How many miles a year do you ride?

[Watana Bob]

I typically average 1500-2000 miles per year outdoors, our snow free ice free season is May 1st. to October 1st. Off season I ride an analog bike on a fluid trainer downstairs doing about 500 miles over the course of winter. I am 69 and try to deal with a debilitating form of muscular dystrophy. This past summer I only managed 800 miles due to caring for my wife who is recovering from a very complex surgery that she had June 3rd.

 

[Jeremy McCreary]

I typically average 1500-2000 miles per year outdoors, our snow free ice free season is May 1st. to October 1st. Off season I ride an analog bike on a fluid trainer downstairs doing about 500 miles over the course of winter. I am 69 and try to deal with a debilitating form of muscular dystrophy. This past summer I only managed 800 miles due to caring for my wife who is recovering from a very complex surgery that she had June 3rd.

Those are some big challenges! Hope they go as well as possible.

Question if not too personal: Those challenges certainly reduce your opportunities to ride (indoor or out). But when you DO have the opportunity, do they increase or decrease the odds that you'll actually ride — for any amount of time?

I can imagine it going both ways, maybe even from day to day.

 

[PedalUma]

@Watana Bob I wish you the best. That is tough stuff.
I know someone who will soon be 72 and is training in the South 500 miles a week analog in hill country, to cross the continent on gravel with her custom eBike, while living in her tent, in the Spring. Falling back seems easier, but it is not. She is a hero, pressing ahead. Which reminds me, I have stopped lifting weights. That is falling back. I am still riding every day. Got to.

 

[Watana Bob]

@Watana Bob I wish you the best. That is tough stuff.
I know someone who will soon be 72 and is training in the South 500 miles a week analog in hill country, to cross the continent on gravel with her custom eBike, while living in her tent, in the Spring. Falling back seems easier, but it is not. She is a hero, pressing ahead. Which reminds me, I have stopped lifting weights. That is falling back. I am still riding every day. Got to.

Thank you PedalUma. I admire your lady friend and her drive and stamina. I have been following the build that you are doing for her, very impressive. Good for you riding every day, kudos!

 

[Watana Bob]

Those are some big challenges! Hope they go as well as possible.

Question if not too personal: Those challenges certainly reduce your opportunities to ride (indoor or out). But when you DO have the opportunity, do they increase or decrease the odds that you'll actually ride — for any amount of time?

I can imagine it going both ways, maybe even from day to day.

Thank you Jeremy, I admire guys like you that have 8 or 9 years on me and could out ride me with a broken leg and one arm tied behind your back.
I generally take any opportunity that arises to get out and ride in the summer months as long as my legs are not aching too badly. I find it much harder to motivate myself in the winter on the fluid trainer, which could be the difference between e-bike and analog. I think what I don’t like about the fluid trainer is that it is a constant grunt, no scenery, no wind in your face and no breaks like coasting downhill, just a constant grind. My outdoor e-bike rides average 20-25 miles, on the fluid trainer the average is 8-10 and those 8-10 beat me up worse than the longer e-bike rides. Don’t know if it is related to the carrot effect that you talk about, but I am driven by always trying to do better. On the e-bike over 20 miles I will push to increase my average speed by one tenth mile per hour or shave 10 seconds off of 10 miles on the fluid trainer. I’m probably hastening my demise by pushing myself, they say if you push to hard you will accelerate muscle loss, but I just can’t help it when I get out there. I feel that I already have bonus time as my mom who gave me this genetic time bomb was already in a wheelchair for two years at my age. I guess that you have to play the cards that you are dealt.
So long story short, yes, if the opportunity arises the odds of me heading out for a ride are very high, if my legs are up for it, I’m out the door.

 

[gromike]

Ah, you're doing better than me on the training.
I don't have any disabilities, outside of being old and broken.
Ride to live, live to ride!

 

[edobici_forza]

@Watana Bob Awesome achievement, given your condition. Keep it up and pedal happy!

 

[PedalUma]

@Watana Bob, What is your latitude?
I am reading a 720 page book on Polynesian culture that is more than a novel. It full of information. In a canoe with no hightech tools they could sail from Fiji to Hawaii. The cost of navigationally being off by a fraction of a degree is death. It is called The Wayfinder. I don't need Strava or GPS, they are an obstruction to awareness, not an aid.

 

[RabH]

I typically average 1500-2000 miles per year outdoors, our snow free ice free season is May 1st. to October 1st. Off season I ride an analog bike on a fluid trainer downstairs doing about 500 miles over the course of winter. I am 69 and try to deal with a debilitating form of muscular dystrophy. This past summer I only managed 800 miles due to caring for my wife who is recovering from a very complex surgery that she had June 3rd.

Big props to you Bob for getting the miles in with all this going on, best wishes to you and your wife!

 

[Watana Bob]

@Watana Bob, What is your latitude?
I am reading a 720 page book on Polynesian culture that is more than a novel. It full of information. In a canoe with no hightech tools they could sail from Fiji to Hawaii. The cost of navigationally being off by a fraction of a degree is death. It is called The Wayfinder. I don't need Strava or GPS, they are an obstruction to awareness, not an aid.

I'm at 61* N. latitude. That book sounds very interesting, thanks for mentioning it, I'm going to put it on my reading list.

 

[Watana Bob]

Big props to you Bob for getting the miles in with all this going on, best wishes to you and your wife!

Thank you, Rab, I can only dream of the kind of riding that you do, but then again, I am just happy to be able to ride at all and be able to afford quality equipment.