four year streak

I have ridden my bike everyday for four years. FOUR YEARS. Everyday.

My desire to ride everyday started in 2019 when I was out of work. While I looked for a job and waiting for responses from potential employers, I needed to do something in my control. Cycling made me feel good so I did it everyday. I usually rode between 15-20 miles. I would have liked to go farther and longer but guilt kept me from doing that as I should be looking for a job.

Once I got a job, I wanted to keep riding at least 15 miles per day. Fifteen miles is two loops around our development. I started work at 7:00 am and had about a 30 minute drive to the office. This meant getting up early. Earlier than my usual 5:00 am wake up. I woke up at 4:00 am and rode for about 75 minutes, had a smoothie for breakfast (I could drink while unloading the dishwasher, etc), showered, then went to work.

In January 2020, I got sick. I think it was a cold that morphed into bronchitis but I never went to the doctor. Some days, I just couldn’t ride. It took some weeks to finally get over it. I went back to riding everyday.

screenshot from love to ride app

I didn’t really pay attention to my streak until I got an app called Love to Ride. The first page shows some data including streaks for days ridden and weeks ridden. Oh! Once I got to 500 days, it seemed impressive. Some days, the rides were short but never less than 15 minutes.

Now that I am nearing 1,500 days, I can’t let the streak go.