Biking Log (Or, Apparently I Suck)

I'm going to start keeping a record of my biking exploits so I have some sort of external motivation to continue. Normally they'll be quite short, but since this is the first one I thought I'd start out with a bit of background.

I bought a $9.24 bike computer today that is amazing- it calculates speed, distance, time, and a whole host of other factors. When I bought it, I couldn't figure out how it did it- it's roughly the size of a large matchbox. When I opened the package, I saw that somehow had figured out an ingenious way to do this.

There's a small magnet that attaches to a spoke. Then you attach a sensor to the frame- less than a millimeter from the magnet- and it calculates your speed based on how often the two pass each other.

(For the nerds out there- you have to input a calculation of the bike diameter, so the distance measurement is accurate.)

I tested it out today for the first time, and this is what I got.

I traveled 6.478 miles in 38 minutes and 19 seconds.
My average speed was 10.2 miles per hour.
My maximum speed attained was 23.4 miles per hour.

That comes to roughly six-minute miles, which is kind of sad. There are tons of people who could have run that distance faster than me. But at least I have ample room for improvement. In my defense, I am riding a fairly heavy bike with mountain bike tires, but still. Hopefully that number will improve.