For years and years, I’ve wanted to get a bicycle. Finally, just over a month ago, I did. I got a pretty basic hybrid called the Diamondback Edgewood. Each weekend, I’ve done a progressively longer ride. First 17 miles, then 22, 28, and finally 32 miles on Sunday. I’m doing other rides during the week when I can find the time. I’ve got one route that’s about 12 miles that I’ve been trying to beat 1 hour on. Seems easy, but there are some wicked hills to contend with. In flat-as-a-pancake North Texas? You’d be surprised.
I’ve been using my Android phone and a separate bluetooth GPS unit to track my rides. Originally I was using Google My Tracks, but recently, I discovered the Endomondo app and I’m quite liking it. The app tracks your time, distance, and calories burned. The app also uses speech synthesis to announce your time at each mile, which I’ve found surprisingly motivating. Surely, I should be doing 4-minute miles on a bike! The endomondo.com website also provides interesting stats and shows weekly and monthly views of your workouts. I also imported all my previously tracked rides so far and you can see them here.
Today I signed up for my first official event: The Head for the Hills Bike Rally in Cedar Hill, TX on May 7th. I signed up for the 40 mile route. I don’t quite have the guts to take on a 60 mile route just yet. We’ll see how things go. Check back here or on Facebook to see how I do.
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