After two days off the bike for various reason (laziness + shit to do) I was back on the bike for some miles today. With my time at the shop on hold for the foreseeable future, my thesis in limbo (that’s a joke of course) and B-Man back in school, I can now start to set my sights on trying to get some longer (for me) rides in and try to burn as much man fat as I can in between my husbandly duties (don’t judge!). Because before you know it, the snow will be flying and I’ll be reduced to twenty mile fat bike rides on ice packed dirt roads while freezing my tits off.
During the balls of the summer I limited my weekday riding to the 25 to 35 mile range so as to be closer to home if B-Man needed anything. Now I can start adding a few more miles in here and there or make my way to some trails to get my knobs in the dirt. Well, at least until open interviews for Panda Express start up. Nothing like a forty-four year old white man serving up Chinese food.
Today I headed out for a ride that I always thought of being roughly 70% paved. It turns out I was pretty damn close. Since I have nothing better to do that think about crap like this, I broke down the surface mileage for this 45.9 mile road ride.
Mileage Breakdown:
3.50 miles pavement
7.54 miles dirt/gravel
5.54 miles pavement (two miles being shit pavement)
2.99 miles dirt/gravel
1.00 miles pavement
1.00 miles dirt/gravel
6.98 miles pavement
2.98 miles dirt/gravel
14.34 miles pavement
Totals:
31.36 miles pavement
14.54 miles dirt
From my best guess, that is around 68% pavement, which is close enough to 70% for me. What does all this mean? Um… ah… well.. IT MEANS IT WAS A PRETTY FREAKING GOOD GUESS! Unless my math is wrong, then it’s jut further proof I’m a goddamn moron.
The stats for this ride are pretty much upside down compared to how I normally like my rides, but barring the first few miles and the last couple miles out of and into town, the roads on this ride are my kind of roads: low traffic, hilly, rolling farm roads combined with and pavement that is complete and utter shit. Then as a bonus there was 14.5 miles of dirt and gravel.
In fact, some portions of the paved roads are so bad that it was actually smoother and faster on the dirt roads, especially on roads like the one seen above wich were packed down hard with nothing but some horse and cart tracks to slow you down.
Having said all that, this route has become one of my favorites, despite its asphalt handicap. And the Boone continues to be the perfect bike for these rides too! Having done these rides on a variety of bikes, for a variety of reasons, I can say that there was no point on dirt that I wished I was on my mountain bike and there was no point on pavement that I longed for my road bike. This is truly the happiest I’ve been on bike in some time.
Thankfully I got out and back before the heat of the day came on strong. I actually made it back with some water to spare. Of course that could be because the water became as warm as hobo’s piss during the ride, and even quick sips were disgusting.
Hopefully I can crawl out from my den of slack again tomorrow and get a few more miles in.
Later.