The mileage graph that I posted at the end of last year came from a spreadsheet I have with all my cycling data. I know is probably sounds a bit OCD to log bike data in a spreadsheet, but you don't have to be Lance Armstrong to benefit from it.A quick word about cyclometers: if you don't have one on your bike, you really need to get one. Even if it is the most basic $15 unit. Get one. Now. I find it extremely useful during the ride to know how we are doing. Things like how may miles to the next rest stop. or how fast are we going (versus how fast we usually go on that particular route) are useful information, particularly if you are riding with kids.
After the ride, you have all that data recorded by your cyclometer, so you may as well make use of it! Write it down. Somewhere. Anywhere. It is the beginning of the year, so start now so you will have a full-year's data in December.
My first year of cycling I started recording my data in a runner's log book that my wife wasn't using. The following year (1992), I started using the old DOS-based spreadsheet QuatroPro (Anybody else remember that?) to save my ride information. I'm not exactly why I started doing that, other that I probably didn't have another log book. It wasn't a very sophisticated use of a spreadsheet, since there weren't any calculations being done. The cyclometer kept track of total mileage, so I didn't even need to total my "Mileage" column. Each year I would make a new file/spreadsheet (this was before multi-sheet spreadsheets) and record the cyclometer information from each ride, along with the date of the ride and a brief comment about where the ride was.
Sometime prior to Y2K we upgraded our spreadsheet software to the Windows-based Lotus 123, which had the option of having multiple sheets in a single file. So rather than having a separate file for each year, I created a single file that had separate sheets for each year. I even went back and merged my old spreadsheet log files into this single multi-sheet bikelog. There wasn't a compelling reason to do it at the time, it just seemed logical to have the single big file, rather than a bunch of smaller ones.
Then one day, a funny thing happened. It occurred to me that since I had all this data in one place, I could compare my riding from year to year. This allowed me to compare my current riding against the same period in previous years, to see how I was doing. This led to the creation of a "Summary" sheet in my spreadsheet. This sheet has multiple tables on it. Each table has the year for the vertical axis and the specific month for the horizontal axis. At first there was a single table that showed my mileage for the month. Then I added a second table that showed my cumulative mileage for the year. Then came other tables: number of hours spent riding for the month, number of rides per month, and average ride length for the month. I even made graphs from some of the tables, to better spot trends and make comparisons.
Last year I changed to the standard Excel (.xls) spreadsheet format, and I am currently using OpenOffice to edit the file. I also use Documents to Go to keep a copy on my Palm Centro smartphone, so I can actually update the sheet immediately after the ride if I want (I should do this more often than I do). Every year I add a new sheet for the next year, and add a new row to each of the tables on my summary page. My bikelog has evolved, morphed, and improved over the years. I'm sure it will continue to do so in the years to come.
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