride?

Yes! You can do as many rides in the 24 hour period as you wish. As long as you tag or email us each ride you can create as many lines as you wish – if you can’t go far, get creative!