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[ellies-cycling-notes]

Post-Ride Notes

This is my final post for the foreseeable future. This is just a place for me to give my final thoughts about the ride, as well as some general statistics about the ride.

Thoughts

I don't really know where to start. I have already gathered a bunch of statistics from the trip, but actually talking about the trip itself has a kind of finality that I don't know if I'm totally prepped for. The trip is over, but I'm still in a weird state where every day feels like a rest day, where I'll have to bike another 80 miles tomorrow.

I've biked a few times since the trip ended, obviously much shorter rides. It was difficult at first adjusting to not having so much weight on the back of my bike, but it's nice now. It's also extremely relaxing not having to constantly worry about possibly getting a flat tire when I go over a bump. It's also been great not having to eat nothing but PB&Js all day. Despite typically really enjoying bread in general, I've actually been eating a lot less of it than normal, just because I no longer really have to eat it 3 meals a day.

My bike needs a lot of work done on it now, and I need some of my additional equipment replaced (specifically my gloves and shoes). However, I do still feel like this whole trip was worth it. It was a great palate cleanser for me, even if it was stressful and tiring at times.

I definitely probably have a bunch more things I could say, but I don't want to spend too much time thinking about how to say them.

Statistics

I made a spreadsheet here with various statistics for the ride. Here are some of the highlights:

Total Distance Traveled: 1432.78 miles

Average Distance Traveled Per Day: 79.599 miles

Average Distance Traveled (Including Rest Days): 62.29 miles

Longest Ride: 102.09 miles (Day 4)

Shortest Ride: 50 miles (Day 8)

Total Time Spent Riding: 120 hours, 7 minutes

Average Time Per Day Spent on the Road (Including breaks): 8 hours, 22 minutes

Earliest Morning Departure: 6:36AM (Day 4)

Latest Evening Arrival: 5:58PM (Also Day 4 - a 100+ mile ride tends to do that)

Average Speed: 11.95 mph

Fastest Speed Reached: 37.4mph (on Day 7)

Number of Apples Eaten: 71 (Average of 3.09 per day)

7 different types of apples eaten, not counting the several apples I ate I didn't know the type of

Apple type with the highest average rating: Honeycrisp, with an average of 7.1

Apple type with the lowest average rating: Zestar, as the only zestar apple I ate I gave a rating of 5

I took an average of 2.1 breaks on a given day's ride

Number of flats: 13, with all 13 occurring in the first 12 days of the trip.

The spreadsheet also includes some additional information and organization if you want to look at it, such as the minor point of whether or not I saw any deer on a given day, as well as a very brief overview of what topics I discussed that day. Thus, if anyone is interested in a specific topic (say, my design notes on Time Loop), they might have an easier time finding all the posts they want.

And that's it! I'll be posting a picture timeline later, with every pic taken of me by friends/family during the ride, but apart from that, I do not expect to be posting anymore (and yes, I know I said basically the same thing at the end of last post, about how I was going to only make 1 more post).

[ellies-cycling-notes]

Blog Masterpost

Here's a list of every post from my trip, in chronological order.

Before the Ride:

Blog Introduction

Part 1: Narragansett to NYC:

Day 1: Narragansett to Long Island

Day 1 Pictures

Day 2: Long Island to NYC

Day 2 Pictures

Day 3: NYC (Rest Day)

Part 2: NYC to Philadelphia:

Day 4: NYC to Philadelphia

Day 4 Pictures

Day 5: Philadelphia (Rest Day)

Part 3: Philadelphia to DC/Vienna, VA

Day 6: Philadelphia to Pequea Creak

Day 7: Pequea Creek to Baltimore

Day 6 & 7 Pictures

Day 8: Baltimore to Vienna, VA

Day 8 Pictures

Day 9: Vienna (Rest Day)

Day 9 Pictures

Part 4: Vienna, VA to Pittsburgh

Day 10: Vienna to Jordan Junction

Day 10 Pictures

Day 11: Jordan Junction to Evitts Creek

Day 11 Pictures

Day 12: Evitts Creek to Confluence, PA

Day 13: Confluence to Pittsburgh

Day 12 & 13 Pictures

Day 14: Pittsburgh (Rest Day)

