Monday, January 2, 2017

The Annual Odometer Reset

Happy New Year Everybody!!


I hope y'all had a safe and happy celebration. I spent New Year's Eve mostly working on setting up a new server for my websites. Midnight came and went in the midst of a lengthy tutorial from CatMan on Secure Socket Layer and https Security Certificates - he's a hopeless romantic, that one.

Over the past few years I've developed a little ritual on New Year's Day of resetting the odometers on both my bike and car. (Well, for the car you don't actually reset the odometer, just the little "trip tracker" thing, which I use to track my annual mileage - but you know what I mean.)

Anyhow, resetting the bike odometer generally involves a somewhat lengthy and drawn out battle with the bike computer.


Is it just me, or does it seem like the smaller the device is, the more complicated the instructions are?


Truth be told, I'm not really very goal oriented when it comes to tracking things like mileage, but I do find it fun to look back and see how many miles I rode and compare it to the number I drove.

So, without further ado... I present my miles for 2016:

I logged 2,645.4 miles on my bike last year... that's about a hundred more than 2015 and not too shabby, if I do say so myself!


Meanwhile, I drove only 537.9 miles... which is about 100 less than the year before. Yay!


And yes, that's the total mileage on my 1990 Honda Civic. I can't decide if that's evidence of great frugality and environmentalism, or simply a person who has no life! Either way, I think it fits nicely with my goal of keeping my little car alive until such time as the internal combustion engine becomes obsolete.

As I'm writing this, it occurs to me that resetting the odometer is a good metaphor for the new beginning that this time of year offers. While I certainly didn't accomplish everything I wanted to, I did make great progress on many fronts, and now it's time to start anew with a clean slate.


And since it's a gorgeous day out there, I'm hoping to start writing on that slate right away with a nice bike ride before the cold weather returns tomorrow! Maybe this will be the year that we'll finally work our way up to the big 65 mile loop!

So I'm curious, do you have any metrics that you track from year to year? And what do you hope to write on your slate this year?


35 comments :

  1. No I don't have any metrics I track from year to year. Yours are seriously impressive though.

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    1. Awww thanks. The way I see it though, more miles on the bike is simply evidence of having had more fun!

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  2. Wow, that's a lot of miles on your bike. I think I'd rather not know mine (and thus compare my shoddy performance to yours!).

    Hope you are enjoying your new year! I worked, but I enjoyed seeing the sunshine this morning--kind of a rare thing around here in winter.

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    1. Winter sun is one of the great joys of living in Colorado. Though I'm not expecting to see much of it this week - it's supposed to snow all week and not get above freezing again until Saturday. Sigh.

      And I really don't see the bike miles as a huge accomplishment... really it just means that I spent a lot of time goofing off! :-)

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  3. I'm super impressed both by your high bike mileage and your low car mileage! Now I have something to aim for. (Although I take several very long trips each year for math meetings, and usually driving is kinder to the earth than flying, so I know I can't get down to 537, wow. But maybe I could just count the non-business driving. Cogitating, cogitating . . . )

    The only thing I can think of that I currently quantify is the number of trash cans my family puts out. When I started counting this, many years ago, we put 21 cans at the curb. But we keep getting better and better at trash reduction, and 2016 saw our can at the curb only 9 times. Whoop!

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    1. I totally LOVE your trash can metric! One year I was going to try to go a whole year filling up only one can - but alas, some wasps moved in and sorta fouled up my experiment. But 9 cans is seriously impressive for such a big family!

      And in terms of the low car mileage - it helps that I work from home (if you can call what I do "work") and that I have 2 grocery stores in easy walking distance from my house. I keep thinking that if it weren't for my cats, and the hauling of large bags of litter, & cases of canned food, and trips to the vet, I could easily get by without a car. Actually, I'm quite sure I could manage without one if I really had to, but it is a nice convenience - especially in the winter time.

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  4. Good for you! And you do know how to have fun!

    We talked cars at the end of our party. We each drive cars that are over 10 years old and are proud of it. Our goal is to keep the going in the coming year and beyond.

    TBG's goal is to ride his bike more. I hope he can log as many miles as you!

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    1. I think it was about 4 years ago that my mechanic said I'd probably be needing a new transmission "soon." I was faced with a choice... spend money on a new bike or a new transmission. Needless to say, I chose the bike. Since then I've put nearly 10K miles on the bike and only about 2K on the car (with no appreciable deterioration to the transmission) so I think it was the right choice! Here's hoping the biking gods are kind to TBG this year!

