The Oracle of Apollo Snippets from the life of Apollo Lee

One Clipless Year

One year ago today, Dave at Bike Connection in Menlo Park installed SPD pedals on my old Giant Cypress DX hybrid and I took my first ever ride in my Vittoria Skye ATB cycling shoes. My Trek 520 came equipped with SPD pedals, so I have continued to ride in SPDs for a full year. I’ve fallen a few times, had to adjust my left cleat once, and had one accident.

It’s hard to believe it. That maiden voyage was 7,121.47 miles ago.

First of all, wow!!! 7000+ miles in one year is excellent.

Second, why is your goal for this year so low? If you’ve done over 7,000 miles in one year, why would you set your goal for the 2005 calendar year to just 5,000 miles? We’re not even 1/3 of the way through the year yet, but you’re almost half done.

Seth

I decided in 2003 to set my yearly mileage goal to a thousand times the last two digits of the year. So, on my stats, I met my goal in 2003. When I found myself at my goal before Thanksgiving, I decided to keep pushing after my goal and see what more I can do. So, 4000 came and went and I ended up a 1100 miles over my goal. I like the evenness and predictability of the 1000 * YY (5000 this year), because it’s even, clean, and easily-achievable.

This year, it’s not a question of whether or not I’ll get my 5000 miles. It’s really a question of how early in the year I can pass it and leave it standing in the road scratching its head as I careen by, blue-shifted.

My wife didn’t “get” my comment about about the pocket of super-heated air on my ride today. Your reference to being blue-shifted (perhaps at relativistic speeds?) suggests that at least my comment wasn’t lost on everyone. 🙂

(Not that they’re related, except they’re both way out there, sci-fi-style descriptions of geeks wishing they were super-human.)