Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

1-11-91 Friday. I drove 3820.7 miles to and from bike rallies in 1990. There were thirty-one rallies, so I drove an average of 123.2 miles per rally (61.6 miles there, 61.6 miles back). The median drive was 97.7 miles, the range 6.3 (Grand Prairie) to 283.7 (Wichita Falls), and the midrange 145. The discrepancy between the mean and midrange figures on the one hand and the median on the other is easy to explain: When I drove a long way to participate in a rally, I drove a long way. Five times I drove over two hundred miles. As best I can tell from my gas-mileage log, I drove my car 7766 miles in 1990, which means nearly half (49.1 percent) of all the driving I did in the past calendar year was directly related to bicycling. Here’s another interesting figure: I rode 2500.2 miles in rallies this past year, for an average of 80.6 miles per rally. That’s 40.2 percent of my total of 6205.9 miles. If I divide my riding into two categories—rallies and training rides—I spent sixty percent of my riding time training for rallies. This year, on the assumption that I ride in the same number of rallies, I hope to raise this figure to seventy percent. So, on a typical Saturday in 1990, I drove my car 61.6 miles (slightly over an hour), rode 80.6 miles on my bicycle, and drove 61.6 miles home. By the way, I’m amazed that of the 2500.2 miles I rode in rallies, I had only one accident. One! The other two times I hit the pavement I was by myself on training rides. Frankly, that’s astounding, given all the pushing and shoving that goes on in rallies and how fast I was going most of the time. I’m either careful or lucky [or both].