2019 Miles and Cycling Goals

[madsciencenow]

Thanks, Bob. I understand the distinction you are making. Personally, I’m going to continue to count both sources of miles because my ego/sanity requires it and my body feels very little difference between the two when using a smart trainer. If I lived elsewhere and my kids sport schedules were different I would certainly prefer to ride physical rather than virtual miles but as my friend already pointed out, I simply don’t have this option.


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[berserk87]

Originally Posted by Bob Ross

Except that when you go around a 50 meter track for a mile -- or even for a meter -- you've physically moved some distance. You started at Point A, and then (regardless of how quickly you got there and however briefly you stayed there before returning) your body was at Point B, another discrete physical location in space.

When you ride on the "infinitely small track" of the trainer that doesn't happen. Neither the cyclist nor the cycle move any distance. Trainers are stationary.

I hate the trainer more than about anything. I've used this argument before. It's funny though because when you look a displaced distance, an outdoor ride is always the same as a trainer ride. If you depart from and return to the same place, you have displaced zero miles. Kinda funny.

My mind has changed on the trainer thing. When I started racing, trainer workouts were never as good as road miles. Guys that wouldn't or couldn't get outside were never as fit as those that did. With wattage measurement and interactive smart trainers, I'm seeing folks that stay on the trainer for months and re-appear outside in March, and they are as fit, it not more, often times, as guys that rode outdoors the whole time. It's hard to disrespect the results.

The past couple of years I haven't even tracked training by miles. I use hours ridden per week as my measuring stick. Mileage is calculated automatically for me (using Golden Cheetah), otherwise I would have no clue how many I had ridden in a year without using a calculator. It's still kinda fun to reflect on the annual total.

[merlinmurph]

4583 miles and 311,500 ft, all on the road/trail, a good year for me. No way I'm going to admit how many hours that took, but the avg speed goes down every year.

I only did two events this year, Raid Lamoille and D2R2. Scheduling conflicts prevented other gravel events.

There some big miles out there. I don't how how you guys with kids get it done - congrats!

[thegunner]

2300 outside, 2200 indoors

but i also have a newborn, so i'll take it

[BryanE]

5300 outside miles.
Trainer miles don’t count.

[R3awak3n]

I think I got 300 miles on the trainer out of the 4700 and those were the hardest miles. Fine, trainer miles are not real miles but if someone is putting that kinda mileage on a trainer they have my respect because that is just not fun and I could not do it.

[glepore]

Good lord. Counting miles?
I enjoy riding. Its great. I don't need to quantify it anymore.
I actually do "train". Keep track of a bunch of metrics, but miles are more or less meaningless. As is speed. The other metrics, I don't share, they are for me, as a gauge for myself.
Get off my lawn, but strava etc pretty much ruined cycling with others for me.
Oh yeah, trainer miles? Meaningless. Trainer time or kj? Now that might mean something. In erg mode, miles and speed are a joke.

[PSC]

5400 road miles. No trainer, I'm to cheap.
800+ miles running. No treadmill
500+ Erg rowing miles (Concept 2). If I am going to do cardio indoors, this is my go to. Awesome workout.

[jwalther]

5002 miles, split roughly 70\30 outdoor\Zwift. Don't know about anyone else, but my Zwift "miles" are harder work than outdoor miles. I don't cheat the system, and utilize Zwift's workout programs.

[avalonracing]

Originally Posted by jwalther

Don't know about anyone else, but my Zwift "miles" are harder work than outdoor miles.

You just need to find a faster group ride ; ) I don't know about anyone else but (other than a sanctioned race) there is NOTHING that will make me dig deeper than trying to hold a faster wheel halfway into a very competitive group ride.
And oh, about 5000 outdoor miles for me. Many of them on competitive group rides. Some quite pleasant, and others where I was hanging on by a tread, and a few where I got popped.

[SlowPokePete]

10,082 miles, all outside real riding.

Mostly solo.

Zero weeks that I didn't ride 100 miles or more.

One three day, two night solo bike packing trip from my driveway.

Swift summer solstice campout with UltraRomance and company.

Nutmeg Nor'Easter was amazing.

Longest ride ever of 105 miles.

Six more months of nonsense and I retire at age 55.5.

2020's gonna be a good one.

SPP

[toronto-rider]

As I have been more into gravel than road, I think a more accurate measurement would be hrs on the bike. My favourite loop takes me 3hrs on my gravel bike but only 76km. 3 hrs on the road easy to hit 100km.
I did do over 6000 km in 2019 but spent much more time than previous years riding due to the slower speeds of gravel.

With indoor riding, it should count however I don’t upload it to my Strava just TrainingPeaks. I like to surprise my group after the winter with my strength come April. However now everyone is so fit come April from trainer workouts.
I remember the days that unless you went to a training camp in March you were behind when it came to the early races in April.

[Krenovian]

Rode something north of 3,000 miles outdoors and a bunch of trainer time. I don’t accurately track either as I have different cyclocomputers on the 4 bikes I ride and don’t total up the mileage in a log.

My, I should say our, big goal for the year was to ride Mt. Ventoux on the tandem. We accomplished it riding from Bedoin first (the classic Tour route) and then a week later from Sault (the “easy” route).

[Seramount]

retired 3 years ago and made riding 10,000 miles a bucket-list item.

first try was 9200, second year got a little closer at 9500...

put a push on the last few months...in December, bagged my highest monthly total ever at 1030 miles.

had 340 ride days and ended up with 10,172 miles.

while it was a fun challenge and got me out some days when I really didn't feel like riding, not going to try and do it again. if 10K comes, fine...if I only ride 7 or 8K, that'll work too.

don't want to make riding a 'job'...

[tctyres]

Originally Posted by Bob Ross

It's simple: "Miles" is a measure of distance.

It is not a measure of work, hours, nor of the total number of crank revolutions, etc.

If these yearend threads were titled "2019 Hours On The Bike" or "2019 Work On The Bike" or "2019 # Of Crank Turns" yadda-yadda then time spent on the trainer would certainly qualify.

But they're not, they're always called "2019 miles" and I'm sorry but your trainer did not cover any distance in 2019, it sat in one spot in your basement no matter how many hours you spent on it and how many times the crank spun around.

Meh ... I'm not so worried about what people are calling miles here. There are a lot of reasons to ride on the road, trail, track, trainer, or rollers. All of these give a different experience. It depends on a person's goals and time commitments. Trainer miles, like road miles, can be easy or hard. If riders are doing structured workout plans on a trainer, those can be really hard workouts. There is no coasting.

What you don't get in a trainer is the handling and lateral stability. In fact, those muscles can decline in strength and function.

Originally Posted by avalonracing

I don't know about anyone else but (other than a sanctioned race) there is NOTHING that will make me dig deeper than trying to hold a faster wheel halfway into a very competitive group ride.

This is true. The other way of digging deep is to try to drop someone's wheel.

About 9400+ miles for me in 2019, mostly road, some trail, with a small amount of trainer miles. I also completed my first R-12.