2006 Bike Mileage Goal

(From 7/15/06 on my old blog)

Prior to acquiring my current bike, I had an old Schwinn road bike – a 10 speed Continental that I bought after graduating from college in about 1980. It was over 20 years old and was definitely old hat. It had drop handlebars and therefore when riding you had to lean over quite a bit and turn your head up to look forward. This put some strain on my neck so I had found over the years riding this bike that it often really bothered me when riding long distances.

While I lived in the Dallas, Texas area during 1983-1997, I really didn’t ride that much due to the lack of decent places to ride. That city was not very bike friendly.

I moved to Highlands Ranch, Colorado near Denver in1997. Denver is very bike friendly so I did ride the old Schwinn quite a bit more than I rode in Texas. But it still bothered my neck and I couldn’t very well ride it on some of the routes I was interested in that were not paved.

I discovered that Trek had a line of bikes called comfort bikes. I went and tried one out at the local Bicycle Peddler store and ended up buying a Trek Navigator 300 comfort bike. These bikes are designed to be comfortable in just about every way. The seat is comfy, you ride more upright so there is no neck tension, and it has shock absorbers in both the seat post and the front fork. The bike has fat tires that are somewhat like the tires on mountain bikes but not nearly as knobby. So the bike is designed for both on the road as well as crushed gravel trails like the Highline Canal and Waterton Canyon trails. Probably not mountain bike trails, though.

This bike has quite a range of gears with 3 in front and 8 in the back making it a 24 speed bike - quite different from the old Schwinn 10 speed.

I just passed the 3000 mile mark on my bike today. This is also halfway to my goal of riding 1000 miles in 2006. I don’t think I rode even 1500 miles total on the old Schwinn in the 20 years I had it (I didn't have an odometer). Now I’ve put 3000 miles on this new bike and this is only my fourth summer with it.