Miles for Miles Sake

Regular readers may recall that the final weeks of December were dedicated to trying to reach a couple of mileage milestones.  One was for the year and the other cumulative miles.  The annual goal is a recurring objective of riding 5,000 miles while the total was to hit 30,000 riding miles since April 2006.  The push began earlier in December when I realized I was tantalizingly close to achieving both in 2011.

To do so was going to require riding almost every day for about 2 weeks, regardless of weather, time commitments, illness, injury or anything else that would prevent me from riding.  The riding for the year was distributed across 3 bikes:  a 2005 Klein Reve, a 2010 Gary Fisher Superfly and a 2010 Trek Madone 6 with Shimano Dura Ace Di2.  The Klein served as a worthy aluminum road bike when the road was too gritty or wet for me to ride the Madone.  The Superfly was the off-road bike for the HD Bluff or Riverside State Park.  It also became THE road bike with skinny tires and studded tires as the roads got worse with winter.

Getting those final miles turned-out to be more of a challenge than I bargained for since the time and effort to pedal a mile on a mountain bike with heavy studded tires are significantly greater than a road bike.  The vast majority of miles I had accumulated this year were on the road bike at 18-20 mph as opposed to 12 mph on the Superfly.   Regardless, I still hold to the tenet that a mile ridden is counted as such whether it is ridden on the road, dirt or trainer - the only difference is that of time which tends to average-out.

Here are some of the riding stats in the quest for these milestones:

Total number of times on a bike: 251
Reve Miles - 141
Madone Miles - 2964
Superfly Miles - 1908
Average Ride - 20.13miles
Longest Ride - 58 miles
Number of Round-Trip Commutes - way too low

Both mileage goals came down to the wire and could have been easily derailed.  I hit the 30,000 cumulative mile mark on December 28th on the Superfly about a mile from home at the end of a ride.  The 5,000 mile annual goal was officially achieved on the outbound leg of a 13 mile ride on December 31st.  I say officially, because it seemed I had hit it by riding 22.0 miles on the trainer the day before 5,000 miles exactly.  Then it occurred to me that Excel may be rounding-up the decimal so I might actually be short.  Sure enough, when I moved the decimal place, the total was 4,999.60 miles - dang OCD.  So that meant at least one more ride of .4 miles or more to be official.

I chose to do an 18 mile loop on the Superfly to officially put me over the 5,000 mile mark with room to spare.  It turned-out to be a 13 mile ride after I picked-up a small nail in the front tire and tried to limp back with only 1 CO2 cartridge.  I ended-up calling my son to pick me up since I had some other commitments later in the day - not the way you want to end the year.   The totals are as follows:

Total Bike Miles since April 2006 - 30,053.68
Total 2011 Bike Miles - 5,012.60

Like most personal goals these were achieved solo and without fanfare or celebration - just out grinding along.  Think of any athlete and there are laps in the pool at 4:30 am and countless other practice or training sessions.  All of them are building for something greater.

Happy New Year - See you on the Road in 2012