Life Cycle - Figuring It Out
Cycling Plus|March 2018

Rob Ainsley visits Eddington the new bike-friendly ‘village’cience nerds know

Life Cycle - Figuring It Out

Science nerds to know Eddington: the 20th century British astrophysicist Sir Arthur Eddington, whose 1919 eclipse observations confirmed Einstein’s relativity theories, and who once calculated all the protons in the universe.

Strava nerds also know Eddington. A keen cyclist, he devised a measure of cumulative long distance, now called the Eddington Number. He just referred to it as ‘n’ – nothing to do with ‘n+1’, famously the ideal number of bikes to own where n is the number you currently have.

Your Eddington Number is the maximum n such that on n days in your life, you cycled at least n miles. (Strava won’t calculate n, but apps such as VeloViewer will.) Looking over my touring stats, for instance, there are hundreds of days when I did over 40 miles, and a handful when I did over 100 – but the max across both, my Eddington Number, is 66: on 66 days I did at least 66 miles. Eddington reached 84; hardcore audax cyclists might eventually top 140; Amanda Coker, who recently rode 100,000 miles in a record-breaking 423 days, did 235 days of over 235 miles in that period.

This story is from the March 2018 edition of Cycling Plus.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.

This story is from the March 2018 edition of Cycling Plus.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.

MORE STORIES FROM CYCLING PLUSView All
Objectives of desire
Cycling Plus UK

Objectives of desire

Ned ponders his affection for cycling on a ride from London to Minehead

time-read
3 mins  |
February 2024
ONE OF A KIND
Cycling Plus UK

ONE OF A KIND

Project One combines premium-quality customised bikes with an endless palette of colours and designs from the creative experts at Trek. It's a winning formula. Here's why...

time-read
2 mins  |
February 2024
Trek Checkpoint ALR 5 Driftless
Cycling Plus UK

Trek Checkpoint ALR 5 Driftless

£2,700 Aluminium bike-packing-friendly gravel bike

time-read
3 mins  |
February 2024
Gower Peninsula, Wales
Cycling Plus UK

Gower Peninsula, Wales

A rider powers up the Cefn Bryn ridge on south Wales' Gower Peninsula.

time-read
2 mins  |
February 2024
Slow commotion
Cycling Plus UK

Slow commotion

Downing Street targeting 20mph zones is attacking popular policy

time-read
3 mins  |
February 2024
Black Series Multistrada
Cycling Plus UK

Black Series Multistrada

£5,629 British designed, all-road speedster

time-read
2 mins  |
February 2024
Helmetcam militia
Cycling Plus UK

Helmetcam militia

Hey, bad drivers! Want to be in the movies? Then smile as you close-pass us while on the phone

time-read
1 min  |
February 2024
Rolling horizons
Cycling Plus UK

Rolling horizons

2018 Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas tells us about the joy of discovering new routes

time-read
3 mins  |
February 2024
ENTER THE DRAGON
Cycling Plus UK

ENTER THE DRAGON

It's one of the toughest sportives in the UK, but did climb-loving cycling author Simon Warren have the legs to slay the beast of a sportive route in 2023?

time-read
6 mins  |
February 2024
LOFTY GOALS
Cycling Plus UK

LOFTY GOALS

Higher, harder, longer... the road-sportive calendar gets ever more extreme. Here are 10 of the toughest single day rides to enter for 2024

time-read
6 mins  |
February 2024