Thursday Thoughts: Long Live Long Rides!

Just what constitutes a long ride?  Time perception is flexible.  Distances can be deceptive too.  It’s sort of like the old conundrum about the length of the coast of England.

How long is the coast of England?  Or put another way, If one were to measure the distance all the way ‘round England, how far would that be?  Well, it depends on how fine the measurement is.  Ignore the effect of tides for this, and imagine a surveying crew moving around the island at the high tide line.  If the surveyors took their measurements at quarter mile increments, they would derive a number, but wouldn’t the coast have some variation between those measurement points?  Certainly there would not be many places where the coast was exactly straight for a quarter of a mile. 

What if the measure was a standard surveyor’s chain of 66 feet?  If this finer scale were used, more of the irregularities of the coast would be mapped, and the distance would be longer.  But wouldn’t there still be irregularities inside each 66 foot length?  (And wouldn’t it take longer to do that many more measurements?)

Suppose the measurements were taken with a yardstick?  A one-foot ruler?  A one-inch caliper?  You see it, don’t you?  The finer the scale, the more “stops” made, the more detail emerges, and the more time is required.

Trips by bicycle can be a lot like that.  I’ve ridden centuries that took only a bit more than four hours.  I didn’t see a lot of countryside while doing that.  Don’t get me wrong, those were pleasurable rides, but casual they were not.  On the other hand, I’ve had times when I spent a day riding about on the bike, going here and there, for more than eight hours.  At the end of the day, I’d had a great time, and experienced much, but actually traveled a bit less than 50 miles.

Oddly, the 4+ hour long centuries seem to have been shorter than the 50- mile “wander days.”  There’s a lot more experience packed into the “walkabout” style ride.

I’ve had incredibly pleasant four and five hour morning rides, spent in good company.  Conversations rambled on, and covered huge topical ranges.  Laughs abounded.  At the end, the experience seemed to have taken only a very short time, and the computer reported a distance of close to 70 miles.

I’ve had times when a mere ten mile ride was an accomplishment and a serious challenge.  When each crank-stroke took an effort of will.  At the end, the satisfaction came from simply having persisted.

What is a long ride?  How do you measure it?