quantifying our slowness
I got Strava on my phone a couple weeks ago. With all the trail riding and hiking we're doing, I'm kind of curious about how far we're actually going... and I'm also interested after the fact in finding our where, exactly, we went. Of course, for any of that to happen I have to remember to actually turn on the thing, which I had not managed until my ride with Harvey this afternoon. Even then, we'd been going for a good before I was reminded of its existence when we came upon an unmapped trail and I wondered how I might more precisely add it to OpenStreetMaps. If only I had some way to record my GPS track... Oh, yeah! So from that point on we have detailed stats on the ride. Remember how, last month, I wrote about riding slowly for a long time? That's still what we're doing.
In linking Russell Mill Pond with the Billerica State Forest I can conclusively tell you that we traveled 6.54 miles in one hour and twenty-seven minutes of moving time, for an average speed of 4.5 mph. We gained 391 feet of elevation over the ride and topped out at 312 feet above sea level, at the top of Gilson Hill. True, I did reach the exhilarating speed of 20.4 mph on the fire road descending the hill, but going by the numbers our rate overall could certainly be described as plodding. As we experienced it, though, it was no such thing! Most of the miles were on trails that were new to us, and almost all of those trails were fun and interesting.
But I do kind of wonder what my times would have been like if I hadn't been waiting up for Harvey. Obviously, he's both a confident rider and a trooper when it comes to endurance; some of that terrain is challenging, and there was so much of it! But he is only eleven. Someday soon I'm going to head out by myself, and see what kind of numbers I can put up for a loop linking as many different town forests as I can. The results should be interesting... assuming I remember to start Strava, that is.