"A little, a little..."

 There's a saying in Greek that goes "a little, a little, makes a lot."  Reflective of an Orthodox understanding that the process of our salvation takes time, and little steps.

At any rate, that's become the mantra of my cycling.  I keep track of my rides:  distance, time, average and max speeds over at bikejournal.com (see sidebar).  Depending on how you configure your journal, you have the option to track a great deal of information.  The two numbers that matter to me most are distance and average speed - especially average speed over the same route.  Distance is important because it tells me how hard I'm (not) working.  If my distance numbers for a time period are low (like last year), it tells me I'm being lazy and not getting out there.  So, although my rides are all short, its fun to watch the odometer slowly tick upwards.

The number that really means a lot to me is the average speed.  Ideally you should keep your cadence to between 70 and 90 rpm.  That keeps your heart rate in the right zone (no, I don't have a heart rate monitor - yet :) ), and protects your knees.  Below 70 rpm you are likely "mashing" and not spinning, and that can put a lot of stress on the knee.  So, to increase speed you need to gear up within that cadence range.  In order to do that, you need stronger legs and greater stamina.  I still stop and rest more often than I'd prefer - on the hills, that is, but less than I used to.  Overall, I've been observing a steady increase in speed over the same routes.  Some of this is from inflating my tires closer to their maximum, which makes the steering a bit over-responsive at speed, but reduces drag on the trike.

Today I was reminded of the "a little, a little..." maxim.  I did a route I've only done once before.  I ride over to Catherine's school, then uphill for quite a long time, then back down to the house.  About 4.5 miles overall.  Well, when I got off the trike, I saw that I had averaged only 9.1 mph, when I've been up between 9.5 and 10 on a couple of other routes (compared to 6 when I first got the trike).  Well, when I compared the average to the last time I rode that route two weeks ago, I realized that I had only averaged 8.3 the last time.  So real progress is being made.

In this vein, I have to share this story, from over at the recumbent blog (now added to my blogroll).  Talk about someone who gets "a little, a little..."  If I had taken 3 hours to ride 2 miles my first time, I don't think I would have had the character to keep after it.