Cyclist spends 30 hours on 500km Veloviewer tile challenge only for his GPS to fail

Most of us have suffered the dreaded GPS failure on a ride.

I once made it to the summit of Alpe d’Huez (my first and only ascent) only to check my Strava that evening and discover none of the ride had correctly recorded.

Often you miss a short section of a segment or maybe lose the mileage of a weekday ride, but one rider recently faced a more devastating data loss.

Elmar Hogenboom, a rider based in the Netherlands, like many had planned to use the longest day of the year for an epic adventure.

Hogenboom wanted to take on the Veloviewer Max Square challenge – covering as many tiles on a map as possible in one ride to create a huge square.

After one rider check of 18x18 tiles in one activity, Hogenboom set off at 4.16am on Saturday (June 20) to try and beat that record.

More than 30 hours after setting off, 23 hours of that in the saddle, Hogenboom finished his mission having racked up 537km around North West Germany.

But on inspecting the “toughest ride of his life,” he discovered that eight hours of GPS data was missing

Hogenboom said on Strava: “Unfortunately it seems eight hours of data is actually missing, even though the distance is accurate.

“It’s disappointing for sure, but there’s I can do about it anymore. I went the distance and crossed the tile.

“They say if it’s not on Strava it didn’t happen. Believe me, it happened.”

The aim of the Max Square challenge is to ride into as many map tiles as possible to tick them off, with riders aiming to make the biggest square on the map.

Hogenboom had planned out his route to tick of 21x21 tiles and he cycled through the night (stopping for power naps) to complete the cult challenge.

Battling through multiple punctures, 80km of unpaved roads and tiredness, Hogenboom put in a phenomenal effort for his ride.

But losing the data he said he will probably try again, only with a few lessons learned the hard way.

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Next time Hogenboom said he will sleep more in the week before the challenge, will go tubeless, get gravel tyres, and take an extra GPS device for back-up.