It's the time, not the miles

I always get a kick out bikers that compare the number of miles they've ridden. To me it's more important to track my time on the bike, not the miles. Good thing too, on today's ride there was an hour where I was lucky to average more than 7 mph.

I got out early this morning while the temps were low, 12 degrees at the start, which meant the roads and trails would be frozen. That turned out to be both good and bad as some of the roads had some ice and so did the trails, expecially the heavily travelled ones. I managed to do a lap at Addison Oaks where no one had ridden but it was slow riding since there was still snow in the woods and lots of branches down forcing dismounts.

Another problem with the cold was that after about 2.5 hours my camelbak tube had frozen and my remaining bottle of energy drink was turning to slush. I use Polar bottles which help keep the bottles from freezing as fast as normal bottles. I changed my route to ride to a Subway where I had them throw my partially frozen bottle in the microwave to thaw and filled my empty bottle with very hot water. Having nutrition and hydration meant I could keep riding so I as able to put in another 1.5 hours for a four hour total ride today.