Ferdinand NYC

I am pleased to report that I have hit 6000 miles for the year. This is the third time that I have done reached that mark. It is well short of my record of 6800 miles, set in 2015. But, considering that an injury limited me to only 5200 miles last year, I am pleased to have come back with a very good year.

In 2017, I had my best-ever June, July, October, and November. And that July total was 1158 miles, my best month ever.

The only remaining goal for this year is 10 000 kilometres, or 6200 miles, which I have reached twice before.

Jarrettsin

That is excellent
.....damn I have to push myself a little more!

ridingfool

Congrats on all the milage I for one know its a hard feat doing 1200 miles in a month do u ever do the 9 w route if so the milage is more impressive as ots a bit of climbing if ur doing the bear mountain run . Keep up the good work and many more good miles to come

Ferdinand NYC

I have to admit that I rarely do 9W. I was on it this year only on its southern portion near the bridge; and I have only ever taken it as far north as the state line near the observatory.

Also, I try to avoid hills wherever possible. A few years ago I unwisely took Eagle Rock Avenue west from the Oranges; and that hill kicked my ass.

I do most of my riding within the four significant boroughs of New York City; I also go frequently to northern New Jersey, sometimes to Long Island, and occasionally to Westchester.

This year my biggest ride was a round-trip ride to Philadelphia, with a three-day stay in that wonderfully bike-friendly city. This was my second round trip and the third time I had ridden to that city, the other time being when I passed through on the way to Washington in 2016.

I love urban riding most of all; so I used a route that took me through Jersey City and Newark, and then on the entirety of Route 27 from Newark down to Princeton, through several interesting small cities. The first two times that I rode to Philadelphia, I used a different route, breaking off of Route 27 at Route 35, then taking State Route 535 from South Amboy to Trenton. Riding on Route 27 was a lot more fun.

This time I cheated a little bit, by taking the ferry from downtown Manhattan to Jersey City. Whereas, the first two times time I rode to Philly, I rode all the way up to the George Washington Bridge, then came down through Bergen and Hudson Counties. The ferry cut 25 miles off of the trip, making it about 95 miles to Philadelphia instead of about 120 miles. Having done the full trip to Philly twice, I figured that I had earned the right to use the ferry.

Let's see how December goes. The forecast seems to call for another day of 60 degrees on Tuesday! But, after that, temperatures will plunge to a more seasonable level of cold.

ridingfool

I live in northern jersey so lots of good riding have you ever done east saddle river road goes up through upper saddle river to the Rockland county border very good route.also u mention 27 I never did the phili route but have done the philliburg route eastern Pennsylvania very nice route but a little hilly

bobwysiwyg

Congratulations! You make me feel like lazy sloth. How much time do you estimate you've spent in the saddle so far?

Steve B.

Congrats for sure, it’s a lot of riding.

I wish I had the time for that, I used to be able to get in 6000 to 7000, not anymore though. Maybe after I retire.

Ferdinand NYC

I haven't been as far north as the towns of Saddle River or Upper Saddle River; but I have been just just south of there in Ridgewood. I took the bike path that runs adjacent to the actual Saddle River, going up to Ridgewood from Rochelle Park.

I have also gone out to Paterson, which I find fascinating. (As I mentioned, I love riding in cities most.) I saw the mural honouring Larry Doby; and I got to go inside Hinchliffe Stadium, which is the only Negro League stadium still standing. Also, I saw the statue of Lou Costello.


I have to admit that I don't track my hours, only the distance. But my commute to work takes about an hour and fifteen minutes; it's about 10 1/2 miles. (I go pretty slow, I guess. I stop at all red lights, as we all should do.)

On a good day off, such as a weekend or a summer vacation day, I am usually out all day, leaving home at around 8:00am and coming back at around 3:00 or 4:00pm. There will inevitably be some stops, both for buying drinks and for just looking around in the place that I have gone to. That will be like a 50- or 60-mile day.