Part 5: Pittsburgh to Ann Arbor

Day 15: Pittsburgh to Mill Creek

Day 15 Pictures

Day 16: Mill Creek to Findley Park

Day 17: Findley State Park to Van Buren State Park

Day 18: Van Buren State Park to Ann Arbor

Day 18 Pictures

Day 19: Ann Arbor (Rest Day)

Part 6: Ann Arbor to Chicago

Day 20: Ann Arbor to Grand Ledge

Day 20 Pictures

Day 21: Grand Ledge to Kalamazoo

Day 22: Kalamazoo to Warren Dunes

Day 21 & 22 Pictures

Day 23: Warren Dunes to Chicago

Day 23 Pictures

After the Ride

Post-Ride

[ellies-cycling-notes]

Four pics today (only 1 by me):

Park bench where I had my pre-lunch snack

A pic my dad took while following me for the last stretch of the ride

A pic of me back home

Another pic taken from one of my parents following me

[ellies-cycling-notes]

Day 23: Warren Dunes to Chicago

Distance Covered: 82.82 miles

Total Time (including rests): 8:14 (8:07am-3:21pm {-1 hour from timezone difference})

Time spent riding: 6:44

Average Speed: 12.3 mph

Apples Eaten: 2 (honeycrisp - 7/10, zestar - 5/10)

LAST RIDE!!!!!! It's finally over. Most of the ride was actually kinda of a blur, cause I was rather focused on just finishing it. I've been wavering about whether or not I want the ride to be over, and now that it is, I'm just gonna say I'm really glad it's over. Of course, this does present the problem of what I do next year. For the last several years, once a summer I do some impressive bike ride/collection of bike rides, and I don't think I can really beat this one, and don't know if I even want to.

Most of the ride today was on bike trails. Some of them were less good than others, largely because I hadn't planned a route, so I was just following my route, and at times it planned the shortest route, not necessarily the best.

I only took 2 breaks, 30 miles and 60 miles in, which was easier to do because of how much of the ride was on trails. The second break was another lunch break at a Culver's, cause I was out of food, and I just wanted to eat something I knew I would be okay with. I ate a little too much, so I have a slight stomachache now that I'm writing this, but it didn't impact me much while I was riding.

Much of the ride was rather scenic, either right by Lake Michigan or through trails that could be counted as wooded, or at the very least non-urban. The trails were mostly well-paved and nice to ride on. There were quite a few people out and about, but very few actually got in my way.

Design Notes

I have a few notes on magic items on Cardcasting, "organized" in a bulleted list.

All substances, living and not, in the world of Cardcasting have a relationship to magic interacts with them. For most, it simply flows through them, or can interact with them manifested through spells. Some substances, especially living beings, tend to absorb magic from their surroundings, which is what lets spellcasters replenish spells. And some substances have a rejection to magic, either partially or completely.

The first important property of a substance with regards to magic is how well it contains it within itself. For example, a potion of healing is made using a liquid which conserves Create Soul magic very well. It still decays over time, but much more slowly than it might otherwise.

The second property is how well it gathers magic within itself. Most non-living substances do not really absorb magic on their own at all, and so they cannot be used for self-sustaining or self-replenishing magic items.

The last property is that of how well it accepts or rejects magic. Substances that reject magic can be used as anti-magic equipment.

I have more I could say about magic wands and mana stones, which are used to store magic from a spellcaster's deck so that they can use it at a time they want, but I'm running out of mental ability, so I'm not going to say more here.

This is all for today! It feels surreal, that this is my last real post. This post is shorter than I would've liked, but I got home and then just relaxed for a while, and so I ended up not writing anything for a bit. I'll be posting a masterpost tomorrow, as well as a post-ride debrief post even later than that, but apart from that, things are over. It's been fun, hope you enjoyed it!

Previous -- Today's Pics

[ellies-cycling-notes]

These are pics from yesterday and today. Tried to post them yesterday, but service wasn't up for it. Post are:

Yesterday: cornfield I ate lunch by

Yesterday: sunbeams through trees by my campground

Today: sunrise at the campground

Today: Culver's

[ellies-cycling-notes]

Day 22: Kalamazoo to Warren Dunes

Distance Covered: 88.10 miles

Total Time (including rests): 9:09 (8:21am-5:30pm)

Time spent riding: 6:51

Average Speed: 12.9 mph

Apples Eaten: 4 (honeycrisp - 7/10, honeycrisp - 6.5/10, honeycrisp - 7/10, honeycrisp - 7/10)

An alright ride today. I took a route that was rather out of the way, cause it spent a lot of time on bike trails. It was hot again today, for the first time in a while, but I had good shade for a decent amount of it. I took the ride a little slow, taking 3 evenly spaced, rather long breaks about every 20-25 miles.

