all the way around Great Britain- any idea how far?



G

geze

Guest
x-no-archive: yes

just one of those things that come up in the pub... would take a while to
ride, for sure!
 
geze wrote:
>
> just one of those things that come up in the pub... would take a while to
> ride, for sure!
>


You'd have to ask Benoit Mandelbrot...

BugBear
 
On Wed, 31 May 2006 10:32:45 +0100, bugbear wrote:

> You'd have to ask Benoit Mandelbrot...
>

You beat me to it...
TO explain:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0716711869/104-6495491-3763144?v=glance&n=283155

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal

The length of the trip around Britain's convoluted coastline depends on
the length of the ruler you use to measure it.
Take an atlas page and stretch a bit of string round the coastline,
or use a pair of dividers. You'll get one answer.
Put some gumboots on and pace around the high water mark and you'll get
a much bigger answer.
 
geze wrote:
> x-no-archive: yes
>
> just one of those things that come up in the pub... would take a while to
> ride, for sure!
>


From a fractal geometrist's (if such people exist) point of view the
coast of Great Britain is clearly infinitely long! Based on an
extension of the idea of a Koch curve etc..

Gordon
 
"geze" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> x-no-archive: yes
>
>
> bugbear wrote in message
> <[email protected]>...
>>geze wrote:
>>>
>>> just one of those things that come up in the pub... would take a while
>>> to
>>> ride, for sure!
>>>

>>
>>You'd have to ask Benoit Mandelbrot...
>>
>> BugBear

>
> who he?


Fractal DUDE!
 
x-no-archive: yes


bugbear wrote in message
<[email protected]>...
>geze wrote:
>>
>> just one of those things that come up in the pub... would take a while to
>> ride, for sure!
>>

>
>You'd have to ask Benoit Mandelbrot...
>
> BugBear


who he?
 
In article <[email protected]>, geze
([email protected]) wrote:
> x-no-archive: yes
>
> just one of those things that come up in the pub... would take a while to
> ride, for sure!


An Unruly Mob of Penniless Student Oaves from Imperial College did it in
1983, inna-team-stylee, in order to raise money for Charidee - in this
case the RNLI. 'twas done mostly with the world's first fully-faired
Windcheetah recumbent trike, with an unfaired one on the back of the van
for emergencies.

The twenty-four riders were split into two bunches of twelve; each dozen
into three shifts of four. The first bunch did London-Ayr via the south
coast of England, whereupon the second took over to go round the top of
Scotland and back down the east coast.

In order to be classified as an official round-Britain record by those
Guinness chappies, at least 3,675 miles has to be covered. Said unruly
mob did it in just over 10.5 days; modesty forbids me to name the rider
at the controls when they arrived back at Charing Cross :)

--
Dave Larrington - <http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/>
May you have an accident shaped like an umbrella.
 
Dave Larrington wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>, geze
> ([email protected]) wrote:
> > x-no-archive: yes
> >
> > just one of those things that come up in the pub... would take a while to
> > ride, for sure!


There seem to be two different distances; one involving using every
available ferry crossing of an estuary and one not; pedants could
probably argue over bridges too.
 
MartinM wrote:

> There seem to be two different distances; one involving using every
> available ferry crossing of an estuary and one not; pedants could
> probably argue over bridges too.


Although if no bridges were allowed it would be an MTB ride up the
east west watershed and not a coastal route.
Iain
 
geze wrote:
> x-no-archive: yes
>
> just one of those things that come up in the pub... would take a while to
> ride, for sure!
>


Especially as the coastline of Argyll is longer than the coastline of
France.

Kennedy
 
gjt70 wrote:
> geze wrote:
>> x-no-archive: yes
>>
>> just one of those things that come up in the pub... would take a while to
>> ride, for sure!
>>

>
> From a fractal geometrist's (if such people exist) point of view the
> coast of Great Britain is clearly infinitely long! Based on an
> extension of the idea of a Koch curve etc..
>


Not forgetting you can never measure it anyway because it is
continuously changing faster than you can measure it.