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  5. Those are impressive statistics and suit you well. However, I've decided that you need to take some kind of trip. Isn't there someplace near or far that you'd like to see? It's not that I want you to burn more fuel, it's that I want you to have a good reason and a good time to make an exception to burning more fuel. :)

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    1. Awww... you're so sweet. Well, CatMan and I drove down to see some friends in Manitou Springs (about 75 miles) for a day trip this past summer - but he drove, so the miles went on his car not mine. Does that count?

      In all honestly, staying near to home doesn't have much to do with trying to not burn fuel, it's more that traveling isn't really much fun for me anymore because eating out is SOOO difficult when you have all of my food allergies. Plus, CatMan has so many issues with his back and neck that sleeping in a foreign bed can mean weeks of pain for him.

      So I really am quite content to explore the world from my bike, and I don't feel at all like I'm missing anything... except maybe traffic jams and long lines at the airport! ;)

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  6. We put that amount of miles (the 537.9) on our car every 6 weeks! Of course, there are 4 of us who use that car, so I guess it's not all bad.

    Too funny about trying to go a year on one trash can! Yep, wasps could put a damper on that project, for me, too.

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    1. Well, for four people... who probably have a lot more places to go than I do, that's pretty darned frugal in terms of mileage! And I was bummed about the garbage experiment, but I figured one trip to the ER from wasp stings was enough!

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  7. Weird that you would ask because I just published my annual "Books Read" post. I've been keeping track since 2009 I believe.

    I can't even fathom such small mileage on a vehicle. I commute 24 miles one way every day to work, so I already have more miles on my new car which is a 2015 than you have on yours! Commendable! (For you that is) Happy New Year!

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    1. I fear my "books read" would be a very short list. I'm not great with reading plus I sorta lack the patience gene. Old Movies watched, however, would be extensive!

      And the mileage thing gets pretty easy when you work from home and HATE to drive in general! :-)

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  8. I always enjoy seeing the comparison between your mileage on the car and the bike. What I need is a way to add a bike to the front of my chair so I could use my legs some of the time to move around outside, or inside. I would love to feel I was doing something besides pushing a joystick to move. Not sure how well I'd do on the hills here but some of the flatter surfaces would be nice to tackle.

    My metric from childhood has always been a physical one. Could I climb the stairs better than the previous year, could I walk further than before. While walking is not an option at the moment, the body is still my metric and probably always will be.

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    1. You know, they do make electric assisted recumbent tricycles. I see them out on the bike path sometimes, and some of them look like little George Jetson cars! I wonder how you'd fare with one of those... though getting in and out of some of them looks like it could be a challenge! Here's a link if you're curious... they ain't cheap though!

      http://electricbikereport.com/electric-recumbent-trikes/

      And I think your version of the physical metric sounds much healthier than the one most people take, meaning weight or size.

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    2. Wow, I didn't realize they had added electric assist to the trikes. I used to see a guy go past my house every day on a trike but it was definitely all run by human power. He bought it when he was going through cancer treatments and now that he's in remission he continues to use his trike for health, he loves it. As for me some of those models are so low to the ground I would never be able to get off it, but I'm definitely going to check around and see if I can't find one that fits my needs. I have plenty of roads around my neighborhood that rarely have vehicle traffic so it would be a good place to get my work out with one.

      Now as for my metric, weight is always in the equation. Every extra pound reduces what I am able to do. I think the doctors constantly commenting on my weight that contributed to an eating disorder.

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    3. Maybe you can find some sort of trike-like thing that would work for you! I've ridden an electric assisted bike before and it was really slick. If you hit a big hill or just got a bit tired, you just turned this little dial and off you went! The way the bikes work you can both pedal and use the assist at the same time to vary the workload. Every once in a while CatMan and I will get passed by someone wearing street clothes on a heavy looking bike who zooms past us at 25mph. It took us a while to realize that they weren't super-human, just battery powered!

      In terms of weight. I too have suffered from the eating disorder thing, and since cycling is one of those sports where people get crazy focused on weight, it's hard not to obsess about it. It's the whole "every pound you have is one more pound that you have to haul up the hills" sort of thing.

      Anyhow, I'd been doing pretty good with not obsessing, but over the holidays I decided perhaps I should pull out the scale and see how bad the damage was. So I stepped on it and... nothing. Dead battery. I changed the battery and... ERROR! Apparently it's dead. I took it as a sign from the universe and at the moment I have no intention of replacing it. For now I'll just go by how my clothes fit, and hopefully that will be a healthier metric! :-)

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  9. Wow! Good job on the Civic! A 1991 Civic was my first car (or just my parents' that I borrowed) but that is loooong gone.

