I rode 200.08 miles in January. That’s a little better than I did in December, but otherwise my lowest mileage since last February, when I got my road bike. Here’s how the mileage broke down:
Commute: 80
Errands: 1
Road: 109.68
Mountain: 9.4
That’s pretty weak, but it could have been worse. I only drove to work a couple of times when there was rain. Hopefully February will be better.
I’ve been meaning to post this for some time now, but I keep getting sidetracked. Before I get to the list of rides, some commentary. I got my road bike in January of 2007, after doing a lot of mountain biking the year before. This is the first time I’ve owned a road bike since I was a kid. I reconnected more with cycling in 2007 even more than in 2006. I started road biking again, and loved it. I started commuting in March, and have ridden to work most days since then.
A few statistics:
2007 total miles: 3586.48 (251 rides)
Road: 2468.40 (97 rides)
Mountain biking: 412.95 (29 rides)
Commuting: 720.70 (119 round trips)
Errands: 30.47 (10 rides)
Now, onto my best rides of 2007, in chronological order. Each links to my blog post about that ride, and I’ll post one photo from each ride, if possible. It’s taking a lot of restraint not to list a hundred rides here.
02/05/2007: Snowy trails winding through blue forests
03/05/2007: Moore’s Creek Road exploration
03/12/2007: My first bicycle commute
05/10/2007: Riding home on 45
06/11/2007: Ride around Lake Monroe
07/26/2007: Bloomington Rail-Trail
08/13/2007: Two Thousand Miles
08/20/2007: Franklin, NC by bicycle
08/22/2007: Mountain biking at Tsali (no blog post about this yet)
09/03/2007: Pre-Breakdown Shakedown
09/30/2007: Brown County Breakdown 2007
10/07/2007: Dr. T’s Funky Fifty (made the list even though I cracked my rim)
10/13/2007: Hilly Hundred Day One
10/14/2007: Hilly Hundred Day Two
10/24/2007: A lovely evening ride
11/18/2007: Foliage peak at Brown County State Park
11/26/2007: Black Friday mountain biking: Oriole West and Tipsaw Lake
11/28/2007: Riding around Lake Lemon with Dan on Bike
12/02/2007: Rainy Water Works Ride
12/16/2007: Snowy Road Ride
November was a low-mileage month for me, but I’m still riding, at least. I know it’ll get worse before it gets better, the main challenge for me being the dark. I don’t mind cold weather too much, but it’s really hard to be motivated to ride when I can’t see. I could use some better lights, but they’re just too expensive.
Miles ridden: 256.91
Road miles: 134.93
Commute miles: 57.58
Mountain biking miles: 56.50
Errand miles: 10.29
2007 total (as of today): 3422.63
Highlights:
I’m a little late posting this, but here’s looking back on October’s riding.
Miles ridden: 479.58
Road miles: 402.13
Commute miles: 77.45
Mountain biking miles: 0
Year to date total: 3144.31
The first thing to note is that I did not achieve my mileage goal of 500 miles for the month. I did, however, hit the 3,000 mile mark for the year.
Looking at my statistics, I was surprised to see that I didn’t go mountain biking once in October. I know why, but I am still surprised that I let a month slip by without hitting the trails.
I had a number of great rides in October. Here are highlights:
I also cracked the rim on my rear wheel doing Dr. T’s Funky Fifty.
First of all, it’s Sarah’s birthday today! She is 23 years old. Head over to her blog and wish her a happy birthday.
July was a pretty good month for me cycling-wise — I rode a total of 425.19 miles, the most I’ve ridden in any month so far. The funny thing is, it didn’t even feel like I rode that much. However, I did do my longest ride to date (56.6 miles), which took me through Morgan-Monroe State Forest and Mahalasville. I only went mountain biking once on singletrack trail (18 miles), and once on the Bloomington Rail-Trail with Sarah and my family.
Also, Sarah and I did a lot of camping, hiking, and canoeing in July. This cut into cycling somewhat, but it’s great to do more things outdoors that we both enjoy (we went cycling a couple of times together, too), and those things can exercise different muscles and more importantly, result in a wide variety of exciting experiences. I also posted 214 photos to Flickr.
In August, Sarah and I are going on vacation to the Smokies and North Carolina. We hope to do more hiking, camping, and canoeing, visit one of my best friends from college, go white water rafting, mine rubies, stay in a cabin with a mountain view, go mountain biking in real mountains, ride part of the Blue Ridge Parkway, see more waterfalls, watch the sun rise, get lost (getting found is optional), take a few thousand photos, and fall even more deeply in love than we are now (it never seems possible, but it keeps happening).