The time on bike trails was rather pleasant, except for that the Kal-Haven trail (from Kalamazoo to South Haven) was closed for the last 15 miles, which my mapping app didn't know, so I had to reroute onto state roads. The wind wasn't too bad most of the time, even when it was a headwind.

Of my 3 stops, the only one of note was the second, where I stopped at a Culver's for lunch and spent about an hour there. I got a cheeseburger and a chocolate concrete, which were both rather good (Culver's is probably one of the only fast food places I actually like). I might actually stop by another one for lunch tomorrow, cause I'm running low on food, don't want to do a shopping run, they have food I enjoy and am slightly craving, and usually have an outdoor place to eat, so I can put my bike there and won't have to worry about watching it. I'll probably make the actual decision on the ride tomorrow.

Wow, I can't really believe that tomorrow is the last day. It's been a good trip, especially the second half, and I'm kinda relieved it's coming to an end. Part of me will miss these posts, but as I mentioned awhile back, sometimes the stress of thinking about what to write gets to me.

I spent a lot of today's ride just focusing on the riding. Normally what I do is compartmentalize it as I ride, thinking about how far I have to go, and how that can be expressed in smaller or larger terms, and then by the time I've finished thinking that way, I check how far I've traveled, and repeat the process. It's not something I'm good at describing, cause it's something that just happens, without me thinking consciously about it.

I'm staying at the Warren Dunes Campground today, and it's the first of my campgrounds which I've stayed at before. It's just how I remember it, down to being laden with mosquitoes. I've had to slap quite a few, and I'll have to make sure none get in my tent, but other than that, atmospherically, this is one of my favorite campgrounds. Despite that, it's probably one of the ones I'll spend the least time at, cause I got here somewhat late, and I expect I'll leave somewhat early tomorrow, given it will be my last day.

Design Notes

I did quite a bit of design-thinking today, mostly about Cardcasting. I think I've mentioned it before, but I'll be going into a slightly deeper dive here.

Cardcasting

Cardcasting is a card-based magic system, intended (probably) for a tabletop roleplaying game. The way magic works in this system is that spellcaster have a deck of element/mana cards, which they draw from to determine what spells they can cast. Each card has an element on it, and counts as a quantity of "1" of that type/element of mana.

There are seven elements divided up according to 2 supercategories:

Action - describes how the type of mana interacts with a substance, the categories are Creation & Destruction

Substance - describes what type of substance is being interacted with, categories are Matter, Energy, and Soul

Thus, we have the elements of "Create Matter (CM)", "Create Energy (CE)", "Create Soul (CS)", "Destroy Matter (DM)", "Destroy Energy (DE)", and "Destroy Soul (DS)". The seventh element, which does not fit into any of the categories, is "Dimensional", or "Spatial/Temporal (ST)", which deals with manipulations of space and time.

Spellcasters (the term used for anyone who uses an Element deck) cast spells by drawing a certain number of element cards from their deck, and using some number of those to cast a spell which uses the drawn type/quantity of elements. Each spell has a level, determined by how many element cards are needed to cast it.

I don't yet have a good idea of the scale of spells with regards to spell level, which largely stems from the multielemental nature of most spells. For example, take a spell that sculpts stone. It could require just CM mana, as one creates stone in a certain shape, or it could require just DM mana, to remove bits from a block of stone, which would probably be the more efficient option. However, it's probably even more efficient to cast that type of spell using both CM & DM mana, allowing for refining of the shape of the stone in more ways than just chiseling away. However, that means that the spell requires at least 1 CM card and at least 1 DM card, so it automatically must be at least a level 2 spell. As such, it is difficult to find a spell that makes sense as a level 1 spell, for it truly has to be most efficient as a single-element spell.

I do have level 0 spells, or cantrips. These are spells which are cast using a card from your deck, but the card is then returned to the deck, so all they really require is that you know how to use that type of mana. Some examples include:

Timer - A dimensional cantrip that sets a timer in your mind to notify you when a certain amount of time has passed.

Calm Self - a destroy soul cantrip that calms rampant emotions in oneself. Has no effect on magically-induced emotions.

