Advice on how to increase miles riddwn

[OakLeaf]

It's been a while since I had a >5000 mile year. And I didn't have a job the last time I did it. But the first few times I did, sometimes a pretty demanding job (60+ hours a week), sometimes two jobs, and before that, some years when I was a full-time student living off campus and working part time, with all the same household chores as a working person. The one thing I don't have, is children. I would think someone would be hard pressed to get that kind of mileage with small children at home unless it was all commuter miles.

Averaging 100 miles a week isn't that much. Commuting does boost the total quite a bit, even a short commute - five miles one way gives you 50 mpw if you work five days. But even if you get to work some other way and all your miles are recreational, that's just one weekend morning (50 miles) and a couple of quick evening rides (25 miles each). Lots of people count their trainer "miles" if they ride indoors when it's dark or when the weather's nasty.

The miles I ride at night have never contributed much to my yearly mileage. I will occasionally run errands or go out to dinner on quiet village streets/MUPs. Never rode anything longer than 6 miles in the dark in my life, and it's usually much shorter.



Besides my current injury, the main thing that's contributed when I don't have a lot of miles on the bike, is other cardio, whether it's the running I do now or the years I was a gym rat. Seven or eight hours of cardio a week is kind of a minimum for my sanity, really, not to mention my physical health, whatever activity I get it in. If you'd rather get your cardio some other way, if you even have a job that's physically demanding that counts, I don't think there's anyone here who's going to look down on you for not having foul-weather riding gear or whatever.