PolarLava::Blog

My ride this morning put me over the 20,000 mile mark.  This represents the distance I've petaled since I got serious about riding and started to keep track of my results it 1995.  (There's probably a few thousand miles from before then, but I really have no idea as to how much.) Being my first entry was in the spring of that year, it took me just over 9 years to reach this point.  That's about 2,185 miles/year and represents a total of just over 1138 hours (~47.5 days!) in the saddle.  Thus if I continue at the same rate, events to look forward to in the future would be 25K in late 2006, 50K in mid 2017 and 100K in early 2041!  You can see all the wonderful stats on my cycling homepage.  All of this just indicates that I need to start riding more…

I was absolutely shocked to hear the news reports [1][2]that "Il Pirata", The Pirate died this past weekend at only 34 years of age.  Marco had been dealing with a lot personal issues in the past couple of years and unfortunately, never got a chance for true redemption in the professional cycling world.  A lot of charges had been leveled against him, many which he was cleared of after a long battle.  Was he completely innocent?  We may never know, although my personal believe was that unfortunately he likely was not.  But prior to his troubles, Marco was clearly the most amazing climber I had ever seen.  At his peak, this man could go up mountains fasters than anyone in the sport.  His life and career were far too short.  Rest in peace Il Pirata.

[Updated: 07:41am EST, 22 Mar 2004]
And the sad news continues as it has now been confirmed by the inquest that Marco's death was caused by an "acute cocaine intoxication".

All data for 1995 has been entered. 6.56 miles indoors and 1126.44 miles outdoors for a yearly total of 1133.00 miles. That completes the entry of all of the old data that I have recorded. There are thousands of miles that will remain unacounted for from my childhood (1964-1985) and my first attempt at being a somewhat serious cyclist (1986-1988). The time from 1989-1994 I rode very little if at all. This was during the time which I relocated from Illinois to New York and was traveling extensively for my new job. 1995 marks the beginning of when I began to ride again and start to take my riding seriously. So, being I have no data from before then, I consider 1995 the beginning of my CycleLog "lifetime".

All data for 1996 has been entered. 630.71 miles indoors and 1675.22 miles outdoors for a yearly total of 2305.94. On to the final stretch...1995

All data for 1997 has been entered. 558.98 miles indoors and 2614.10 miles outdoors for a yearly total of 3173.08. This was the most miles I've ever cycled in one calender year.