The last two days have been very exciting: despite the return of rain after a very long stretch of cold sunshine in Portland, my post-work fake commute rides have 1, still been largely dry somehow, and 2, omg have been light until 5:30, even with the cloudiness!! It is very exciting to be out in the daylight past 5pm again, with more daylight every day:)
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(sunset from a lovely ride back in December)
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As I’ve been fake commuting this week, I’ve been thinking about the idea of biking not to actually go anywhere specific but just for the sake of biking. Ever since COVID, I’ve been trying to bike about 100 miles per week (or rather, zooming out to 5200 miles per year, taking into account that some weeks I’m not in Portland, for example). That was my baseline commute when I was going to an office most days. I’ve kept up riding that I guess ever since 2020, and it’s been a sort of sanity-maintenance thing, since I am a happier stasia when I am outside a lot. Most years, I end up biking more than 5200 miles, even with the random weeks that fall short.
Last year though, my fourth year of tracking with that 100-mile goal, was the first year that I kept mileage records but didn’t necessarily try to bike that much. Last year was more of an “observe” sort of year: bike when I want to and keep track, but not feel compelled, when I got to Sunday, to ride 14 more miles to get to 100 if I didn’t feel like it. And I ended up riding 5,078 miles — which I find hilarious, since if I’d realized earlier that I was that close I would have busted out a few extra end-of-year miles just for the sake of making it to 5200, ha.
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(certainly with these sorts of unexpectedly nice winter days I could have snuck in some more miles;)
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But I’ve thought a lot about the “settled” biking (just biking whenever I have to get somewhere or I actively want to) vs. the “striving” biking (more closely tracking how far I’ve ridden and stretching my miles out because I’m trying to reach a specific number). I mean, they’re not that far apart, which is interesting. But also, I think I actually like the striving biking better. Or rather, the striving biking helps me do the thing that I actually want to do even though it feels hard sometimes. This year, I’m back on my actively-try-for-at-least-100-miles-a-week tip. Which means that yesterday, for example, when I hadn’t biked at all yet but was tired and it was raining and I didn’t feel like it, I got on my bike anyway just to ride, ending up on my typical fake-commute riverfront loop. And I loved it, and felt much better afterward. Of course, because it basically always makes me happy to be out in the world zooming around on two wheels and seeing the birds and the river and just getting out of my head.
So the striving biking helps me be the person that I want to be, in that sense. Yes: when I’m just biking “when I want” or when I have to get somewhere, I still ride a lot. But the extra incentive of trying to make it to some random number that is just a little bit hard sometimes ensures that I do the thing that makes me happy even when I don’t necessarily think it will make me happy (again, it almost always does).
2025, then, is another year of striving biking, and so far, I am very grateful for that:)