It is closer to 25 miles per burrito

[rebeccmeister]

There is a bicycling t-shirt that pops up periodically that says, 53 miles per burrito.

I did some calculations yesterday, and concluded that that mileage is incorrect. I rode 127 miles in 10 hours total time, for an average total speed of 12.7 miles per hour (includes stops). I find that I do best if I eat like clockwork - one burrito or equivalent every two hours. So 2 hours * 12.7 mph = 25.4 miles per burrito.

Comments

Did I mention that I like having a destination even if it's ridiculous?

[ivy]

Haha! I am now going to track mine, made harder by the fact that my easiest stopping point has ice cream and turkey barbeque but not burritos that I know of. I may have to have a burrito trip just to see. Short of that, though, I'm happiest if I stop and refuel once an hour and chance or so. Without hills, I can make it ~15 miles or so before that really starts to seem attractive. With hills, 10. But I don't eat a whole burrito every hour, it's more like half, I think. I will experiment!

Re: Did I mention that I like having a destination even if it's ridiculous?

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

I think you could do some calorie conversions, if appropriate. :-D

I started making huge batches of burritos while in Texas, because in a lot of cases the places where we stop only have foods with meat on or in them. Burritos have been an awesome long-distance food because if they're wrapped in foil they're fairly easy to eat while riding, and they can be filled with all sorts of delicious ingredients to suit all sorts of tastes. The present batch is black beans, potatoes, sweet potato, a bit of cheese, kale, mushrooms, and salsa, in a homemade whole wheat flour tortilla (of questionable structural integrity but excellent flavor). On longer rides I've been happy to have both breakfast burritos (eggs, cheese, potato) and lunch/dinner ones (black beans, kale, rice).

I keep pondering: are my burrito dimensions appropriate, or would it be more appropriate to run the calculations with larger burritos? Then I think, no, my burrito size is correct because if I tried to eat larger burritos, the need to digest would slow me down considerably.

[(Anonymous)]

one of our kids had a t-shirt on this weekend that had a mountain bike on it with the caption "infinity mpg". That shirt is on par with the burrito shirt in terms of excellence in concept and nebulousness in calculation.

prrrsss.....

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

I used to have a sign on the back of my bike trailer that said, "MPG = infinity" as well. Nebulous, yes, but somehow I find the burrito claim slightly more problematic, I guess because it's pretending to be really accurate.