It’s April! That means 30 Days of Biking and biking every day and hopefully blogging about it each day.
Last day of #30daysofbiking! I noticed I was sort of close to 600 miles for the month, but wasn’t motivated to do anything epic to commemorate the day, with the weather being icky and a writing deadline looming. So after bringing the kids to school and spending an hour making copies and hanging Walk & Bike to School Month tally sheets outside each classroom door, I made for a coffee shop with my laptop. I stopped by Trader Joe’s on my way home and saw a bike share bike locked to the rack. Pricey trip considering starting tomorrow bikes are free all month. Bike: Surly Big Dummy.
School pickup was the usual. Bike: Surly Big Dummy.
And lo and behold, despite not planning on anything special, I was honored with a last-minute guest spot on The Sprocket Podcast so I got to make one last biggish trip which pushed me over 600 miles (not that it’s about mileage). Bike: Surly Straggler.
Which got me wondering what sort of mileage I pulled over the last two 30 Days of Bikings:
2017: 258.6 miles
2016: 437.3 miles
Go figure. I had the feeling I bike more nowadays, both because Portland is flatter than Seattle and because I’m eager to explore all over the place. I imagine that will mellow out once I’ve seen everything…but maybe not! I guess I’ll find out in a year. It’s fun recording mileage every April, but I don’t tend to do so regularly otherwise. Last year using the battery-draining Ride Report app for Bike Everywhere Month was just too much for me and made me stop recording stuff all together once May was over. But for now, I’m going to try to keep at it (with a Garmin device I move from bike to bike that uploads to my Strava account) until it gets to be too much. Yay bikes!
April trips tracked on Strava
Today’s miles: 26.32
Total April miles: 601.92
Family Ride 
What Garmin do you have, and do you like it? I’m wanting to upgrade from my small Garmin Edge 20. What matters most to me is preloading courses and ease of navigation from those courses. (As well as battery life)
Ooh, I know your pain — I had a Garmin Edge 25 first. I loathed the short battery life and then it died as soon as the warranty wore out. So I just copied a friend who had had the same thing happen to her Edge 25 and did all the research and now we both have Garmin Edge 520. I love it, but I don’t know if it does routes. (Looking at the website, it looks like my regular Edge 520 does *not* do maps, but that Edge 520 Plus is color — ooh! — and does map stuff…not that I can recommend it based on personal experience, but I bet it’s great!)
Thanks for the info! Looks like Most people are using the 520 or 820 these days, so I’ve narrowed it down to those two!