Monday, August 13, 2012

How to ride a long way without really noticing it


No one has written to the beat bike blog asking for advice about riding. Ever. It's not surprising, considering I don't really have any idea how to ride a bike. Yet, I feel like I should dispense some unasked advice anyway.


People often want to ride their bike a long way, but it seems like a difficult undertaking. Yesterday, I rode a pretty long way (95-100 miles), but it wasn't a big deal. I broke it into several different rides of various reasons throughout the day. I rode to Peter's house and then rode with Peter and Doug for awhile. Then I ate some pasta and drank some seltzer and went home via the ferry. I made a bunch of pesto and puttered around the house for awhile. Then, I rode to my parents' house to feed the cat and do some other puttering. I stopped at the grocery store and bought a few things and then came home around 6:30pm. While I was just under the minimum randonée average speed of 10.5mph, I still got things done and rode a long way.


3 comments:

Unknown said...

I have not come anywhere near riding 100 miles. But I find that when I take a leisurely ride on my own (as opposed to the rides I do with meetup), I can spend all day riding. I explore more and I find it's easier to rack up the miles. And then I also notice how many businesses in my area don't have bike racks (hello Barnes & Noble in Glastonbury and CVS in East Hartford.)

A few weeks ago I made it a goal to ride the entire greenway from Farmington to Westfield, MA. It was the longest ride I had ever done and towards the end it was kind of boring. But riding around towns and neighborhoods and stopping to take pictures or eat all the ice cream I can find, 50 miles seems fairly easy.

Lisa

Brendan said...

You stopped too early in westfield. It turns to dirt and then there's this rather scary abandoned trestle that deposits you behind the center of town. It gets exciting!

Unknown said...

A scary abandoned trestle? I am so riding there next time.