Originally Posted by Papa Tom

I certainly did not mean to mock the OP's thread or take away any sense of accomplishment from those who enjoy tallying their miles. It's just that I was drawn into this conversation thinking it was going to be about how bike commuting has changed people's lives over the past year and how traveling to work by bicycle has opened people's eyes to things around them they may have never experienced in an automobile.

A thread I started over in the Northeast Bike Forum titled "Long Island: Good Ride Today?" was intended to give people a chance to share the impressive scenery, the interesting people, and the awesome smells they experienced that day. Instead, it has mostly become a log of how many miles people rode and how disappointed they are in themselves for not going further. For me, the thread was a failure because, instead of inspiring people to get out and ride, it has made some cyclists feel inadequate and has given others license to keep pushing themselves beyond the limits of enjoyment just to be able to post that they rode more miles than the day before.

I am not judging those who responded to the OP's challenge by copying the numbers off their odometers. I am merely presenting a different way of assessing one's success over the past year.