Stat Update! (USA Day 103)

Since we have all this time, a mains socket and a flight full of interesting local beers, I thought today would be a good day to update you all on some stats. So here’s an interesting selection of them, sponsored by Salt and Straw Ice Cream Parlour, Portland OR.*

·        We’ve now ridden 4834 miles since leaving New York. That’s more than the diameter of Mars at its equator, and only a thousand miles off the distance from London to Los Angeles (as the crow flies).

·        We’ve ridden an average of 62 miles per day over 78 riding days. That leaves 25 days without riding to rest, hike, plan, stock up on trail mix, edit video (as if) and actually see the places we’ve reached. This includes the week we spent in New York before we even began.

·        Our average speed is 11.69mph. That’s about the same as a grey squirrel, though we can probably sustain it for longer, plus we don’t bury nuts.

·        If you rode at a measly 2mph but didn’t stop once, you’d just be reaching Portland today. Makes you think…was it all worth it?

·        We’ve climbed a total of 177,336 vertical feet so far. That’s just over six Mount Everests, forty Ben Nevises, or twenty eight thousand Ben Afflecks.

·        Our longest day was 106 miles, in deepest, flattest Kansas. Our shortest was 16, in Yellowstone when we miscalculated how far we needed to actually go.

·        We’ve ridden in 15 states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. The longest we’ve been in any of these was 13 total days so far, in Oregon. The shortest was Ohio, with four letters. Our favourite has been Wyoming. We have no least favourite state, except for Indiana, which was our least favourite.

·        We have seen, sequentially, without creating them ourselves or looking in books, the numbers 1 to 394. 395 eludes us yet.

·        We have seen license plates from all 50 US states, and 5 of the 10 Canadian provinces.

·        Not that we’ve been keeping count, but by our calculation we’ve made just over one and a half million pedal strokes each. You’d expect that to be split fairly evenly between left and right, but since we both kick off with our right legs, that side’ll be winning this particular competition. Sucks to be you, left foot.

So, thanks for coming to my presentation. I hope you’ve found it informative, entertaining and thought-provoking in equal measure (intertavoking).

*Not actually sponsored by them, but my lord those flavours are delicious. We had almond brittle, strawberry and balsamic, blue cheese and pear, olive oil. That sounds gratuitous, but honestly, it’s the best ice cream I’ve ever had, and I’ve eaten a lot of ice cream.