The trips to and from Philadelphia this year took about eleven hours, if we include all the stops; the previous trips of nearly 120 miles took about fifteen hours. Though in those instances, the stoppage time really added up; the actual riding time was probably about nine and twelve hours, respectively.


The only way I can get so many miles is by riding both for commuting (except when it is raining) and for recreation. My commute each day gets me about 23 miles on the route that I currently use. During the summer months I sometimes take a longer route to and from work. On the weekends I try to do at least 40 or 50 miles per day; on a good day it can get up to 60 or 70.

On top of that, I use almost all my vacation days during the summer, devoting those days completely to riding. I like it hot; I have ridden comfortably in temperatures up to 104 degrees. So I take off whenever the temperature gets to the high 80s; I believe have taken off on every one of the few 90-degree days that we've had for the past several years.

I also use vacation days when we get mild weather in the other seasons. I have taken off just to ride on 70-degree days in October and on 60-degree days in November. And I will probably take off tomorrow, because we might get a rare 60-degree December day, before the rain comes at night.

I ride all through the winter, skipping days only for snow and ice, but not usually for cold alone. The coldest weather that I have ridden in is 9 degrees. It was awful; and if my commute had been any longer than 10 1/2 miles, I couldn't have done it.

In the crap months of December, January, and February, I am happy with about 300 miles per month. This assumes missing several days for snow/ice, and even allows for my weakening on occasion and blowing off some cold days. That makes 900 miles total.

In each of the semi-crap months of March, April, October, and November, I hope to accumulate 400 miles; this I can achieve if I just do my commutes every day. This makes 1600 miles.

In the months adjacent to summer, May and September, I shoot for about 600 to 700 miles per month; this makes about 1400 if I am lucky. So all of that accounts for about 3900 non-summer miles.

Then in the true riding season, the summer months of June, July, and August, I really come alive. For the past five years, I have surpassed 1000 miles in July; I noted above that during this past July I hit my highest total ever for any month, totalling 1158 miles. I have surpassed 900 miles in August twice; and on three occasions I have done more than 800 miles in June. My per-month average for those summer months since I started keeping records is more than 850 miles (and that includes the truncated August of last year, in which I developed an injury on August 21 and shut it down with fewer than 650 miles). This means that I can hope to accumulate about 2500 miles during those magical months. Added to the 3900 non-summer miles, this gives me more than 6000.

So far that plan has worked three times, with my high being 6800 miles in 2015. I don't know if I will be able to reach this total again, given advancing age. But, at age 52 I feel very good. So I hope to continue at the same level for a while longer.

edman610

Congrats! I just hit 6014 miles yesterday. Now that I hear 6200 miles is 10,000KM I need to do that before dec31!

Ferdinand NYC

Good luck to us both!

(10 000 kilometres is actually 6214 miles. I mention that so that you don't stop just short!)

edman610

I would have. Now i'll go 200 more.. Thank you.

Ferdinand NYC

I hit 10,000 kilometres for the year today!

I am very pleased. And, because I don't want to assume anything, I really want to savour this achievement, because I don't know whether I'll ever do it again.

edman610

Congratulations Ferdinand! I'm about 22 miles short of that (36KMs) and hope to have that locked in in the next 2-3 days, weather permitting.

Great achievement!

CliffordK

I'm also about 6000 miles, give or take a little for the year. Whew!!! Strava is showing it a little longer than that, but I've missed a few rides, or parts of rides, and had at least one ride that Strava reported long.

Mostly commuting, errands, and shopping. I don't ride every day, but it adds up. And a lot of it was hauling or towing. I had a bit of a slow start to the year. If next year goes better, then maybe shoot for 7300 miles (20 miles a day).

zacster

I started getting serious again in September and have logged 500mi/month since. If I'd started earlier I'd probably go over 7000, since the best months would have more miles. I'm still at it in December and I'll keep it going through the winter on the trainer, although it is hard to do 500 miles in a month on the trainer before boredom sets in, even with Zwift.

