Well, I do push my mileage, but I have to leave enough steam to get back...

See, I'm looking at my book, "Bicycle Vacation Guide" for Minnesota, and they have all these great routes that are 50-80 miles long, but I can never go the whole trail! I only get to go PART of the trail. It lacks purpose to me. I appreciate the ones that have an alternate, circular return.

I think part of it is that I need a destination when I ride. It doesn't have to be a place, it can be something I want to do when I get there, but there needs to be a goal. Even if it's something stupid like, "I'm going to go see if that owl is still in that tree".

I can see BSLeVan's point of it's nice to be on a road instead of in the basement on a trainer, but I could never be on a trainer in the first place. It would drive me crazy.