Peddling my butt around town. Month One.

So, we moved.

We told you that, right?  We didn’t?  Well, we moved.  4 bedrooms instead of two (one for each kid).  Front and back yards.  Washer & dryer (drier?).  Dishwasher (which isn’t hooked up – don’t ask).  Something called “Laths and Plaster” or something like it, which means that hammering is a very dangerous thing.  Drilling, doubly-so.  For less than the increases the folks at Mole Hill were calling “fair.”  I won’t go into it, ‘cause Arwen did it better than I did.  Still on the board though, which should be interesting after the upcoming AGM.

It also is about, oh, let’s call it… 80 blocks away from our old place.  Which was, I think I’ve mentioned, about six blocks from work for me.  This means my morning commute is no longer downhill at idiotic speeds for four minutes, it’s now about 20 minutes of uphill followed by 15 minutes of downhill, with flat bits at the middle and end.  The flat bits and NON-nonstop uphill are all thanks to the utterly faboo cycling maps provided by the good folks at UBC’s Cycling Metro Vancouver site.  I highly suggest using the Restricted Maximum Slope feature, which’ll use the topographical information to suggest a route that’ll stop you from having to pull over and yarf into someone’s flowerbed.

Right, yeah, so I’ve been using a new cycling computer I bought at Mountain Equipment CoOp, and tracking my time, average speed, and distances since I started doing this crazy ride.  Well, since August 5th, at least.

Here’s how I’m doing so far (not bad for an old guy like me, who hasn’t done any REAL riding in about 20 years).  I just looked up my commute from 12th and Commercial to my first ever real techie job, out near where Coquitlam’s Ikea is, and realized it was 19.5km and took about 1hr15min based on 15km/h.  And I’m winded by my new 11.5km?

Anyhoo, looking at my latest data (yes, I’m using a spreadsheet, nerdz), here my stats:

14 Trips (Been only going to or from work in a given day, no round trips, YET)
17.3km/h Average Speed
10.9km Average Distance (mostly due to some idiotic navigation moments)
0:38:02 Average Time

Not too shabby, for an old fart like m’self.

Oh, and IF your particular reader can cope, here’s a little playlist of the sorta thing I tend to wake up to when cycling. That first track? I swear my muscles don’t have a *chance* to whine when I hear that.