Because I don’t want to brain today, i thought i could just tell you about my rides. I enjoy doing enduro rides (rides longer than 100km. It is time that I don’t have some times).
I ride 5 days a week with two days for rest, that is Friday and Sunday. Those two days I walk or run. I have not always been this active. I have always had a reason to not run or cycle until Covid and then the government put restrictions on movement into and out of Nairobi, encouraged employers to allow their employees to work from home. It then occurred to me I could actually be active & boy, I have tried.
This week I have been on the bike for a total of 16hrs 42 minutes, covered a distance of 407.2 km (253 miles for Muricans) and climbed a total of 5,065m (16,617,45 ft again for bloody Muricans). Why do they insist on using feet, miles and pounds?
The longest ride was 182km and the shortest 37km. I am trying to train to run 5km. Most of my runs & walks this week were a few metres short of 5km. Hopefully I will get to run 5km in under 30 minutes.
Random thoughts 
Impressive!
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Thank you. My butt is on fire sometimes
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That happens to me after I eat too many Serrano peppers. 😀
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Hahaha. I feel your pain. I have had my days with hot chillies
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I suspect your body is loving you.
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Generally it is responding well to activities. I think the answer is yes
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No! Sport = Mort
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Stay with it, Mak! You will never regret keeping your body in shape.
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Nan, some of my friends are saying I look like a high schooler 😭
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And that’s bad? 😮
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Yeah. They might confuse me for a child when I visit my local😁
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We have the metric system here in the States. I’ve even noticed that it’s been getting more use here. Progress comes in baby steps.
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Finally!
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700 mm tubes and tires! 🙂
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This is great progress 😁
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Wow. Well done!
The only exercise program I’ve ever been able to stick with successfully was walking. (With podcasts to help lighten the boredom.) It’s sufficient for health, but not for fitness.
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Thanks Mike.
I want to see how long I can keep to running. Biking I enjoy.
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Good you have something you enjoy, & have the space to do it. One of the best things about where we live….no crowds, & lots of space around us. Love the map, gives me a better idea of your rides.
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I tried to have a Strava widget so it is easy to view those rides but I was unsuccessful. This ride was mostly on a busy road.
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Oh….busy road, not so great, but you’re getting out, & that’s important.
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Busy sections of road is not so much fun.
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No, & not too safe either.
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Awesome schedule, Maka.
Especially w/r/t the climbing! But I am forcing my plump butt to do more climbing! I did 70 miles and 4500 feet near the ocean yesterday. I love the California coast. It can be foggy and 62 in one place (Half Moon Bay) and 82 and sunny a short distance inland (La Honda) Anyway, the coast had not only hill after hill after hill but nasty headwinds! I would rather climb. 🙂 I only did 2500 feet today, but there were some serious climbs! And it was hot! Inland Solano County is not Half Moon Bay.
Unfortunately, I randomly decided “it is time to replace my poor old chain” which necessitated replacing the rear cluster, which I did. Now I need to replace the worn out front chain ring. Noisy as heck because of chain pulling! Unfortunately, the American bicycle industry is in a frenzy. When people can’t shop or dine out or go to the mall, they have been bicycling. Which is good, but it means the bicycle industry distribution system is backlogged and has completely broken down. My local shop has NO BICYCLES TO SELL. If the two chain rings in the official Specialized system are not really there, it may be a LONG time before I can replace my chain ring. Which means riding flats in my big ring!
Sorry to hijack your thread! My gym has reopened and I am with some trepidation lifting weights again. Damn is my upper body week, and I was SORE! 🙂
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I have never seen so many bike shops around NAI as now. I think many people realised they can cycle during the lock down. I hope you get the components you need. Here, to get good quality components is a hastle.
This week I would like to do just flats. I should change neighbourhoods. Where I live, whichever way I go, there are climbs waiting for me.
As for weather, ours tend not to vary that much.
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All is good. Another shop I patronize for years had a chain ring I could use. Of course, being there anyway, I also bought some bib shorts I don’t really need. And a Jer$ey! This is why I patronize local shops rather than buying for (slightly) cheaper online The shop owners will take care of you, even though he is busy as hell!
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Here, there is very little choice for bike shops and most are pricey. I would rather use my local bike mechanic. To get bib shorts or jerseys (the range is limited) is also not an easy task
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When I win the Lotto, I will send you some! 🙂
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Most of the people I know don’t bet and it is likely you don’t. So this is me not seeing any lotto money 😭
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Bravo!
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Thanks Tish
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Very good. We’ll keep using miles so long as everybody keeps converting it for us…. I know you like the metric system because it looks from here like you rode farther than you did. I mean, what’s better, a 60mph fastball, or one at 100kph? Bigger is better
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Haha Jim.
The metric system is just so easy to use
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I adapted well to it while living in panama. We’ve made some big pushes to switch in the past, but it just gains no support. Maybe christians here think it would throw off the timing of the resurrection, or the second coming?
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There are Christians unhappy we don’t still use Edwardian English a la The King James Bible! It’s like the Muslims with Arabic!
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let me go back and live in those centuries
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The language IS pretty for sure. Thou beest the bestest rider upon the steel steed, Maka!
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Wow this definitely is impressive
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Thank you
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Metric is great for precision measurements and ease of use, but the problem is that all the old idioms and expressions would sound awkward in metric.
