Originally Posted by
mr,grumpy
Yes! To all of it. It is a huge mental block thing. I will ride that same loop Untill i can smoke it and then I Peter off until that is a challenge again. I totally need to get out of that loop though. As I sit here and think about it I have ridden WAY longer on bike trails than 12 miles bit they are of course mostly flat
Getting out and randomly riding was a VERY good step in breaking this cycle. I was just quite suprized that the distance turned out to be so small.
I think that i would like to take you up on you offer Haff. Having some one to ride with amd a new place to ride are just the things to kick ms in the right direction!
As I always say, some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.
If you have a day where you feel like you've worked hard and ridden for miles only to find you "only" did 6 miles, what of it? If you worked hard for those 6 miles you had a workout and probably did yourself more good than if you just turned the pedals without expending much effort but covered 20 miles.
If you've got the budget, get yourself a GPS that supports maps, then get a map of your local area to put in the GPS. Now pick a time when you're going to just cycle and see where you end up. Take off on the bike without letting the GPS display how far you've gone, and just keep going. Look at all the new places you're passing through, and keep turning the pedals. Make sure you're heading in the same direction all the time (obviously taking into account where the roads go), so that if you're heading southwest you keep going essentially south and west for an hour or so. Then if you're ready to head for home turn around and head essentially north and east, using the GPS to navigate you home if needs be. If you've still got energy to keep going then head north and west, then north and east, then south and east.
Use something like Google Maps to figure out a route and map something out that will take in 20 miles but in a big circle so that if anything does happen you're never more than 6-7 miles from home. Then plan some extra loops you can add on to your circle so that if you get there and you've still got surplus energy you can ride a bit further. Then when you're heading for home take the long way home. It's surprising how easy it can be to just add a few miles here and a few miles there.