My Mortal Foe, Daniel Quinn: VANQUISHED!
Peep this:
TWENTY FIVE POINT TWO PERCENT. Pity poor Daniel Quinn, for his paltry 25.02% of the Valley has been crushed.
This is me:
…and this is PATHETIC HAS BEEN DANIEL QUINN:
At this point, the only way he could possibly catch me is if he rode SEVEN MILES. IMPOSSIBLE! NO MAN CAN RIDE SEVEN MILES AND LIVE TO TELL THE TALE.
My glory will never be surpassed!
The killing blow:
Now go and tell the world of this glorious day!
(maybe don’t tell Daniel)
As you know, Daniel Quinn is my mortal enemy – but my campaign to defeat him is working!
At the start of this month, I had covered 18.66 percent of the San Fernando Valley. Quinn had 24.9 percent, the cruel coward! But the tides are turning, old friend. This month he has only added a PATHETIC 0.7 miles to his Valley total.
Now check this out:
Including today’s ride to Tujunga & Sunland, I have added 88.3!
I now have conquered 21.16 percent of the Valley, more than 40 percent of the gap between us. If I maintain THIS EXACT PACE (which seems impossible to deny as possible) , then I will best this cruel tyrant on May 6th, and there will be much rejoicing!
Unless he rides his bike in the Valley between now and then… just the kind of decietful trickery I have come to expect from this blackguard, this lout, this contemptible scoundrel. I MUST BE VIGILANT AND WARY!
And then there’s Hunter Baoengstrum. He is not my foe…YET.
It is only a matter of time.
Why do I say this? Because Hunter Baoengstrum is systematically riding all the streets of Los Angeles County. He hasn’t started the Valley, but it’s only a matter of time. And look at the ride HE went on yesterday:
FIFTY-FOUR NEW MILES. IN ONE DAY. Sure it took him six hours, but HE DID IT. One day he will cross the Santa Monica Mountains and begin his attack. When he does, Daniel Quinn and I will face a true challenge. A challenge that will probably require Daniel and I to enter into an uneasy truce to defeat Hunter. A truce that the nefarious Daniel will break when he reveals that the two of them have been secret allies all along, plotting my destruction. BUT I AM ON TO BOTH OF YOU. Your plot is doomed to fail! I SHALL TRIUMPH AGAINST ALL ODDS!
Also: Here’s a fun little video showing today’s ride:
Today I tell the tale of my greatest rival, my nemesis, my one true foe: Daniel Quinn. Who is Daniel Quinn? I JUST TOLD YOU HE IS MY FOE. MY MORTAL ENEMY, FOR CORN SAKE.
But if you want to know why he’s my foe…
About a year ago I started a project: to ride on every single street in the San Fernando Valley. It fell by the wayside, mostly because of bad weather and laziness, but also because it was hard to figure out exactly where the streets of the Valley ended.
But recently I found wandrer.earth, a site uses your ride data from Strava to figure out exactly what roads you have ridden and how much progress you have made. I signed up, went to my map, and saw this:
Look at that magic! A beautiful map showing all of my carefully planned trips to precisely cover every single street. And now I had a number: 18.66 percent. Only 81.34 percent left.
Then I saw the link to the leaderboard. I had to know if I was on top. I clicked the link.
I was number TWO. Who was number one?
DANIEL. QUINN.
And adding insult to injury, look at his map. JUST LOOK AT IT.
HE’S NOT EVEN TRYING TO HIT EVERY ROAD. He just rides so much that he’s picked up tons of streets ON A WHIM.
He is the most dangerous kind of mortal enemy:
the one who doesn’t know he is a mortal enemy.
I will crush him. CRUSH HIM.
In the Valley. Eventually. I hope. Everywhere else he will destroy me. See how most of my rides are straight lines, and how his are all bendy? That’s because he rides the hills. A lot. He could probably knock out the Valley in a week if he tried.
So I must work silently to destroy him. And then, when my task is done, I shall gloat on his Strava page about conquering him, destroying him, humiliating him!
And he will say “Who are you?”
Sort of like this:
Dear Internet,
How are you? Fine, I hope. I am fine.
I’m sorry I haven’t written for a couple of months. I was really busy or something.
So much has happened since my last note. The most significant thing is that I saw Cats. This was my favorite song.
I also lost more weight. Most it from my beard.
I also got a new bike. It looks like this one, but red.
I made a little more progress on my project to ride every street in the San Fernando Valley.
I’m sorry I haven’t written lately. I will write more soon.
Your Friend,
Luke
P.S. Maybe the world is ending?
I thought the hardest part of riding every street in the San Fernando Valley would be the long stretches, but so far it’s the back-and-forth required to get every side street and alley.
I’m sure once I start getting up into the hills I’ll wish I was doing twisty flat rides again.
Today’s goofy ride:
You can see my total progress here: https://www.strava.com/athletes/1133075/heatmaps/3eaec873#12/34.22072/-118.47229
Managed to get in a nice 26ish mile ride today at (for me) a good pace. If I get back to riding more than once a week, I might get okay at this again!
I should get back to my “ride every street in the San Fernando Valley” project. I’ve got the Southeast corner pretty well sewn up. The hard part about the rest of it is I have to either drive my bike somewhere else (which I hate), or I have to re-ride for a while on streets I’ve already done (which will take longer).
Also, completely by accident, I found a great old bike song. This is a “new” (circa 1978) version by R. Crumb and the Cheap Suit Serenaders.