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    1. This car was actually a graduation present from my mother when I finished college. Actually, I think it was enlightened self interest, since I'd been through half a dozen clunkers that would die and leave me stranded. Since my intention was to drive across the country I think she feared a call in the middle of the night: "Um... Mom... I'm somewhere in Nebraska and the car won't run." Anyhow, it's a great little car!

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  10. I am SO impressed by your 2,645 miles on your bike vs. 537 in your car! You rock! You have inspired me to get an odometer for my bike and start keeping track. I love your year-end reflection about resetting to zero, too. Happy 2017, Cat.

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    1. Well, if you do get an odometer for your bike, I wish you great luck in setting it up. Seriously, I think the instructions are written using hieroglyphics!

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  11. Happy New Year, EcoCatLady! I love that you saw in see the New Year over a computer project! Mr D and I used to have actual dates learning HTML together way back when! I still think computers make for great date nights!

    I am ridiculously impressed by your mileage on both bike and car. I can't help but think that metric is a metric of so many things: quality of life, care for the community, work/life balance and more. I feel like I fail on all those standards by how many miles I do in the car. It is great to see people online who are actually achieving this lifestyle.

    I don't track any specific metric year by year (unless you count reducing the mortgage, which is a bit sad.) But this year I am tracking weight loss as my fitness (lack of) is holding me back from lots of things I want to do.

    Happy 2017!

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    1. I don't think that mortgage payoff is a sad metric at all, because once you've accomplished that, so many other things will become possible. And it's interesting what you say about the mileage being a reflection of other things, because in truth, I really don't try to reduce my driving at all... it's simply a function of the sort of life that I lead. And the fact that I HATE driving doesn't hurt either!

      Perhaps that's the message here. Focus on leading a life that's fulfilling and puts your humanity front and center, and the rest will fall into place.

      Happy 2017 to you too!

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  12. I haven't ever tracked my bike mileage but I am so impressed that you do AND WOW that is a lot of bike riding.

    Love that you are still driving your Honda and that it has such low mileage. We bought our daughter a used Toyota Corolla when she was in college and ended up giving it to a friend in Colorado years later when my daughter's company gave her a company car. Our friend says she still drives it and it has just over 100K miles on it. It's a 1987.

    I hope you have a wonderful year biking in your beautiful state.

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    1. Well, truth be told, tracking my bike mileage is something I never would have done if left to my own devices - that's CatMan's influence at work.

      And I think you daughter's ex-Toyota and my Honda should get together... imagine the stories they could tell! CatMan drives a 1989 Toyota 4-runner and it's still goin' strong!

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  13. There's not much that I really track from year to year. 2016 was just such a bad year for us that I'm hoping this year will be entirely different. I don't have anything specific in mind, just hoping for a year without so many losses and disasters.

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    1. I hope 2017 is much kinder to you and yours than 2016 was. It's really hard when the losses just keep coming. Big Hugs and hopes for a better tomorrow!

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  14. Those mileage numbers are unreal! Something I'm going to try to emulate in FI, for sure.

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    1. It's a little bit misleading since most of the bike miles are for pleasure, not commuting or anything useful. Still, it's fun to watch them pile up!

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  15. Forgive me asking this here - can't find a way to email you. My son is trying to go vegetarian, and doesn't want to use meat substitute and tonight came up with the idea of using scrambled eggs instead of ground beef. I found ONE HIT on the entire WWW, and it was your post about frugal shopping. It said you use it in lasagna - can you tell me how you do that? Do you wait till the end and layer it in, or are they strong enough to stand up to being mixed in sauce? Thank you.

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    1. Ha! That's hilarious that I'm the one and only hit for scrambled eggs in lasagna. Perhaps I'm the only person crazy enough to try it!

      My technique is to cook the eggs first, and then layer the cooked scrambled eggs like you would ground beef. I don't mix any sauce with them, I just drizzle some on top. So my layers go: sauce - noodles - scrambled eggs (which I usually scramble with some mushrooms) - sauce - noodles - cream cheese (normally you'd use ricotta, but I don't like it and an Italian friend swears by Mascarpone in lasagna, which is essentially just fancy and expensive cream cheese) - sauce - noodles - sauce - grated mozzarella/provolone.

      It's a bit unconventional, but it works for us! Good luck and thanks for visiting!

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  16. Sorry I haven't commented on your blog for so long (not to presume to much). Just wanted to pop by and say hello! :)


    Maria (from Norway)

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    1. Tusen takk for besøket! Hvordan går det med deg?

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    2. Takk skal du ha! Det går litt bra og litt dårlig. Så flink du er i norsk. :)

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