The other day I greeted a neighbor as I coasted into my driveway after a bike ride. We exchanged pleasantries, and I told her I'd just returned from a ride out May Valley Road.
“Oh, we don't bicycle out there anymore. It's too busy.” This from a woman who thinks nothing of heading off to Austria for a bike tour with her husband.
Mushrooming population on the eastside of Lake Washington has pushed up traffic on this road in the past 15 years. But for a johnny-come-lately like myself, it's still a fun, winding road for a spin.
I rode the length of May Valley Road last weekend on my route to Issaquah, and it was one of my most pleasant rides of the month, despite the 1 or 2 cars that passed every minute. That may be a lot for my neighbor who used to ride here, but for me it was the most isolated portion of the ride.
I'm trying to hit a 4,000-mile goal for 2007, after a dismal showing in 2006, and I'm finding it surprisingly difficult to hit the magic number of 333 miles per month.
April is my best month yet, at 328 miles. My longest ride was 34 miles; the shortest was the 3/4-mile to the local grocery store. I jumped on the bike saddle 17 times last month, averaging 19.2 miles per ride.
The difference in hitting and not hitting the goal might have come last week from a cell phone call, which interrupted an expected glorious ride with some emergency parenting duties.
Here's the tale of the tape. With the improving weather, I'm hoping I can pedal off some of those deficits from the earlier months.
April
Total: 327.5 miles
Needed for goal: 333.3 miles
Difference: Minus 5.8 miles
4,000 in 2007
Total : 1,039.2 miles
Needed so far for goal: 1,333.2 miles
Difference: Minus 294 miles
Recent Comments