Wow, that sounds so elitist.

It's true that a lot of serious racers measure the amount of riding by time instead of distance. But that doesn't mean that a "true rider", whatever that means, can't measure their season by miles, centuries completed, races won, the number of flats they didn't have, or the number of friends they made on the road.

The real thing we are looking for is fun, and that's difficult to put a number to. Hence all the imperfect metrics.