I rode one of our area’s best-established organized century rides today. Beautiful route; many hundreds of riders representing all ability levels. It was a great day.
At the finish, I saw a rider turn his bike upside down–onto the saddle and handlebars–and begin to furiously crank the pedals.
After several minutes, sensing my gaze, he explained: “my computer shows we only went 98.2 miles. I need to get it up to 100 before I post the stats on Facebook.”
For the past year or so, I’ve been conducting an experiment with myself: no social media posts about my racing and endurance adventures, no race T-shirts, no medals in the office… I don’t think there’s anything wrong with any of these things–I just have wanted to make sure my motivations are in the right place. (In other words, I’m testing myself to make sure I really do love the sport, and am not just trying to impress people.)
I have no idea what Facebook Guy’s motivations were for running up his mileage on his computer. But, he was a great reminder (to me) that the metrics that matter most (to me) can’t be measured by my Garmin.
I wonder if he was going to have a Cameron Frye style meltdown and kick his bike out of the conservatory when he realises that spinning the wheel wont adjust the Garmin…
I’m guilty of doing something similar - though I don’t post my numbers online (well, I put them on trainingpeaks, but I don’t post a link to that anywhere). For me I just hate having uneven numbers.
That being said, I cover the extra distance to even it out… in this case, I would have just gotten on the bike and biked the extra 1.8 miles.
Glad to hear you had a great day because you just made mine! That’s truly hilarious.
I also avoid addressing triathlon in most situations outside of training and racing. The most I’ll do is post a few pictures, but only if they’re also good pictures i.e. I don’t post one for each race. Never posted about any of my results or commented on training either. Unless saying “I had fun” when asked in a comment on a picture counts.
After several minutes, sensing my gaze, he explained: “my computer shows we only went 98.2 miles. I need to get it up to 100 before I post the stats on Facebook.”
Right then, you should have slapped him across the face.
I rode one of our area’s best-established organized century rides today. Beautiful route; many hundreds of riders representing all ability levels. It was a great day.
At the finish, I saw a rider turn his bike upside down–onto the saddle and handlebars–and begin to furiously crank the pedals.
After several minutes, sensing my gaze, he explained: “my computer shows we only went 98.2 miles. I need to get it up to 100 before I post the stats on Facebook.” The REAL outrage are the event organizers. 98.2? That is fraud pure and simple. It’s outrageous! Preposterous! Unacceptable!
I assume you were at the North Shore Century Ride? Assuming yes, the guy recently got back into cycling and was really proud of having done 100 miles. I was excited for him too. Spin away!
I rode one of our area’s best-established organized century rides today. Beautiful route; many hundreds of riders representing all ability levels. It was a great day.
At the finish, I saw a rider turn his bike upside down–onto the saddle and handlebars–and begin to furiously crank the pedals.
After several minutes, sensing my gaze, he explained: “my computer shows we only went 98.2 miles. I need to get it up to 100 before I post the stats on Facebook.” The REAL outrage are the event organizers. 98.2? That is fraud pure and simple. It’s outrageous! Preposterous! Unacceptable!
I did an organized century ride last year. I more or less knew the area and knew I was getting close to being back to town at around mile 90 so I started pushing it. Then the route turned right instead of left towards town. I did not know the area enough to know exactly how to get back so I stayed on the route. Mile 100 passed, 101, 102, 103 … Somewhere around mile 105 it became pretty obvious that perhaps I should not have pushed it and started really feeling like crap as I turned back into the wind. When I did finally get back I noted that their century ride was actually a tad over 110. As I was getting my food at the end I mentioned that it was a little long. The answer, “Yeah but we really like that church out there.” Damnit, I didn’t see any church. You mean I rode all that way dead tired and missed the church?
I could see someone wanting to ride another mile or two if they were really intent on riding a century, but spinning the wheels? He should just hire the neighbor kid to take it for a spin.
Come on…haven’t we all gotten to the end of a workout on the trainer and maybe spun for another 30 seconds so that the workout was 70.0TSS not 69.8TSS? Of course in my example, there’s actually “work” being done.
Being that there is a Special Circle of Hell for People that Fudge Their Training Logs … He* might *burn for that one, even if he DID ride around the parking lot to get to an even 100
I cant say I would have ever thought to round out a ride like that by spinning the pedals. What is the point of saying you rode 100 miles and had the “log” to prove it if you had to fudge the log?
And if its a “dumb” bike computer that’s just a wheel sensor with no GPS - then just post the 100.
Just go ride the 1.8 miles. How long could that possibly take? 10 minutes if you are cruising at cool-down pace.