Match - a create energy cantrip that creates a small spark for a flame where you touch. If not used on something extremely flammable (like paper), the touched object will not catch fire. Does not really have combat utility.

Another example of spell I've thought of that becomes more effective/efficient as more elements are added to cast it is a simple healing spell, used to heal a cut with a knife (just as an example). At the lowest level, it would either be a CM spell, in which case you recreate the flesh covering the wound, essentially forcibly forming a scab, or a CS spell, which would help close the wound internally and deal with the pain, but would do nothing to the appearance from outside/possible future wounds in the same spot. Combine the two, and now you have a spell that fully heals the wound and make it look good as new. Then, if you add in ST magic, you are able to simulate a speeding-up of the healing process by manipulating time, allowing for a heal that has a lower chance of becoming a vulnerable spot or getting infected, because it's as if the wound has healed naturally in a sterilized environment. And this isn't even getting into the craziness of adding DM to kill any infections that might already be there, CE to help the bloodflow through the wound, etc. I'm starting to feel like this system may be too open-ended.

I also want to talk a little bit about spellcasters getting stronger in Cardcasting. I'll note that I don't actually know the mechanics of how Spellcasters become stronger, just that if they were to become stronger, these are things that would chnage. Spellcasters have either 3 or 4 axes upon which they can get stronger, depending on how you look at it, and each of those has its own downsides.

Learn more spells - the simplest way for a spellcaster to become stronger is to learn more spells. This one doesn't actually have much of a downside, but it doesn't really increase the strength of a spellcaster, just their versatility. Learning higher level spells is a different point.

Cast spells faster - when a spellcaster casts a spell, they spend a certain amount of time drawing a certain number of cards. If they are able to draw more cards faster, they will be able to cast higher level spells at a rate closer to how they used to be able to cast lower level spells, making them stronger. This has the downside of causing a spellcaster to run through their deck more quickly, so they can't cast as many spells in succession before needing to rest.

Have a larger pool of mana - a spellcaster's pool of mana determines how many spells they can cast before needing to rest, and is essentially the same as the size of their deck. If a spellcaster is able to add more cards to their deck, they will be able to cast more spells between breaks. However, this will decrease the consistency of their deck, as with a larger deck you are less likely to draw the exact element you need.

Versatility of mana - this is the axis that might not actually be considered its own upside. Spellcaster can learn how to harness more elements, which might allow them more versatility in the spells they can cast, but similarly to the last point, it would also greatly diminish the consistency of their deck.

Hope you enjoyed my rambling thoughts today! One more day, then I'm home free!

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[ellies-cycling-notes]

Day 21: Grand Ledge to Kalamazoo

Distance Covered: 70.69 miles

Total Time (including rests): 7:06 (8:17am-3:23pm)

Time spent riding: 5:29

Average Speed: 12.9 mph

Apples Eaten: 4 (fuji - 7/10, honeycrisp - 7.5/10, honeycrisp - 7.5/10, honeycrisp - 7.5/10)

Another mostly boring ride today. I'm kinda glad the trip is coming to an end, if just for the fact that I'm running out of ways to describe the ride. Biking across Michigan was much more hilly than the last several days, but still flat enough that I never had to switch to the small gear in front. It was almost completely on paved roads, with the small bit on a dirt road being the best dirt road I've been on. It was kinda cool when I started the ride, but it got hot relatively quickly, and by the time I was really into the ride I was greatly looking forward to the portions of shade.

I had a slight tailwind from the north, which was a nice contrast to yesterday's headwind. The tailwind ended up being slightly problematic, because it meant I was going to arrive at the campsite before the 3:00pm check-in. To remedy that, I ended up taking an extra long lunch break, but it still felt like a waste. Today's ride took me on a lot of high-speed state roads, but luckily most of them were either lacking in cars or had a wide shoulder. I spent a tiny bit of the ride near the end on a bike trail, but it was such a short distance that it didn't really impact the feeling of the ride.

I took 2 breaks, at about 25 and 50 miles into the ride. I had a bite to eat (PB&Js as usual) at both stops, but they were both just off the road with a little shade, so they weren't that interesting. As mentioned earlier, the second of those rests was rather long, just so that I wouldn't arrive at the campsite too early.

