2006 Cycling Recap

Opening music: Purple Toupee by They Might be Giants.

The fact that I've waited until now to post about my 2006 bicycling distance can be taken as evidence that my interest in cycling has declined. That's not really the case. I still find it interesting and enjoyable. It's just that I didn't use as much time in 2006 to bicycle for fun and exercise. I didn't even find or schedule the time to go on an overnight (or single-day) organised group bike ride. Indeed, a larger percentage of my biking was for transportation, and not just pleasure. As an aside, I think my kids think I'm mean because I made them bicycle home from football and cheerleading practice. When I was a kid, even from a young age, I enjoyed the independence that having a bicycle and my own transportation provided. Alas, my kids don't seem particularly interested in providing their own transportation or in independence.

So, what did I do in 2006 to make up for the lack of biking? Well, I got back into regularly running (or at least jogging), after taking a few years off from that. I don't have any real data (since I don't have an odometer in my shoes) but I probably ran for the sake of running more last year than in any other. I think I had my fastest (albeit s l o w) 5K time last year as well. I hope to continue this trend in 2007. As long as my body and joints can handle it, running seems to be a better workout for the time than is biking.

Speaking of biking, how bad were the numbers in '06? Not really all that low, actually. I did ride 642 miles. Last year ('05) I rode 1004 miles. This year ('06) I rode 1033 kilometres. At least it was a thousand something!

Year	Distance Bicycled (miles)	Distance Motorcycled (miles)
2002	1168
2003	855
2004	700	410
2005	1004	223
2006	642	297

Look for the '07 bicycling numbers to decline further. :-(

Closing music: Paranoid Eyes by Pink Floyd