Originally Posted by
ericm979
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.
Yea, I agree with him and don't. I dislike this concept of a "true rider." The OP is certainly a cyclist. But I did find cycling a lot more enjoyable when I started thinking more about ride time and less about ride distance. It kept me from staring at the computer the whole ride. And, as you said about racing, I found myself much better able to ride hard and recover rather than just ride at a moderate to difficult pace constantly. Which is more fun for me and I would guess more rewarding for most. I get a lot more out of completing that climb faster, or more controlled, than I do out of being .1mph faster on my average for an XX mile ride. Probably because that's a much shorter duration thing and there's comparatively little room for excuses.
In the end I still tabulate miles and not hours. There's no hour odometer on my computer.