I came across the Coffeeneuring challenge last year and bookmarked it as a fun idea to join in with this year. The challenge description is given in full at Coffeeneuring Challenge 2024: The Year of Small Wins – Chasing Mailboxes but in short it’s a challenge to ride your bike out for a coffee (other beverages are acceptable) seven times over a six week period in October and November, going to at least six different places and riding at least two miles round trip each time. It’s not a terribly difficult challenge on the face of it. But also it’s a time of year when pulling your bike out sometimes seems unattractive with the weather getting worse and I like randomly setting goals for myself.

I posted all the rides on Mastodon as I went along but I wanted to keep a record here as well. If you click through to the Mastodon posts all but one of them have added timelapse videos that I haven’t copied here.

Ride 1, 10th October

I headed out along the canal to Koow in Christleton. One of my favourite coffee shops. As it was afternoon and my caffeine tolerance gets worse all the time I had a chai latte with a tan slice. On the way back I took a detour to pick up a few things from Sainsbury’s and Argos.

• 💬Original post
• 🚲 15.44km total

Ride 2, 15th October

Another afternoon ride. I went to Little Yellow Pig in Hoole. This time I did feel in need of the caffeine and had a latte with a cookie.

• 💬 Original post
• 🚲 25.15km total

Ride 3, 21st October

I was intending to avoid chain coffee shops as much as possible on this challenge but this was the one I made an exception for as it was the obvious place to stop and the alternatives were all other chains. It was the second longest ride though so I was trying to balance it out maybe? I stopped at Starbucks for a latte and a cinnamon swirl.

• 💬 Original post
• 🚲 52.19km total

Ride 4, 26th October

I’d not been well for the previous couple of days so this was the shortest ride, and the only one where I didn’t go alone. I had a latte, and appropriately no pastry (though they do sell them!), at Just Coffee with my partner and stayed there reading my book while he went off round the city for a bit.

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• 🚲 57.17km total

Ride 5, 3rd November

This was the longest ride but not the best. I’d intended it to be longer and go to a different coffee shop, but when I stopped to check on our boat it needed some attention so I went to the The Boathouse Cafe & Bar on the marina and figured out what was up with the boat electrics. Unfortunately the chef was on holiday so there was no proper breakfast to be had. I had a croissant with a substandard latte.

• 💬 Original post
• 🚲 96.38km total

Ride 6, 17th November

Another mishit of a ride which didn’t go where I’d intended it to. The weather forecast had said it was going to stop drizzling but it rained insistently and I decided to head back to Chalk Coffee, one of my favourite coffee shops in the city, instead. I had a latte and also some Boston Beans for breakfast.

• 💬 Original post
• 🚲 113.58km total

At this point I thought I’d failed at completing the challenge as the challenge period ended on 18th November and I thought it unlikely I’d manage a ride on the Monday (it wasn’t clear if the dates were inclusive, but I felt the challenge was really more spirit than rules-lawyership, I’d have been happy to take the Monday ride if I could). However then I noticed there was a Challenge Extension! which extended the deadline to 25th November meaning I had a better chance of finishing.

Ride 7, 22nd November

So for the final ride I headed back to Koow, the same place as the first ride. I hadn’t slept well and was tired and taking my laptop to the coffee shop was a good idea to find the concentration span to at least get a few things done. This time I did have a latte, and a cinnamon twist with it.

• 💬 Original post
• 🚲 126.86km total

Conclusion

It’s been lovely to watch autumn pass by as I’ve documented these rides. At least one of the rides was in just a t-shirt (ok, not actually just a t-shirt!) and the last one took me past the first snow and into thick sweatshirts, a rain jacket and gloves with fingers. I really need a new pair of gloves as these don’t really keep my fingers warm! It’s been a fun challenge. Going out for coffee is one of my main reasons for going for a bike ride anyway but more motivation never hurts.