[To see my Paintings for Sale - click here].
Free Painting on Friday
To celebrate the launch of Bicyclistic I thought I’d give away a painting.
I’ll ask a question and the person with the winning answer can choose a painting for free from a pool of 13 paintings, all of which are currently priced at 45USD.
[ Update: Competition over. Scroll down to see winner ]
[Update eile: See Prize Pool of Paintings (and Question 2) ]
The winner can choose 1 of the 9 available mini-animals such as 
‘Bonobo’ pictured here. (That link will take you over to IrishKC - don’t be alarmed; I just can’t be bothered copying all the images over to here).
Or the winner can choose 1 of the 4 available mini-landscapes such as ‘3 Cottages, Green Fields’ pictured here. 
These are small paintings, and I post them in an archival sleeve with a temporary mount on archival matting board. You can see a photo on IrishKC of some examples I sold earlier.
The Question
In 1996 I set off from Boston on a bicycle. On IrishKC I have been serialising excerpts from the journal I kept of that cycle across America. The most recent part of the journal I posted was #71 Arizona. What is the total number of miles cycled from the start of the trip up to and including part 71?
[Note: I had #72 instead of #71 - it was just a typo as the most recent part posted & linked to is 71 ]
Leave your answer in the comments below. I’ll shut it off at 8pm (Irish time) on Friday. The closest answer wins. In the event of a tie I’ll go with whoever answered first. You only get one entry, and other common sense rules apply.
If geography isn’t your strong point, you could always find the most recent journal entry where the cumulative total is mentioned, and then add on the miles for all the days since then. As I don’t necessarily publish daily mileage totals, that’s a lot harder than it sounds.
And now I have to head off to the studio to find out the answer - which I have on a piece of paper in a box somewhere.
UPDATE: Competition is now closed.
We Have a Winner!
Here’s a photo of my contemporaneous notes I made of the figures my trusty cyclometer was telling me I was cycling. The latest journal entry posted on Irish KC is “#71 Arizona”, which documents leaving Lordsburg in New Mexico and finishing up 80 miles later in Safford in eastern Arizona. The cumulative total miles cycled from Boston to Safford, AZ is ringed below:
With 4,670 I make it we have a winner just 12 miles out and pipping the next person by a mere 5 miles. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I make it that TheChris D, the very first entrant, wins. Hard luck especially to David, Manuel, & Xavier Onassis, who all were close behind. And thanks a million to everyone for participating. I will definitely do that again (indeed I deliberately blacked out the next entries just in case I use the same method - the cycle continues westward and I’ll resume posting journal excerpts of it.)
I’m probably way off, but I’m going to give it a shot with 4682
2,900 miles?
Combining VERY loosely your entries and my inadequate(at best)math skills, I’m estimating 4505.
I would guess it would be 4747.
4644
I am too tired for this. 4782.
5000
4894
10k. Just to set the bar high. Or is it high enough at that?
(That’s 10,000 by the way, not 10km)
I think I may be miscalculating, but I’d say 6450.
Giving it a go at 4,622.5
4,645
I am going with 4773.
3011
One dollar Bob!
My actually guess is 3,590.
I’m already looking at a place on the wall for the 3 cottages painting.
4,724
I assuming that someone above calculated somewhere the 47XX figure and that all others followed… But what if they didn’t????!
5341
Woah, I can’t believe you’ve traveled so far, can’t wait to see the book. Rough guesstimate at 4630
Do you mean American miles or Irish miles?
Way to go! I’m going to make a wild guess at 3714.
emawkc - You should know I’m an Internationalist - so we’re going with the International mile of 5,280 feet as used in the USA and in Ireland. Whatever country I’m cycling in, as a courtesy I measure distance the same way the locals do.
3987 is my guess
[...] celebrate his new personal blog, Eolaí is giving away one of his paintings for free - if you can guess how many miles his cycle trip [...]
5746 miles
2540.
Just trying to be different.
My math ‘aint what it should be - but roughly guessing
How about 4,653?
Hi there, I’m guessing 3000
3800 miles?
I’ll give it a bash - 4620 miles.
Hey Eolai - Great journal looking forward to the book. Here’s my stab at the mileage: 5114 mls
Fuck it what I have I got to lose - 4810 miles!
I’ve reasoned that the number after 4 is 5 …. after 5 is 6 .. and after 6 is 7 …
Therefore the answer must be 4567
3641
4555
I will embarrass myself and guess 2,750 miles
4423
Dang it! So close, and yet…
Next time just put me down for whatever TheChrisD guesses.
Congrats The ChrisD!
[...] Eolaí’s competition is over. And the winner? Me. [...]
Shoot, I wish I would have entered.
Country Paintings - (strange name) Stay tuned and you’ll see me do it again - and then you can enter. I’m not sure when yet - ideally I’d love to do this every week but that may not be possible as it depends on my output and I’ve also sold a lot of stuff recently so stocks are low. But we’ll see what happens.
Well done TheChrisD - what was the secret to getting it so close
[...] Q. 1 [Jan 28, 2009] Finished Comment (RSS) [...]