I sometimes wonder why after all these years of riding I’m not the Pete Sampras of cycling. Little did I know that the reason is because I just haven’t put in enough time yet. I think I’m coming late to this, but Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour theory states that you should do at least this many hours of an activity to really excel. You probably know this already.

And so I did the math, which I completely assumed would come out in my favor. Well, it turns out that 10,000 hours is a very long time. It’s 3.4 years of 8 hour days, 365 days a year. I added up all my Strava hours since somewhere in 2013 (3877) when I signed up with a vague log I used to keep before that from 2001 (3400) and a rough estimate of bike trips and rides I did before I left Canada in 1994 (650) and that comes out to a measly 7927 hours – well short of perfection.

The good news is that by the time I’m 60 I’ll be ready for the professional peloton. Putting out feelers now.

I am nearly positive that I know a few readers who’ve been keeping records. How near perfect are you?