Small Notes

Train crossing - I've crossed many train crossing and seen many trains on this bike ride, but today was the first time I actually had to stop at a train crossing because of a train coming by

Lost dog - shortly after my first break, a car stopped near me and the driver asked if I had seen a dog running past. Unfortunately, I hadn't, so I couldn't help them with their search for their lost dog.

Bee sting? - at some point on the ride, I heard a buzzing noise behind my head. It didn't disappear when I kept riding, so I thought a bug or something might be flying with me. I waved my hand behind my head, and felt something in my hair. I tried to pull it out, and when I did, I felt a sharp (but small, probably a 1 or 2 out of 10 on the pain scale) pain in my thumb. The thing in my hair fell out and I didn't get to see what it was, and my thumb stopped hurting after 15 minutes or so, so I don't think it was actually a bee, but rather some other bug, but at that moment, I was pretty certain I had just been stung by a bee or wasp.

Pavement Notes (continued)

Here's a continuation of yesterday's notes on types of pavement, this time focusing on paved roads.

Sidewalk - a normally smooth type of pavement, except for a line crack every meter or 2, making it slightly different than just riding on smooth pavement.

Bike Trail (perfect) - when you have a paved bike trail, the pavement is usually rather smooth with no issues you have to pay attention to when riding.

Bike Trail (ruptured) - sometimes, the bike trail will have "seam lines" that come up on the pavement, like the pavement on either side of the line was pushed together. This pavement is usually nice, but you have to be careful with the seam lines/ruptures, as they can cause bumpiness or even flat tires if you go too fast over them.

Grainy Pavement - this is a type of road pavement, where the asphalt feels loose like gravel, even if it isn't. It can be rocky to ride on for both cars and bikes. It's most commonly found as the shoulder of a road which is mostly a different type of pavement.

Rough Pavement - I don't know really how to describe the next 3 categories of pavement, I just think it's important to note that there is a difference between the 3 when on a bike, even if they all feel very similar in a car. On this pavement, your bike tends to "bump along" while you ride.

Middling Pavement - on this pavement, the bike doesn't really bump, but the seat might shake a little, such that if you stay sitting too long on this type of road, you'll end up feeling very uncomfortable.

Smooth Pavement - best of the best, no blemishes, feels like you're riding on a frictionless surface.

Needs-Repairs Pavement - can be combined with any type of pavement (most commonly grainy or rough pavement), and with it there are a lot of potholes, as well as places where the pavement is at slightly different levels, like a partial fix has been made, but the pavement hasn't been completely redone. Common to see on less-well-kept roads in cities.

Design Notes

Don't have much in the way of design notes today. Just have mentions of a few games and what my next plans for them are, if any. This is mostly just repeating information from previous days and is basically just notes for myself, so it might not make much sense, but it was what I thought about today.

Characters, Inc - want to create item generation system, rebalance ability scores, change quest lengths

Time Loop - figure out how to have a small scale working prototype

Grid Delver - lots to do. First, a remake of the original, then create the framework for the new version.

Cardcasting - two directions I could see my self going: (1) work on the world building; (2) work on specific spells, as well as general ideas for spells

This is all. I have only 2 more days of riding left, after which I'll probably make a Post-Ride post, but the blogging is almost over!

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[ellies-cycling-notes]

Only pic today is another one of me right before starting my ride. I'll probably put together a timeline of these when the ride is over.

[ellies-cycling-notes]

Day 20: Ann Arbor to Grand Ledge

Distance Covered: 86.22 miles

Total Time (including rests): 8:20 (7:57am-4:17pm)

Time spent riding: 7:12

Average Speed: 12.0 mph

Apples Eaten: 3 (honeycrisp - 7/10, fuji - 7.5/10, fuji - 6/10)

Today's post is probably gonna be on the shorter side, as I don't have much time to write.

Ride was a slow one, but still nice. I traveled on a mix of roads and bike trails. Most of the ride was on paved side roads, but parts were on bike trails, both paved and unpaved. I also spent a bit of time on gravel roads, which wasn't that pleasant, but it wasn't as bad as some of the gravel paths on previous days.

The ride was hilly-er than the several days spent riding through Ohio, but not by much. What was really annoying was not the hills, but rather the headwind. I had a heavy North wind, and about 1/2 of this ride was me heading north, and I always slowed to a crawl when I had to go north for a long period of time. Luckily, some amount of that northward-bound riding was on bike trails, and so the speed loss was made up for by a better road.