--
Tony

"Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using
his intelligence; he is just using his memory."
- Leonardo da Vinci
 
in message <[email protected]>, Kennedy Fraser
('[email protected]') wrote:

> geze wrote:
>> x-no-archive: yes
>>
>> just one of those things that come up in the pub... would take a while
>> to ride, for sure!

>
> Especially as the coastline of Argyll is longer than the coastline of
> France.


There are not, however, metalled roads which trace the coastline of
Argyle (or indeed several other deeply indented parts of the west of
Scotland), so presumably people take shortcuts.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

There are no messages. The above is just a random stream of
bytes. Any opinion or meaning you find in it is your own creation.
 
x-no-archive: yes

ok, using the nearest available road/recognised pathway...dead end roads and
spitheadsexcluded.
 
In article <[email protected]>, Simon
Brooke ([email protected]) wrote:

> There are not, however, metalled roads which trace the coastline of
> Argyle (or indeed several other deeply indented parts of the west of
> Scotland), so presumably people take shortcuts.


When plotting our route we started by using the nearest through roads to
the coast. Then we measured it all very carefully using one of those
little wheel contraptions, threw up our hands in horror and started
again...

So, yes.

--
Dave Larrington - <http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/>
%VMS-W-IVWORD, unrecognized word "downtime" - check validity and
spelling
 
Simon Bennett wrote:
> geze wrote:
>
> > just one of those things that come up in the pub... would take a
> > while to ride, for sure!

>
> Approx 4500 miles; see http://www.tallbiketourbritain.com/page9.htm --
> they're currently riding it.


thobut Vectis they did traverse
in quest to Blightly circumnavigate
and Isle of Man may seem perverse
for a mainland tour though I prevarigate

(using their own brand of poetry)

ISTR somesuch on-line route planner that insists the shortest way along
the S coast is via Pompey-Ryde and Yarmouth-Lymington (though not the
cheapest even at £1 a litre)
 
"MartinM" <[email protected]> writes:
> Simon Bennett wrote:
>> Approx 4500 miles; see http://www.tallbiketourbritain.com/page9.htm --
>> they're currently riding it.

>
> thobut Vectis they did traverse
> in quest to Blightly circumnavigate
> and Isle of Man may seem perverse
> for a mainland tour though I prevarigate
>
> (using their own brand of poetry)


After a while I felt I was reading Rupert the Bear (and started
wanting the full text Rupert books had at the bottom of the page).

Brendan
--
Brendan Halpin, Department of Sociology, University of Limerick, Ireland
Tel: w +353-61-213147 f +353-61-202569 h +353-61-338562; Room F2-025 x 3147
mailto:[email protected] http://www.ul.ie/sociology/brendan.halpin.html
 
Brendan Halpin wrote:
> "MartinM" <[email protected]> writes:
> > Simon Bennett wrote:
> >> Approx 4500 miles; see http://www.tallbiketourbritain.com/page9.htm --
> >> they're currently riding it.

> >
> > thobut Vectis they did traverse
> > in quest to Blightly circumnavigate
> > and Isle of Man may seem perverse
> > for a mainland tour though I prevarigate
> >
> > (using their own brand of poetry)

>
> After a while I felt I was reading Rupert the Bear (and started
> wanting the full text Rupert books had at the bottom of the page).


Rupert was pure Wordsworth compared to the TBT poetry (I never read the
botom text)
 
"geze" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> x-no-archive: yes
>
> just one of those things that come up in the pub... would take a while to
> ride, for sure!




On a mountain bike?

John Merrill 'Turn Right at Lands End' reckoned about 7000 miles.
That was walking and non use of estuary crossings.

Paul.
 
"John Hearns" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:p[email protected]...
> On Wed, 31 May 2006 10:32:45 +0100, bugbear wrote:
>
>> You'd have to ask Benoit Mandelbrot...
>>

> You beat me to it...
> TO explain:
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0716711869/104-6495491-3763144?v=glance&n=283155
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal
>
> The length of the trip around Britain's convoluted coastline depends on
> the length of the ruler you use to measure it.
> Take an atlas page and stretch a bit of string round the coastline,
> or use a pair of dividers. You'll get one answer.
> Put some gumboots on and pace around the high water mark and you'll get
> a much bigger answer.
>


So better a tandem than a unicycle.