Today ended up being an absolutely crazy ride. A few days ago I was discussing GPS to measure mileage for cycling with my friend Doug Tidd (who got me started this whole cycling craze). Heretofore I've always measured my mileage with the gmaps-pedometer on the computer after returning home, because I didn't have a smart phone. But I realized earlier this week that, since Michelle generously and kindly gave me an iPhone for Christmas, that option was now open to me. So I got the app MapMyRide on the phone, and planned to use it today.
When I started out, it began just fine, and I tucked the phone into the side pocket of my coat and set off. But just as I was approaching Lohr Rd., to leave our complex, I heard it fall out and clatter to the ground. Grateful for acute hearing, I retrieved it and found it to be undamaged, but felt that I should not return it to the pocket, so I tucked it inside the coat, against my belly.
As I rode along, all seemed fine, but I got to thinking that perhaps I should put the phone somewhere more secure, like in the pouch of my hoodie. So, as I neared Ann Arbor - Saline Rd., I stopped, got up, and opened my coat -- and the phone was gone. Absolutely sick about this, I assumed that it must have fallen out somewhere not long after I tucked it inside my coat, so I wheeled around and headed back to our complex, keeping my eyes peeled. But I saw it nowhere along the way back to the spot in question, so I turned around and returned to Ann Arbor - Saline Rd., praying and watching as carefully as I could ... and saw nothing.
To say that I was "distraught" about having lost the phone is quite an understatement ... but then, as I returned to the spot where I had turned around, I spied the phone, lying untouched and undamaged in the middle of the sidewalk! It must have fallen out the first time, when I removed my coat, and I neither heard nor saw it—thus confirming the nickname of "Blindo" by which Michelle so often calls me because of my inability to see what should be obvious. Quickly checking it, and finding that my ride so far had taken about 22 minutes (this included the time that it was sitting on the ground while I rode back to look for it) and had been about .85 miles, I put it into the pouch of my hoodie—more securely positioned this time—and set off again.
I had planned to do several loops of a route that takes me by our former church, Westminster Presbyterian, and did one such route. (The map of it below is a screen capture from that same gmaps-pedometer app that I mentioned earlier.) But as I neared the end of it, I entertained a vigorous mental debate as to whether I should accept one loop as good enough for today, or press on, since there was really no reason not to. However, in the end, on a cold and clammy day (39°), I decided to accept the shortened ride with gratitude.
Then came the final weirdness, however. When I pulled up in front of our garage and took my phone out to end the ride and check my stats, the time and distance were the same as they had been when I retrieved the phone! I don't know whether it's positioning against my belly prevented it from receiving the GPS signal from the satellite, or whether I somehow paused or suspended it when I picked it up again. Fortunately, though, I was able to use my watch to time myself, and revert to my former computer method of figuring the mileage, to determine that I rode 6.7 miles in 59 minutes I hope I can figure out this peculiarity of MapMyRIde next time I use it! And the mixups left me just shy of 400 miles for the year—but at least I know I should easily make that tomorrow when I ride. But I was a little over 500 miles by the end of March last year, so I have some catching up to do!
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