Star Wars fan’s Solo ride creates Millennium Falcon on Strava

A Canberra cyclist who is also a Star Wars fan marked last Thursday's May the Fourth in style - by sketching the outline of the Millennium Falcon on Strava.

Andrew Collins rode for 17.4 kilometres on his 40-minute ride around the Australian capital's Parliament House, where circular roads provided the inspiration for his work.

Initially, however, he had planned to ride on the Dark Side by recreating the Death Star.

Collins, the captain of the Vikings Cycling Club, told the Canberra Times: "I saw the goat that someone had drawn on Strava in Perth a couple of months ago and thought 'something needs to be done in Canberra'.

"So with a bit of creative stop-starting, I mapped out the Millennium Falcon," added the rider, who in his day job is an information analyst at mapping agency PSMA Australia.

Collins admitted he had an unfair advantage when it came to mapping - he spends his days working with spatial data as an information analyst for PSMA (Public Sector Mapping Agencies) Australia.

His plans almost came unstuck though due to a road that shares its name with the Rebel Alliance's sworn enemy.

"I had to do a bit of off-roading up a dirt path between the Canberra Yacht Club and the embassies on Empire Circuit," he explained.

He's far from the only Star Wars fan on Strava judging by the number of segments on the social network named after the Kesssel Run - which Han Solo, the character played by Harrison Ford, boasted the Millennium Falcon had completed in "less than 12 parsecs."

Before it gets pointed out in the comments, we'll clarify that a parsec is a unit of distance, not time, with Solo alluding to the fact that the ship's advanced navigational system enabled him to shave a third off the usual 18-parsec distance of the smuggling route.