I often get asked by customers which do I prefer, road riding or mountain bike riding. I enjoy both, I log more road miles than trail miles. Road riding is a great way to get in a good ride in a short amount of time. Road riding tends to be easier on the body than trail riding. I often tell people I don't think there is such a thing as an easy trail ride. This is definitely true if you go out riding with a group of freinds. I know there has been plenty of times me and a riding buddy would start at the parking lot at the Poto with one of us saying "lets go easy today", and the other saying "sounds good to me". Yeah the ride starts off easy enough, then the lead rider notices the other is right on his wheel, so he ups his pace thinking he his going to slow. So naturaly the second rider has to respond by uping his pace, then in turn the lead rider goes a little faster, before you know it your at full race pace and looking for places to pass each other. At the end of the ride we each look at one another and ask "I thought we were going easy today?". I like trail riding maybe just a little more than road riding.

Riding trails takes a different skill set and concentration which I like because it helps to relieve stress from that days worries. I have done 2-3 hour trail rides where it felt like I was out riding for a half an hour. The time passes by so fast when you are concentrating on picking smooth lines, remembering the brake and shift point of the trail. Not to say that ridding on the road is'nt fun. The great thing about doing a road ride is you can cover a longer distance at a faster speed, which in it self is fun. Plus it is nice to be able to go out on the road and spin for a few easy miles. The hills typicly are not as a steep of a grade as what you would find on a trail, so that alone makes it a little easier. Trail riding can be a full bodie work out with trying to control the bike over rough terain at speed. The other nice thing about doing a road ride, you don't have to load up a car and drive any where to do it. All you have to do is walk out the front door and go for a ride.

Last Sunday was our first un-official official group ride. We had a good turn out despite the cold temps and high winds. The group ended up doing about 22 miles. Me and Lee rode to the shop from our neighborhood. Which gave Lee a total of 33 miles, I rode home after the ride and got in almost 44 miles for the day. Looks like this weekend should be a little warmer. It is nice to get out side and ride, the trainer sucks. Soon the trails will be ready to ride and then we will be able to mix it up a little.

The other night while I was on the trainer the odometer rolled over to 11,000 miles. It got me to thinking, how many miles have I ridden in the past 19 years? I never kept a log book or anything like that. That mileage was on the road bike, which I don't really ride that much. I know that I had changed computers at least once as well as batteries. I never bother to enter the old mileage info when I replace batteries. My commuter bike, which began it's life as my first race bike only occasionally had a computer on it. I conservatively estimate it has maybe 70,000 to 80,000 miles on it. I have had 5 different race bikes that had been used for training/racing and out of state trail rides. I know for sure not all of those bikes had computers on them. I just wonder if I have broken 100k? I'm sure that I have, but by how much? In a way I wish I would have kept track, instead of thinking the people that do are dorks. Oh well time to get on the bike and ride some more miles that I will not keep track of.