All Those Miles And I’m Still In Kansas?

One thing I’ve never done in my years of riding is keep track of my overall miles. I could no more tell you how many miles I ride in a month or a year than I could tell you how many unsalted peanuts there are in a 12 ounce can. It just never has mattered to me. I do usually keep track of miles on individual rides but never cumulatively.
Back in May of this year, for whatever reason I’m not sure, I decided to participate in the National Bike Challenge. Things like this I usually avoid as it takes the fun out of riding for me and makes it more chore or exercise like. When I signed up I thought I was to just keep track of my miles for the month of May which is National Bike Month. I figured I could handle it for one month but I later read that it continued until September 30th. I thought about quitting at the end of May as I was finding it hard to remember to track and enter my miles every time I rode (or maybe I’m just too lazy) but instead decided to stick with it the best I could.
Even though I was now keeping track of all my rides and mileage I still hadn’t looked at my total miles until just the other day. I was surprised at what I seen. Today on this last day of July after logging my 13.99 mile ride to the river, I have ridden a total of 706 miles in the last 3 months. I had no idea I was riding this many miles just sight seeing and running errands (note: what I consider “many” I know is nothing to others). So what does it mean? I don’t know but I can’t help but think if I’d rode those miles at one time in one direction right now I could be sitting alongside a Great Lake, the Gulf or high atop a mountain instead of right here at my desk where I started 3 months ago.

More photos from today’s ride to check out the really full Arkansas River…