Floyd

Does anybody really know what time it is...'Chicago"
If a ride is important enough to do, it is important enough to enjoy, take note of, know what happened, know what you did...........etc.

Road Fan

He won't be. You'll need to talk about how many flowers and streams you saw.

bjjoondo 

"Aimlessness", now there's a wondeful word, that's how I ride, with as few goals as possible, yes I do have a computer, I track the mileage so I know when to have to do or schedule "maint.", (ie: new chain, tires, ajustments) to the bike, could care less how many "miles", how fast, what cadence, etc., too much information, I just ride, I hate having to be on a "schedule" when I ride, it's my physcial and mental freedom device!

DnvrFox

wobblyoldgeezer

About 7 toothbrushes and five bootlaces cleaning the drivetrain

Oops, did I say that out loud?

Condorita

I'm a Shield Maiden, participating in the Walk to Rivendell. We log our exercise miles into a database and can follow along various routes in Middle Earth.

I track my cycling miles. I track my walking miles (treadmill and any extended walking such as the county fair or charity 5K events). I track my ellipticalling miles. And if I could figure out a way to convert strength training to a mileage equivalent, I'd track those too!

That said, I had no idea how many miles I'd ridden on Sunday until I completed the ride and was packing everything up to put it all in the van. Saw lots of flowers and creeks both dry and not dry, though!

ETA: in fact, the only ride on which I consistently tracked my mileage during the ride was the day I set out to do an age ride.

Allegheny Jet

I'm not going to track miles today. Instead, I'll be riding home from a late work meeting. The first 30 minutes will be a Z2 warmup then 1.5 hours of Z3 steady state, then finish up with 30 minutes of Z2 cool down. Because I have to go to my wife's retirement party tomorrow, from teaching, I'll ride back to work at 5:30 AM for 1.5 hrs @ Z2 then take a shower before work. I'll attempt to count the road kill mamals. birds and reptiles should anyone care.

Rick@OCRR

ob·sess (b-ss, b-)
v. ob·sessed, ob·sess·ing, ob·sess·es
v.tr.
To preoccupy the mind of excessively.
v.intr.
To have the mind excessively preoccupied with a single emotion or topic.

I do keep track of miles ridden, but I'm not "excessively preoccupied" at least in my opinion. I still enjoy the ride, the challenges, and talking with other cyclists along the way. So miles are not the Only Thing . . . they are just another thing, another part of each ride.

Rick / OCRR

unterhausen

It might make the OP happy to know that I don't have an odometer. The only way I know how many miles I rode is if I map out a course. It does make navigation harder if you are on a 20 1/2 hour, 250 mile ride.

Oops, did I say that?

Allegheny Jet

Just wondering, did you stop at 250 miles, at the end of a ride or after 20.5 hours?

BluesDawg

Wow, DF. You sure drew blood on this one. People are even defending that they "track" miles when you only commented on their reporting them.
BTW, I'll be riding about 4 miles today in the Ride of Silence.

DnvrFox

This was the original post:

O K, I just posted a poll with these instructions:

https://www.bikeforums.net/fifty-plus-50/542618-did-you-ride-sunday-may-17-yes-no.html

Did you ride Sunday May 17 Yes or No

You don't need to tell how many fabulous mile you rode or didn't or how fast you went or didn't.

Just "yes" or "no" please

========================

Yet many folks felt called upon to tell us their mileage for their rides.

So, what gives?
=========================================

I guess I now know "what gives!!"

(at least I think I know!!)

Well, off to Florida in the am, which, I believe, is 1,541.3 miles as the plane flies.

DnvrFox

Isn't being very defensive a sign of something or other?

By the way, the computer on my Lemond BA records to the 1/1,000th of a mile!!

Now I would have to reset the decimal on all my spreadsheets from showing 2 to 3 places if I actually believed that an odometer could be that accurate!

unterhausen

it was a 400k, I finished after 20.5 hours. I have considered doing 24 hour time trials, but that's still on the todo list.

woodenidol

In the spirit of your post, maybe you should change your signiture to just "Parker, CO. Gateway to Denver Metro Trail system"

DnvrFox

Man, this is one rough bunch!!

Doohickie

If you didn't have documentation and couldn't prove the reality of your double century, would anyone else give a flip or think you less of a cyclist?

No.

And no.

bjjoondo 

You are so right, infact, they already think we are "NUTS" for riding bicycles at our "decrepit age" of 55 so they will just shake their heads and mumble about how we need a "straight jacket"

knzn

I had to go back and look if I respond to that post or not, and see if I put down "yes, 20 miles."-----------------DOAH!

unterhausen

When I called my wife at the end of my ride, she asked me if I thought I was having a mid-life crisis. I told her that if I was, there were 25 other people that were having it with me.

BengeBoy 

Congrats on finishing the brevet.

However, k's don't count in this thread. We're just talking about miles.

Artkansas 

Um, what day was the 17th? Oh, well, odds are 5:2 that I rode my usual commute.

Someone was complaining about the "aimlessness" of not tracking a ride. It's not aimless, it's present in the moment. Being present in the moment is very important. It's all we have. Tracking the ride is just an illusion.

Road Fan

There's a lot of philosophy here. Denver seems to be against, with a subtle sense of scoffing at, the practices of in some way "counting" results or progress as cyclists, as if the numbers or the desire for results are somehow bad or vaguely immoral. Others are results-oriented in cycling, even if not perhaps other areas of life. Some have a zen-like view of the moment, like in zen archery. Others have aspirations to compete, and may have had them all their lives, but due to how their lives have progressed will only rise to challenge themselves in distance.

What can possibly be wrong with any of these and other motivators?

But is there any true point here beyond seeing the differences? People can easily do the same things for totally different reasons. Not all those reasons will agree with mine, or Art's or Denver's. So what? Suck it up, all of us, this is the world we are given, not the one we might wish to create. We cannot change each other's minds without the other's will to change. We can not ride with them.

I think some are too focused on differences and lack of agreement. I say, the differences don't matter, we're all here anyway.

BluesDawg

I don't see DF's post as being against anything. He was simply noting how the urge to report results and progress was so strong in many who replied.

Allegheny Jet

You trying to be a peace maker round these parts? We don't like peace makers round here, woodent be anything much to talk about. That Denver guy aint no saint either, he counts dhem "weight added dips" all da time.