I stopped 3 times, twice along bike trails, and once by a cemetery, for snack/lunch breaks. The stops were mostly evenly spaced, and were part of the reason I considered today a "slow ride". The last bit of the ride biking through Lansing and Grand Ledge was the best of the ride not on trails, and I wish all road riding could be like that.

The only truly notable thing that happened during the ride was at the very beginning: while on the Border-to-Border trail heading out of Ann Arbor, I had to stop at a stop sign to let a person carrying a rowing scull to pass me, carrying their boat out to a dock just in the other side of the trail.

Pavement Notes

I did a whole terminological deep dive into roads at the beginning of this trip. Now, I'd like to return to that topic (sort of), by talking about pavement of roads. When in a car, there's only a few different types of pavement you tend to notice. However, on a bike, you're much more sensitive to the road beneath you, so you notice more types of pavement.

First of all, there are the unpaved roads:

Packed dirt - fine to ride on, as long as it's not muddy. Be careful for potholes and divots in the road.

Light gravel - the nicest unpaved roads, this is a packed earth road with a light layer of gravel above it. The gravel doesn't interfere with the riding, and so the feeling is nice.

Medium gravel - like above, but gravel may be larger or more plentiful in parts. Not too bad if you're only on it for a short while, but you have to be paying constant attention ahead of you, and it can get uncomfortable at times, so better in small doses.

Rocky gravel - bad, terrible, don't really even want to talk about it. On these roads, you usually have to bike extremely carefully, and sometimes it feels like it would be better to stop your bike and walk.

I also have some different types of paved roads which I was going to write about, but I'm getting rather tired, and don't really have the mental capacity to describe them well. I might write about them another day, or I might just forget about it.

Math Notes

Rather than Design Notes today, I have a theoretical/simulation math problem I've been thinking about.

When I map out my route, it gives a certain mileage. However, that mileage is only correct if you make perfect turns and stay on the center of every road. That got me thinking, how much can you increase the distance you bike on a route of a certain length, given that you are constantly following the route given to you. This turns into an equation dependent on the minimum and maximum speed of your bike, how fast and to what degree it can turn, and most importantly, how wide the road is. This is because the way to maximize distance is to weave back and forth on the road, while still biking forwards. That's as far as I really thought about it, but I just wanted to get my thoughts out.

That's it for today. I'm not camping today, as I'm staying with family, and tomorrow I'll be heading out to Kalamazoo. Only 3 days of riding left!

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[ellies-cycling-notes]

Day 19: Ann Arbor (Rest Day)

Apples Eaten: 2 (fuji - 5.5/10, fuji - 7/10)

Today was my last rest day. I have four more days of riding, and then this trip will be done! It's raining tonight, but luckily it seems like it'll have cleared up by tomorrow morning.

As a sidenote, here's a link to Characters Inc., which I've mentioned in the past few days, if you want to check it out. It's a little old, and I tested it a bit, and should work on a Windows computer, but I can't be certain.

Tomorrow I'm heading towards Lansing, Michigan, with another ride of just over 80 miles.

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[ellies-cycling-notes]

One pic today, of the misty sunrise at the campsite.

[ellies-cycling-notes]

Day 18: Van Buren State Park to Ann Arbor

Distance Covered: ~88 miles

Total Time (including rests): ~8:11 (7:44am-3:55pm)

Time spent riding: ~7:31 (Approx. 40 minutes of rest)

Average Speed: 11.7 mph

Apples Eaten: 2 (fuji - 5.5/10, fuji - 6/10)

First of all, you might notice that I did not give exact values for today's ride. This is because my phone had a malfunction on the ride, and I had to disable the app I use to record my ride, and as such, I don't have complete accuracy in what I did. The approximations given above are estimated from Google Maps, as well as personal guesses about start/end times + break lengths. I rounded down, assuming that I took shorter breaks, and the entire ride took longer.

