How it all began
In the summer of 1993 I started work in an office a couple of miles from home. I started cycling to work when the weather was good, using a knackered old bike that I think had been rescued a year or two before from a skip. In January 1994 I bought a second-hand road bike, or "racer" as we used to call them when we were kids, for £60. After a few weeks use I started to become curious as to how fast and how far I was going, so I bought a cycling computer a month later and fitted it to the bike. I was keen to discover how far it was to work and back, although I already had a fair idea of the distance from trips made in the car. I soon discovered that it was just over four miles to work, one way. One week in May 1994 I decided to record my weekly mileage on a piece of paper. The following week I thought it would be a fun task to try and beat that score, so on Monday morning I reset the counter and started again from zero. Oh oh. That was the start of the proverbial slippery slope. It's proved to be a very long slope and one that as yet has no end.
I kept on recording my weekly scores from then on, creating a spreadsheet for the express purpose. I posted my first week of doing 100 miles that July. I remember the occasion very well. After a week of steady accruement, I rolled home on Sunday afternoon just as the display changed to say 100. I was so staggered by this achievement that for the rest of the day I put my feet up at home and basked in the glory of what seemed to be an amazing feat. Oddly, it was to be a full year before I bothered chasing down another ton. For the first three years of measuring my distances, I steadily improved each year without breaking 3000 miles in total. That was to change in 1997...
I can't remember what pushed me start hitting the roads more regularly that year. Personal ambition I think. I just decided to go out and start getting more miles, just to see how far I could push myself. By the end of the year I'd just nudged my way over 6000 miles, doubling the efforts of the previous year. That was a fine effort, but from January 1998 I really went for it. Right from the off, if I had a spare hour (or even less), I'd fill it by jumping on my bike and getting some more miles done. Crazy times, particularly in the late summer and into autumn, when I posted scores of 200+ miles on no fewer than six occasions. I think I killed some of the fun of it by the end of the year, not surprisingly. A year that ended with me boasting a total of 7181 miles. I've never come close to it since; I saw out 1999 with a modest 4742 miles.
From the year 2000 onwards, my cycling efforts drifted backwards for a couple of reasons, so I posted annual totals of 3000 miles and under until 2007, when things started to perk up. For some time I've settled into a weekly routine. I set myself a target of 100 miles every week - hence the title of this blog. I know that if I stick to this, I can achieve a final score for the year of around 5000 miles. In 2011 I managed 5736, my third best result since records began in 1994. This year I've set a target of 6000. Let's see if I can do it.
My current beast
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