“Give someone an inch and they’ll take a mile” is smoother than “Give someone 2.54 cm and they’ll take 1.609344 km”
“Wouldn’t touch that with a 10 foot pole” has a nicer ring to it than “Wouldn’t touch that with an 3.048 m pole”
“A pint’s a pound the world around” rolls off the tongue easier that “0.473 L is 0.4535924 kg the world around”
And “Inching your way along” sounds better than “Centimetering your way along”
Not to mention all the songs written in the old system.
The Andrew Sisters’ song “Bushel and a Peck” in metric would change from “I love you a bushel and a peck” to “I love you 35.24 L and 881 ml” — i.e. not very romantic.
Sammy Hager’s “I can’t drive 55” in metric would be “I Can’t Drive 88.5” (OK, that one might work)
But The Proclaimers “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” wouldn’t.
But I would walk 804.672 km
and I would walk 804.672 more
Just to be the man who walked 1609.344 km
To fall down at your door.
Or The Who’s “I Can See for Miles” (I Can See for Kilometers)
Though I suppose Foreigner’s “Hot Blooded” could be reworked from
I’m hot blooded, check it and see
I’ve got a fever of a hundred and three
to
I’m hot blooded, check it and see
I’ve got a fever of thirty-nine C
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You have made a good case for Imperial measures. But every time I read 100 degree F, I have to find a converter. 39 deg C makes immediate sense.
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Like any language, we are more comfortable using the one spoken in our locale. By choice, I coaxed myself to become familiar with both measurement systems. Generally, I like metric for ease of use and the simplicity of conversion between SI measures, but still prefer using feet, pounds and inches for body measures. For temperatures, I can easily go either way with little effort. And to round it out, I still prefer the North American legal/letter paper sizes even though the ISO 216 ones (A0, A1, etc) appears to be more logical.
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I have grown up on the metric system maybe that explains why i find it much easier to use. I can easily figure 10kph but not 10mph. Of all, temperature and weights are the ones that give me the headaches.
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Unless you trade directly with the U.S., I don’t think there’s any point to learning the old system. And I think that by hook or by crook the U.S. will eventually adopt most of the SI system over the next few decades, starting with fluid measures. The inertia is largely due to the cost of retooling from one system to the other.
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The US will have finally become civilised when they learn to play cricket
😉
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Do you see that happening in this century?
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You never know!
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I’m not much into spectator sports, but if bats and balls are what it takes to be call oneself civilized, then we have baseball.
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You and I together. I am not into spectator sports.
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That is some serious roadwork.
Oh, and ignore Ron. Metric is ten times better. He’s just miles behind the rest of civilisation.
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Wow! That is brilliant! Bike shops are doing well here too, lots more people on the roads as there are far fewer cars than there were before Covid. I used to love cycling …. Enjoy your wonderful rides. 🙂
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Cycling is fun when there are no cars.
I think if we can talk of a benefit to the pandemic, it’s gotten lots of people to exercise
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Hey, Maka…took today off and BICYCLED! Record ride for the year! Did 91 miles with 1000 meters of altitude, including one mile long climb at 7-9% grade. (I mixed my measurement systems! Ron’s head may explode! (I kid, I kid))
Ran into an issue with the very sharp climate differences here in Northern California. I rode early enough that it wasn’t hot, and my turn around point benefited from a stiff bay breeze that kept things very comfortable. By the time I got back to MY county though, I was cooking. There is one little hill that is completely exposed to the sun, it was 97 degrees F, and I just ROASTED as I did the little climb (it’s 7%, so it makes you work for about 1/2 mile!)
Feel a sense of accomplishment! I did not make it a full century though-it was just too hot and I didn’t feel like doing the extra 7 miles. 😦
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That’s a long ride Brian. Maybe I should export our weather to you. My last long ride we started with temps of 55.4 F and ended at 68F, humidity was at 100% and 80% respectively.
I know this feeling.
I want to see if all my weekend rides can be a proper century (100 miles+)
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Yes indeed! I did get yelled at by some doofus because I was NOT riding in the “door zone” (right next to the parked cars-a hazard if someone opens a car door). Of course, the doofus opened the door of his moving minivan to yell at me. The middle finger exists for a reason, folks. Use it appropriately! 🙂
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Motorists are a special type. I have not gotten to understand why most have beef with cyclists
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Enjoy it while you are young! I used to do tours of more than a hundred km about 20 years ago. Now I do between 20 and 60 a day. Over the last three weeks, I have been biking for about 620 km. Every day a little bit, with a day off from it from time to time, as long a the weather alows it (which is now quite often, due to climate change – it is far too dry on average).
Maybe Kenyans are going to dominate long distance biking one day the way they dominate long distance running.
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Last I saw you, you were taking care of your old lady. How is she doing?
620km in 3 weeks is good.
Time permitting, I would do a minimum of 500km a week.
We would need a bit of investment to make it on the cycling championship. Long tours are fun though, without the stress of competition.
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Well, my mother has died in May. She was 90 years old. Tomorow would have been her 91st birhtday. The funeral will only be held next week fryday. We had to wait for some time because we are expecting lots of guests and needed one of the larger chapels on the graveyard (Ohlsdorf graveyard in Hamburg, the biggest one in the world, where the family grave is) where keeping distance is possible. Only after my mother had died, I was able to get out biking regularly again. Taking care of a terminally ill person and working full time (“luckily” in home office, I don’t know how I would have coped otherwise) leaves no time for that.
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I am sorry to hear of your loss.
When you wrote you have been cycling that much, I gathered there has to be some change in the situation with your mum.
My heartfelt condolences to you.
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