With that out of the way, today's ride was another pretty bland one. Similar to how yesterday's ride was a straight shot West, today's was a straight shot North to Ann Arbor. It was slightly more interesting than yesterday's ride, though, due to a few unusual parts of the ride. Almost all the ride was on state/side roads again, but there was a 15 mile or so stretch on bike trails, which was rather nice. In addition, the worst part of the ride was a side road which was a rocky gravel path I had to ride on for about 5 miles. I probably could've found a way to go around it, but as I was in rural Ohio at the time, it probably would've meant having to bike off to the side 1 or 2 miles to find a better road, so I just went through with it. I was worried about getting another flat, but my worries were for naught. This makes it so that I have now gone the entire set of rides from Pittsburgh to Ann Arbor (the Ohio rides as I'll probably call them) without getting a single flat. Here's to hoping the pattern continues! (Knock on wood)

I went through quite a few road work zones on today's ride, but the cars around me were usually polite, so it wasn't too bad. The most fun one was when I was able to ignore a 2-mile detour, because I could just take the pedestrian pathway over some train tracks that was still available.

Weather was also pretty nice today. When I woke up and got started on my ride, it was in the low 50s, and even as the ride went on, the heat never really got to be too much. I did end up drinking more water than I expected, but yet again I was saved by the new small water bottle I've been carrying in my handlebar bag.

On the topic of my handlebar bag, I think I might be carrying too much in it. It uses velcro straps to stay on the front of my bike, but some of the velcro keeps slipping, and I'll sometimes have to take a stop for 30 seconds or so just to readjust it. It's never enough to be a huge problem, but it is something I always have to be aware of.

Design Notes

Going straight into design notes today, I have just one topic on hand. It might be a long one, or it might be short, in which case I'll probably have more to say about it later.

Overpowered (OP) Items

To start of, let's define what I'm referring to by "OP Items." These do not actually have to be items in games, but rather can be any game object which can belong/be assigned to a player (whether that be skills, abilities, items, or something else). With that, I have three categories of OP items in mind. Before describing them, I'll note that these three categories have a lot of overlap between them, especially categories 2 and 3:

Items that are just really strong. These are items that tend to break the balance of a game in favor of one player, or in favor of THE players in the case of a cooperative game. An example of this would be any high-level D&D equipment when given at too low a level. I will be not really discussing this type of OP item specifically much in today's notes.

Items that warp the rules. These are items that introduce new rules or reject existing ones, changing the way the game is played. They are often just situationally powerful, or give small increments of power over time. They may need you to be more strategic than those of category 1. Some examples of this include the "Fleet Logistics" and "Lightwave Deflector" Technologies in Twilight Imperium, which both allow you to take actions otherwise impossible, or the "Dead Branch" relic in Slay the Spire, which warps which cards are beneficial for you to play/have in your deck.

Build-around Items. These are items that are powerful, but only in situations were conditions are properly met. They require players to think deeply about how to maximize their potential, or they end up being rather weak. A lot of Magic: the Gathering combo/synergy cards fall into this categories, as do certain D&D spells.

Why am I suddenly discussing OP Items? I think it's partially due to my thoughts from the last couple of days, but I'm not sure exactly what lead to this train of thought. It may have been the games I've been thinking about, it may have been what I've been reading, I really don't know.

I wanted to give my design thoughts on OP Items. I tend to greatly enjoy them in games I play, especially those of category 2 & 3, as they provide great moments in gameplay when you first get them, or when you figure out the right way to use them. When they appear or are first used, it usually marks an important turning point in the game.

With that being said, I have a much harder time designing with OP Items. One of my first games, Atropos, which I designed with my brother and a friend, was focused around "Treasures," which were mostly OP items. But since then, I haven't designed many games, if any, that have OP items in the same sort of way.

I think it largely boils down to being a result of my approach to design of game mechanics, which I like to call "Spreadsheet Design." When designing, I try to organize and classify things using spreadsheets, quantifying attributes, and balancing things out as I work. OP items are harder to quantify, especially those of category 2 & 3, because how strong they are can ebb and flow. Depending on the game, you might have an upper and lower limit of what you want such items to be able to do, requiring even more restrictions that increase the tightly-wound-ness of the game.

In a competitive game, you have make sure that one player does not just win the game because they received/have a certain OP item. With that, one of the most dangerous types of OP items are those that spiral into more OP items as the game progresses. There's also the case of OP items which either are stronger the longer you have them, or have a set strength. For example, an item that gives +1 to all your attack rolls is much stronger and gets much more use if received earlier in the game, while an item that gives a one-time-use +20 to an attack roll is good any point in the game, but may not end up having the same strength if received early in the game, because you probably don't want to waste it then. This is why build-around OP items are often some of the best in a competitive game, because that means it's up to the players' strategies to determine whether an OP item actually breaks the game in their favor. At the same time, this could backfire, because if a player is going for a certain strategy, and they just happen to receive an OP item that slots into that strategy, they may run away with the game.