Ferdinand NYC

Thank you! And you go get 'em! You're sure to get there.


Way to go! My highest total was 6805 miles / 10,952 kilometres, in 2015. It is difficult for me to even conceive how I could do more than that. We'd need an extremely mild winter. (Global warming has lately produced several of the hottest years on record when measured worldwide; but you couldn't prove that by New York. Our winters have not been very mild, with the winters of 2013-14 and 2014-15 having been extremely harsh.)


To hit 500 miles in a non-summer month is great. Only once have I accumulated that many miles in any month in the October-April period, and that was this past October when the good weather allowed me to hit 600 miles. I followed that up with my best November ever, getting well past 400 miles. (But, honestly, now that I have hit all my goals for this year, I might sneak in a few skip days before the end of the month, which will probably result in my just barely making 300 miles for December.)

edman610

10,001 KM TODAY! I didn't intend to yet, since I'm going tomorrow, but all I needed was 36km (22mi) and the weather in NY was great, so I got it done. And I highly doubt I'll ever get this many miles in, so I'm savoring it.

kaos joe

Congrats to you all in the 6K club!

I'm about 1500 miles behind you, and, this being 12/22, somewhat unlikely to close the gap.

Dahon.Steve

Congratulations! That's an incredible number of miles!

I too like to visit Patterson New Jersey. There is nothing within 100 miles that comes close to the Great Falls. It's too bad the city is poor but they have fairly good service from NJ Transit. Lou Costello was born in Paterson and it was a tough neighborhood back then!

Did you manage to visit the museum? It seems hard to be believe that Patterson used to build locomotives and there's even one on display. That city has a lot of public transit including Jitney service into Manhattan! I could probably get into New York City faster from Patterson than from Brooklyn or the Bronx!

The last time I was in Patterson, I walked all of Main Street to Passaic NJ. It's all stores and shops so you really don't want to bike down that street unless it's dark! LOL.

Ferdinand NYC

I visited the falls, but I didn't go into the museum.

Here is the shot I took of the falls:




I was impressed by the Lambert Castle, which had been built in the late 19th century by a local mill owner.




And, because I mentioned the Larry Doby mural and also Hinchliffe Stadium, here are some shots of those:

qajaq

Managed to finish 2017 with 6063 for the year, but a couple hundred of them were on Zwift if that still counts. All I can say is that those miles were ridden much harder than any of my road miles. Either way, Happy New Year and lots of great rides everyone!

Ghazmh

7232.5 for me. Would have been more but we had snow followed by arctic cold. I slowed down in early December thinking I'd keep rolling into the new year albeit at a reduced weekly amount. Instead I've been sidelined for 3 weeks now.

Ferdinand NYC

Wow! Most impressive. You are clearly a beast. Congratulations to you.

jskash

I hit 7,159 miles this morning. Not quite as good as last year by about 200 miles, but last year I managed not to miss one day of cycling. This year I missed six days with a bad cold, two days for a colonoscopy, and one day traveling.

Ferdinand NYC

Awesome! Another 7000-mile champ!

And you live here in the Northeast yet you've scaresely missed a day of riding in two years? Amazing. I won't ride when there's snow or ice on the ground. And I avoid rainy days, as well. The sociopaths who drive cars in New York are bad enough under ideal weather conditions; but when the roads get slippery, their inattention and incompetence is magnified.

I sometimes wind up riding on a day when it's raining more than I realised, or when the rain starts while I am already out there. In those cases, I slow way down because of my brakes' reduced functionality; and I am conscious of every turn on account of the potential for slipping. On every such day, I wish I had skipped riding, all the moreso when I get home and see my bike covered in grime that I have to clean off.

Anyway, if you can tolerate even the worst conditions, then more power to you. This shows that you are several classes above me. I will just have to be satisfied with my 10,000 kilometres / 6200 miles.