My Bicycling Hobby
Posted by Troy Eckhardt on October 18, 2008 at 11:22 pm
On 10 August, 2007 I began an active attempt to ride my bike, a slightly modified 1993 Diamondback Topanga, at least ten miles every day. Since that date 435 days ago, I have only taken trips on 153 days, which averages one trip every 2.84 days and is a bit short of my “every day” goal. My daily mileage average is 3.94 miles per day, falling short of my plans to tackle ten miles each day. I don’t feel too bad about these failures though, because I lead a very active life and time is often short.
I am happy, however, with the other statistics regarding my bicycling. On each of those 153 trips I averaged 11.19 miles, for a total of 1712.7 miles. When I do go out, I very, very rarely return before riding at least ten miles.
The illustration above is a map of parts of North, Central, and South America. Superimposed on the map is a circle with a radius of 1712.7 miles, the total mileage I’ve traveled by bicycle since beginning the project. The circle is centered on my home in Glenwood, FL, USA and appears warped because of the curvature of the Earth. The image represents any geographic point to which I could have traveled since the beginning of my project. Of course, I could not really have pedaled over water, and I could not really have traveled in a straight line for very far. The effect, however, is impressive to me. If I were from a more central part of the country, I could have covered all parts of every one of the 48 continental states.
According to this map, I could have reached any part of 37 states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. I could also have made it to any part of the District of Columbia.
The circle partially covers Colorado, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming, and I could not have made it to any part of only eight states: Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.
I could have also reached any part of The Bahamas, Belize, Costa Rico, Cuba, The Dominican Republic, El Salvador, The Grenadine Islands, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, Tobago, Trinidad, and The Virgin Islands, as well as some parts of Canada, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela.
