I've got several rides to write about, but it's a busy week! In the meantime, here's a quick post about a cool cycling metric I just learned about: the ride Eddington number. (Actually, I have a vague recollection of Chad Davies and Robert discussing this several years ago, but it must not have registered with me then.) Your ride Eddington number is the largest integer X for which you have ridden X miles for X days. For example, if you've ridden 30 miles on 30 days, your ride Eddington number is 30. I found a website that uploads your Strava data and calculates your ride Eddington number:
My ride Eddington Number is 113. I'm going to keep riding to see how much higher I can get it.
I read about Eddington numbers in a coffeeneuring post. It intrigued me, and so I Googled it. The first thing that came up was its original definition in an astrophysics context: the number of protons in the observable universe. What in the world does this have to do with cycling? With a little further searching, I found the cool adaptation to ride Eddington number. Kudos to whoever came up with this concept.
"whoever came up with this concept"
ReplyDeleteanswer: Sir Arthur Eddington.
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Eddington )
The Wiki article is interesting -- well, if one skips the paragraphs that are rather TOO jargony, it is interesing. The "Adding-one" paragraph is amusing (slightly).
Towards the end of the article, the Eddington Cycling Number is discussed.
My ECN, you ask?
Currently 127 (based on miles).
It has been 127 since October 31, 2018.
Currently have 137 rides that were at least 127 miles.
I need 13 new rides that are at least 128 miles long to get to ECN = 128.
I need 40 new rides that are at least 132 miles long to get to ECN = 132.
...Martin (#6218)
p.s. I don't Strava or any other GPS, so one cannot easily look up my career stats. I think, but am not 100% sure, that all rides currently contributing to my ECN are prior RUSA rides.