Eyes On The Prize

Hi all,

I live!  Although it has been a somewhat quiet existence; at least as far as blogging is concerned. The riding has continued and I have seen some notable markers of success over the past four months. Also, due to my exceptional niceness over the year Santa delivered a Samsung Galaxy Nexus just in time for Christmas. With its GPS and bank of bike computer applications I've been able to collect some interesting visualisations of commuting on the island.

Silver Wing's latest look

You may recall from earlier posts (Sounds Like A Good Idea and Water, Water, Everywhere) that my initial goals were to discard 30 pounds and achieve a commute time of about 40 minutes.  Since then I've upped the ante another 10 pounds to target a total loss of 40 pounds.  Over the last four months I've been reasonably consistent, completing three to four round-trips each week (90 to 120 km per week) in varying weather conditions. 

One might be curious as to the total loss thus far.  Twelve pounds; post holiday festivities.  Not exactly meeting the goal of a pound per week but reasonably close to it considering there was an abundance of meat and sweets whom I refused to refrain from entertaining. If I batten down the hatches for the next few months by reviving conscientious eating habits I may be able to get back on track.  However, the belt pin has moved down two spaces and am comfortably wearing trousers two inches narrower at the waist from four months prior. I'd say that performance is slightly south of satisfactory given the starting requirements.

Commuting time as experienced much better performance.  I endured a commute of 59 minutes and 22 seconds on the maiden voyage just four months ago with an average speed of 16km/h.  These days the 15km is completed around 40 minutes with average speeds ranging from 20km/h up to 22km/h.  I'd like to get the speed higher and am investing in additional kit to assist this aim.

I have some maps and bits obtained with the assistance of the Android Market My Tracks app.  I'll chat about these in another post.  I'm cutting down on post length in the hopes that it will be easier to post more often.  It is quite an undertaking to maintain post of previous lengths on a frequent.

Thanks for reading,

Edmund