Around the world once, up Everest 34 times

According to Mark Twain, it was Benjamin Disraeli who coined the phrase "lies, damn lies and statistics", giving the collection and analysis of sets of figures a rather disturbing light. Statistics can, however, offer an interesting insight into the data being analysed, say on someone's cycling activity for example.

I use a website called Statshunters.com, linked into my Strava account, to hold data about my cycling activities. I should say here that I am in no way attracted by nailing Strava segments, KOMs, maximum speeds or anything that would suggest I simply go out on my bike to blast as fast as possible. For me, cycling is about fitness, scenery, meditation, coffee and cake, and not necessarily in that order. However, I do like to keep tabs on where I've ridden and how far, so Strava is useful for that, and I don't use the majority of the myriad of features that it offers. FYI, as of today I've ridden 28,086 miles since I started recording online in September 2016.

Then one day my brother-in-law Ian mentioned to me a website that showed you pictorially where you'd ridden, a heatmap of your rides. That sounded like it could be interesting and so I signed up (it's free of course, I doubt I'd pay for anything unless it was really interesting or useful). It looks like this;

It can help with coming up with new and varied rides, as I have been in Cheshire long enough that it can get a little stale going over the same old roads again and again, and indeed it has led me to find some lovely scenic roads that I would otherwise maybe have neglected. And then one day, when I was having a little look at my latest map, a popup appeared saying I'd earned a new badge. Intrigued I looked into it, and it has a whole load of badges you can earn for a wide range of activities - like Strava challenges these can be used to provide variety in your riding to maintain motivation. Having just spent a bit of time investigating I've come across the following;

• I've cycled the equivalent of 1.128 trips around the world, and have got 0.118 of the way to the moon
• I've cycled the equivalent of 34.1 climbs of Everest
• I've ridden for 1,887 hours
• My rides have been spread out fairly equally between all days, with most on a Sunday (16.2%) and fewest on Tuesday (12.2%). Tuesday is weekly shop day so no surprise, but I generally try to avoid weekends now I'm retired, so that may change over the years.

If you're still with me by now well done! As you can imagine you can get lost in it all, but the key thing is to dig out what makes it fun and/or interesting. And we all know there are many different opinions on what is interesting and what isn't!!!!

Another year............

After a quiet December, in which I only slung my leg over a bike three times for various reasons, my first ride in 2024 (on the 4th) came as quite a shock to the system! For the first few miles it was absolute purgatory, not helped by my inactivity and having put on five or six pounds over Christmas. I really struggled, and at one point looked at the computer and wondered how the hell I hadn't covered more distance - it felt a lot longer that it actually was! After an hour though, which can be my typical warm up time, I began to feel better, and changing direction to get the wind behind me was also a bonus. I finished the ride feeling not too bad - tired, but not excessively so.

I followed this up with a second ride the following day, and this time I felt a lot better from the off. Unlike the previous day, when I glanced at my computer I was pleasantly surprised - almost back to the 'normal' feeling of "wow, hasn't that time/distance passed quickly". Back home, and I didn't feel as tired as the previous day, although there was still clearly some work to be done to get back to full(!) fitness and back to my fighting weight. 

After a couple of days rest I ventured out on the mountain bike for the first time today, doing a short but spontaneous route covering the local canal and rail trails. This was hard to start with, but once I'd warmed up a bit, particularly my fingers, I settled down. It actually turned out to be good fun getting away from the roads, in particular the section of the Trent & Mersey Canal between Hassall Green and Malkins Bank which included a handful of sketchy muddy, cobbled slopes at the locks, and again when I went back on the canal at the Mill Lane bridge (number 161!) where the muddy conditions dragged at my wheels. A very good ride though, to remind me that riding a bike should be enjoyable and fun.

I'm looking forward to better weather now, to get back into the swing of things, and am aiming to get back to Scotland this year, as well as riding Traws Eryri, a long distance multi-day ride through the Snowdonia National Park. Fingers crossed for good health, good weather and a quiet life.