Megameter

Last night marked my 1,000th recorded km on my bike. My actual biked distance is higher than that, since I occasionally let my GPS batteries die, or forgot to turn it on, or it lost a signal. However, it is close enough.

First off, a map of everywhere I've cycled. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of overlap, particularly on the Iron Horse Trail between home and work.

(Click to Enlarge)

Start Date: December 15, 2007
Total Distance: 1,008 km
Total Time: 66:28:24
Average Speed: 15.2 km/h
Max Speed: 52.6km/h
(Northbound on Victoria St. This exceeds the speed limit. Yay!)

1,000km is roughly two tanks of gas, at say $60/tank, or $120. Which means riding my bike for an hour saves me on average $1.80 in gas. No wonder it's hard to get the general population to ride to work...the incremental money savings are negligible.

Alternatively, if you assume that my riding a bike saves us from having a second car, and you figure even a modest $500/month in total cost of ownership for a second vehicle (insurance, payments, gas, parking, maintenance, etc.), then I saved 9 x $500 = $4,500, or $68/hour when I ride my bike. Of course, this assumes my bike is free.

Up, up, and away

Went for a Hot Air Balloon ride last night. Thanks to my trusty GPS, I can show you where we went:
Went directly over a few of our friends houses, and moderately close to our own.



The whole trip was a little over an hour, and we travelled 13.85km, with a peak height of 1400m or so. Lots of fun.

Because we Can

Our little vegetable garden is producing a very large number of tomatoes. Making things even more interesting is that our weekly CSA veggie box has been providing a steady stream of tomatoes as well. Our counter and fridge are overflowing.

On the suggestion of some friends who actually know what the heck they're doing as mini-farmers, we decided to start canning. Attempt #1: Tomato & Corn salsa.

• 12 cups of diced tomatoes
• 8 cups of corn
• Cider vinegar
• Magic spice packet from Bernardin

We haven't tried eating the salsa yet, that will likely happen tonight.

Surprisingly, at least to me, you can get 12 cups of diced tomatoes from very few tomatoes. I was hoping this would use up our stockpile, but it didn't even come close. Next up? Probably some sort of tomato sauce.