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Went for a ride with my recumbent bike, and it ended up being a long day. I first rode to the mall to buy some things for my canoe trip this weekend. Then i went to Adkins farm for lunch, ice cream, and also bought some things. The place sells a wide variety of food that's mostly organic or natural. From there, i went back home. The entire trip was 63.8 miles. It probably only would have been about 55 miles if i took better directions before i left the house and didn't get lost and go the wrong way many times on the way back. I had to keep calling the family so they could look at a map to tell me where to go. That ended up being a pretty big pain in the behind, but it was still a great trip. For next time, i'll take much better directions before i leave the house or get a GPS. All in all, i'm kinda sore and tired, but feeling pretty good.

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n286/Chalupa102/IMG_4645.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n286/Chalupa102/IMG_4648.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n286/Chalupa102/IMG_4649.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n286/Chalupa102/IMG_4650.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n286/Chalupa102/IMG_4652.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n286/Chalupa102/IMG_4653.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n286/Chalupa102/IMG_4656.jpg

Nice! That's longer than I've ever ridden in a day. I enjoyed your pictures as well. :)

Nice RANS Tailwind. I have a Bacchetta Giro 26. Just rode it Saturday and Sunday.

Good grief! I don't know what elevation changes were like for you, but that'd be like me biking to work! Outstanding.

Dan,

If you do this often, your HDL (good cholestrol) count has got to be super!

That equates to running 15 miles - I hope you had a good tub that evening!

Thanks guys.

Good grief! I don't know what elevation changes were like for you, but that'd be like me biking to work! Outstanding.

These are the elevation profiles for the trip. They don't show where i had to turn around and back track. I just drew them for if i hadn't gotten lost and gone the right way.

This is from my house to the mall:
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n286/Chalupa102/elev1.jpg

This is from the mall to Adkins farm:
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n286/Chalupa102/elev2.jpg

This is from Adkins farm back to my house:
http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n286/Chalupa102/elev3.jpg

Dan,

If you do this often, your HDL (good cholestrol) count has got to be super!

That equates to running 15 miles - I hope you had a good tub that evening!

The last time i had my cholesterol checked last year, it was decent. This was before i started all the biking. I definitely took a nice hot shower once i got home.

My plan is to do a long trip (~50 miles) once a week. I'm planning to make anther trip to Adkins farm tomorrow, but this time i shouldn't get lost.

Yeah, that's nothing like the elevation changes I have - 2000 ft in 2 miles!

My plan is to do a long trip (~50 miles) once a week.

Heh. I've done 45 miles in a day 3 times in my life.

Twice in the UK when I rode 45 miles each way to my parents' and back, taking about 3 hours. There was a 1 week gap between the two! But that was a flat ride on good roads.

The third time was a couple of weeks ago when I rode to work and back. The ride in was fine (22 miles in 1:35 on a comfortable morning) but the ride home was after midday in 80F+ heat with inadequate water. Lesson learned and e-bike earned*. ;)

I wish you success in your excess. ;)

* Not purchased yet, but I promised myself I could have one once I'd done a commute.

Yeah, that's nothing like the elevation changes I have - 2000 ft in 2 miles!

:eek: That's crazy. I don't mind the hills around here; not too steep but enough for a decent challenge and a good workout.

Heh. I've done 45 miles in a day 3 times in my life.

Twice in the UK when I rode 45 miles each way to my parents' and back, taking about 3 hours. There was a 1 week gap between the two! But that was a flat ride on good roads.

The third time was a couple of weeks ago when I rode to work and back. The ride in was fine (22 miles in 1:35 on a comfortable morning) but the ride home was after midday in 80F+ heat with inadequate water. Lesson learned and e-bike earned*. ;)

I wish you success in your excess. ;)

* Not purchased yet, but I promised myself I could have one once I'd done a commute.

I know exactly what you mean about the lessons learned. The first time i did a long ride (~ 45 miles) i ran out of water too. I will never make that mistake again. It was a good thing that i knew where the keys were kept to my church. I stopped there before heading home and got some water before finishing the last few miles of my trip.

I'm fairly new to biking. (doing the amount you did would probably kill me right now)
But, I want to try and bike as much as possible with gas being what it is and the benefits for the environment are just pushing me to my bike.
What GPS would/do you use?
My sense of direction is pretty bad, and if it's somewhere I've never been before it would definitely be good to have some sort of guide.
I'm still amazed that you did 63.8 miles in a day!
It's amazing and crazy at the same time.

63.8 miles isn't bad at all. That matches my best day ever (so far). I had 42 miles last Sunday,but it was a little too much too early in the year. I was a bit sore the next day. Last year ( 3200 miles ) I had half a dozen or more 50 + mile days.
I'm currently riding a Trek mountain bike as I'm mostly on trails,usually the wide,hard,crushed gravel superslabs,but also some nasty and challenging single-track.
I love my bike !

I'm not able to bike anymore because of a back injury, but during my teen years (pre drivers license) biking was my major mode of transportation. During summer months when I was out of school 25-60 miles a day was normal, but I didn't have such elevation changes as your graph shows. Of course that was 35+ years ago. Even if I didn't have the back injury if I tried it now I would probably feel like I was dieing after about 10 miles. Keep it up, not only is it good for the environment it's great exercise. Just don't over do it, work your way into it slowly. A GPS wound be a great investment if you're going to be riding in unfamiliar territory. With the gas you're saving it wouldn't take long to accumulate enough money in gas saving to buy the GPS.

I guess I haven't checked here in a while. A little less than a month ago, I did 77.3 miles on my trike, and it wasn't bad at all. Plan to build myself up to a century (100 miles) by August.


I'm fairly new to biking. (doing the amount you did would probably kill me right now)
But, I want to try and bike as much as possible with gas being what it is and the benefits for the environment are just pushing me to my bike.
What GPS would/do you use?
My sense of direction is pretty bad, and if it's somewhere I've never been before it would definitely be good to have some sort of guide.
I'm still amazed that you did 63.8 miles in a day!
It's amazing and crazy at the same time.

The gps that I use is a Garmin Forerunner 305 that I got a few weeks ago. It's a running/cross training gps. I use it for recording data (speed, pedal cadence, route, hr, etc). It says it can show maps, but I haven't messed around with it much to know for sure.

If you want to get a specific bike gps with actual maps, some models of the Garmin Edge can do that. Unfortunately they are expensive. You could always go with a car gps to save money.

What I personally do now is map out the route on the computer the night before, and write down the directions into my phone. I always carry a map with me in case I ever do happen to get lost.

Hope this helps.

Welcome to CleanMPG! I started biking last year in May with anywhere from 11 - 15 miles every other day. About once a month I would do 25 to 30 for a day. In August, I left and thought I would ride about 30 one way with a 60 mile round trip. I decided to go a "little farther and ended up with 78 miles. The last 8 miles was a killer. I thought I would die of starvation! Lesson learned!"

I use Google navigator on my Motorola X Droid phone for navigation. I ride a bike path, so I don't need navigation. I use an app called Sportstracker Pro that records the trip with all kinds of data. It saves it and you can upload it to the net for viewing. Here is my trip from a couple of nights ago. (http://www.sportstracklive.com/track/map#msirach/Cycling/-6-21/238869/play)