If you are new to me or not seen it in my Facebook & Twitter posts, I have been blogging daily throughout April about #30daysofbiking, but this isn't my 1st one as I did it in April & September last year too. See 30-days-of-biking & 'Autumn' 30-days-of-biking for my previous blogs under Wolfies Blog.
Now if you haven't heard of it then here’s the site which tells more about this global event '30 days of biking story', quite simply it’s a pledge: Ride somewhere every day for 30 days then share your adventures online.
So why did I do this 30 days of biking? Well I've done it a few times now & they were a struggle at the time, so thought I do it again to see if I can better myself from the previous 30 Days of Biking as I know in the past 6 months I have improved both me & my bike (now known as The Beast). So I decided this time I had to go further distances & not just around Chelmsford, I have to get myself to travel further out of the City. But as I now have a helmet cam, I thought I try do a blog with video every day too...
So how did I do? Well, obviously the shorter trips I found easier now but with improved times cycling to town & back. But the main things I excelled in was I finally managed to cycle more than 10 - 15 miles, hell I beat that twice by miles as maps below will show...
This was partly coz of changes I had done to The Beast to improve performance & comfort, but also I am still improving the strength & stamina in my legs. I also managed to do a blog every day with video, even if it was a day later due to slow uploading to YouTube. All blogs can be found on the right hand column under April in Archives.
Now for the stats, they really show a difference:
As you can clearly see I not only beaten my previous 30 Days of Biking in September, I did more than double the mileage & in less than double the time. So it shows I am getting faster & more stamina in the past year, but I feel I have hit the limit with my Beast. As nice as the bike is, its a heavy bike from an age gone by.
So until I can get another more suitable & lighter road bike, I doubt I will beat these sort of stats. But I won't replace The Beast, its got me here & it is a nice bike to ride now as I have moulded it to suit me. So when I do get another, The Beast will be the Alpha.
But as for the 30 Days of Biking, the highlight of the whole month was on day 28. I rode in a charity ride Pedal for the J's where I cycled the furthest I ever have done in my life of 35 miles excluding the cycling to & from the Admirals Park & raised money for The J's hospice of over £150 now. A bonus really as I did it more as a challenge to me in doing the miles & no doubt will do more charity rides in years to come as it was fun to do.
