Just hit 20,000 miles on my bike commuting in Albuquerque this year

I started tracking my bike miles back in January because I wanted to see how much I was actually riding. Yesterday I hit 20,000 miles on my odometer and it honestly surprised me. That's like riding from here to Tokyo and back almost. Most of it is just commuting from my place near Nob Hill to my job downtown and back every day. I also do a lot of errands on my bike instead of driving, like grabbing groceries or heading to the dog park. It matters because I saved a ton on gas and parking, plus I don't have to deal with I-40 traffic. Has anyone else here tracked a big number like that for something they do regularly?

4 comments

4 Comments

claire_butler114d ago

like riding from here to Tokyo and back" - that's like 5,500 miles not 20,000 haha

ellis.robert14d ago

Same thing happens with people bragging about their daily steps or calorie burns on fitness apps. Someone claims they walked 12 miles but their map shows them going to the store half a mile away. Numbers just seem to get romanticized the more times a story gets told. It's like how people say they waited hours for a table but it was really 45 minutes, or how a fish was supposedly this big but shrinks by the time they show you the photo. Do you think people just round up for effect or do they genuinely misremember that hard?

the_finley7d ago

Pretty sure @claire_butler1 nailed it on the math there. In my experience, people round up for the story first, then over time their brain just accepts the bigger number as fact. Had an uncle who swore he caught a 30-pound salmon for years, then we found an old photo and it was maybe 12 pounds tops. Memory is weird like that. The more you tell a story with the exaggerated numbers, the more your brain treats it as the real version. It's not really lying, more like your brain just picks the exciting version over the boring one after enough repeats. Take that with a grain of salt though, everyone's different.

evan2957d ago

My thing is, do people actually believe their own exaggerations after a while? Like if someone tells the Tokyo story enough times, do they genuinely remember riding 20,000 miles instead of 5,500? I've noticed that with my buddy who claims he ran a marathon in 3 hours but his watch data shows 4 hours 20 minutes. The numbers change in his head every time he tells the story. Is it just about making a better story or do brains actually rewrite memories after you repeat false numbers enough?