IT'S THE BIKE BY TWELVE MINUTES!

THE BIKE WINS BY TWELVE MINUTES!

THE BIKE WINS BY TWELVE MINUTES!

More to follow in a couple days.

Marry New year, everyone!

71 Minutes and I can forget that spin class!

So I went out for 70 minutes yesterday, and now the "break even" time is a mere 71 minutes left!

Since I decided to not count the 45 minute spin class debacle of earlier in the month, this 71 minute deficit accounts for that, so if I can manage one more ride of that length or greater, I'll have achieved my goal of riding my bike for more time than I spent commuting to and from work in my car this year.

I invited my wife to join me on the final ride. Hopefully we'll go to the new bike path loop in Fredericksburg and ride around that a couple three times and have a good time on Monday.

What I won't tell her is that, while we'll drive the car over there, I'll ride my bike back, so as to completely eclipse the time goal because it's about 20 minutes by bike from the bike path to home.

haha!

It's been a fun year, tracking all this information and data. I look forward to examining it in greater detail in 2013.

Current deficit: 63 minutes + commute time home (+ 45 minutes from that awful spin class!)

Finished a 66 minute healthy wellness ride at work. Looks like I'll need just 2.5 hours to get things squared away. I'm pretty sure that'll happen in a couple rides over the weekend.

Yay!

4.5 Days Left, 3 Hours to Catch Up, 2 Days of Miserable Weather Ahead, 1 Goal to Achieve.

So as of this moment, I am just more than two hours short of meeting my goal of riding my bike for more time than I spend commuting to and from work in my car this year. I have ome more trip home this afternoon, which should be about 40 minutes, and then no more work until 2013.

This afternoon I plan on a healthy wellness bike ride. It's supposed to be sunny but very windy, like 25 mph steady with gusts up to maybe 50, so that'll be really fun. If I plan the rest of my work day right, I should be able to get more than an hour of actual riding time in.

When I get home, my deficit will likely be a little under two hours.

It appears that we're going to get snow on Saturday, so tomorrow (Friday) will need to be the main day to ride to get ahead. It's supposed to be cold, but that's okay- two of my long weekend rides were in the cold, and with those chemical footwarmers in my shoes, I didn't freeze up too much.

So probably I'll be able to get two hours of riding in tomorrow morning.

Then I'll only have that pesky 45 minute spin class to make up. I think I can do that on New Year's Eve. By that time whatever snow will be cleared away or melted. This goal will be achieved.

Put into diffeent terms, when this is all done, I'll have spent more than twelve solid days riding my bike, and over 4,700 miles logged on a bicycle.

I regret that I had planned to but have not actually made charts to document what percentage of my bike rides were at work vs. at home. Without the healthy wellness opportunities, I am certain I wouldn't have been able to make this goal.

I'm proud that my recent rides have raised my average bike ride time to 80 minutes.

My main bike has been used almost exclusively for this effort. The yellow one was used about 100 miles, and the silver hybrid was used once, and I didn't even count it as I just went around the neighborhood for about ten minutes. Since acquiring the Windsor off the internet, I've ridden that bugger almost 7,000 miles in about a year and a half.

One thing I've learned on this effort is that it's pretty easy to enjoy almost every bike ride. There's usually something new to see, a moment where all is at peace, or an experience to share at the dinner table.

2013 probably won't see me riding as much as this year, and that's okay. I bet it'll be close, because if I don't ride for a couple three days, my body really feels out of sorts, like something's missing. It's still fun above all.

I am thankful that I have found something that I love to do that's also widely considered to be exercise. My morale at work remains high because they encourage such activities at my office, and my metabolism is thankful because I can eat pretty much whatever I want, whenever I want, and not gain much around the middle.

This has been a good year. I've enjoyed tracking my commute times, bicycling times, and gas mileage data.

Christmas Eve Morning - Almost Time for...a RIDE!

So as of this moment, I am less than 4 hours short of my goal, with a week left in the year. There's still one day of work commuting left, but I plan on a healthy wellness ride on that day so the day's commute ought to be evened out by the ride on that day.

This morning it's about 30 degrees out, so I'll add some toe warmers to help prevent froze toes.

If I can eke out a 90 minute ride or so, I'll be pleased with things.

Yesterday after the football game I rode my bike to the Food Lion and bought a 12 pound turkey. So as I was riding home I was all giggling about how the turkey was riding with a turkey.

My round trip was 23 minutes, 8 of which I was not moving and standing there at red lights.

I wished I had a Santa hat so that people would have pointed and laughed. But I did not.

Merry Christmas!

1.5 Commutes Left, 10 Days to Make Up For It

So from the chart, we can see that my 224 bike rides total almost 300 hours of riding, and my 419 commuting trips are nearly 306 hours.

(Man, if I wasn't coming in to work next Thursday, It'd be 420 commuting trips for the year. Not that I know the significance of 420 in any sense of the word...)

Assuming my commute home this afternoon is close to normal, I'll get home in about 40 minutes, and my deficit will be just over 8 hours. Okay 9 hours because one of you feels the 45 minutes spin class shouldn't count, and I agree.

It's supposed to be rainy and cold for several of my planned days off. So that'll add challenge to my bike riding. I think on Saturday or Sunday it's going to be clear, but just cold, so I could probably get a couple hours on one or both of those days. Then maybe another rided of a couple hours either Christmas Eve or Boxing Day.

Man, this is going to be close. My wife is supportive of the plan, but seemingly only if I ride in the middle of the night while everyone else is sleeping.

It's not that bad, really, but here we are in crunch time, it's about as close as I have been predicting all year, and I feel like these outside forces are pressuring me into missing out on my self-imposed goal.

If I had ridden in "one more" century ride I'd probably be all set by now. But I didn't so here I am.

I can do it. I can do it. I can do it.

This will be my last entry until next Thursday, so at that time I'll pose an end-of-year final post. Either I'll be wildly close to it and only have to coast my bike downhill for ten minutes next weekend or I'll be awake all night riding around the block a hundred times to make time.

Merry Christmas, everybody!