OP items may be easier to manager in Cooperative or solitaire games, but those still have the issue of possibly breaking the game tension that exists between the players and the game. Even those types of games are typically less fun if they become way too easy, to the point of not really needing to strategize.

In my games, I tend to not include OP items, because I'm not very adept at managing the flow of a game correctly, and adding OP items would just throw an additional wrench in that flow. And then, by the time I think I have the flow figured out, the game is too set in its design to really add OP items at that point.

I do have some ideas for games that want/should have OP items. For one, I think Characters, Inc. would do well with OP items, especially ones which warp the rules of the game, because while it's one of the games I'm most proud of, that's more from a coding perspective than a design perspective. At the moment, it's much too straightforward, so it actually kinda needs a wrench thrown in. Moreover, I have an idea for a game that kinda takes the "OP Item" idea to the extreme, being focused completely around getting items/abilities with game-breaking effects, and combining/making use of them to their optimal situation. In fact, that's something that might be able to exist in Time Loop, with the offset of OP items resulting in a higher chance of temporal instability or temporal paradoxes. But that's an idea for another day.

This is all for today. Little late posting tonight, didn't have too much to say about the ride today. I'm now resting in Ann Arbor, and on Wednesday I'll be starting my final stretch back to Chicago. Today's design notes ended up getting a little carried away from me, but I'm not gonna bother editing them, so they may be a little jumbled and I don't know how much sense they'll make. Til next time!

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[ellies-cycling-notes]

Day 17: Findley State Park to Van Buren State Park

Distance Covered: 81.27 miles

Total Time (including rests): 7:10 (8:03am-3:13pm)

Time spent riding: 6:22

Average Speed: 12.8 mph

Apples Eaten: 4 (fuji - 7/10, fuji - 6/10, fuji - 7/10, fuji - 5/10)

Today's ride was another boring, yet alright, one. It was basically 80 miles straight West from one State Park to another, only going North or South to switch to less busy roads. The entire ride was on various state roads and side roads, most of which had rather good pavement. I made rather good time for a few reasons. There was the good pavement as mentioned, and then also I had a tailwind for most of the ride, and thirdly, this ride was really flat. I barely had to switch gears at all, and when I did, it was more likely to be because of a sudden change in wind making the ride too hard or too easy, rather than because of going up or down a hill. The weather was also really nice, barely getting above 70 Fahrenheit, and oftentimes cloudy for miles on end.

I stopped twice on the ride, once about half-way through, and once only 10 miles from my campsite. I wanted to not take that second stop at all, but I was getting really hungry and didn't want to hold off on lunch.

Today's ride's main focus was on conserving the battery on my phone. One of my power banks is dead, and I think I might have to use my laptop as a power bank to get my phone fully charged for tomorrow. Because of that, I took various measures on the ride to extend my phone's power. For one, the fewer number of stops meant I spent less time just sitting looking at my phone (of course, that didn't really matter in the end because it meant I arrived at my campsite earlier, and this would have more time reading stuff on my phone). I also kept my phone's brightness as low as I could, and even turned off my maps whenever I was about to be on a straightaway for several miles, only turning it back on again when I believed myself to be close to the next turn.

I saw a few interesting birds on today's ride. In addition to the normal ones, I also saw a peacock on a front porch, a vulture by a field, a bird I think was a hummingbird (it was moving too quickly for me to be sure), and what I think was pheasants in a yard. Apart from those, today's ride didn't really have anything that stood out, which is kinda what I expected, biking across rural Ohio.

Design Notes

Today's notes are probably going to be short (I don't actually know, I have a few key points that I wrote down during the ride, but most of the substance has yet to be written).

I've been thinking about character stats/ability scores. This train of thought comes from 2 places.

1) Yesterday's ruminations on Procedural Generation got me thinking about Characters, Inc. again, in which each character has 6 (maybe 5, I can't remember) stats that affect how well they do in a dungeon. I'll go more into detail later in this section, because I spent a lot of time specifically thinking about Characters, Inc.

2) I've been reading LitRPGs, which are a fantasy sub-genre where the fantasy world has game-like elements, often including ability scores.

Ability Scores

I understand the necessity of ability scores in games in order to simplify complex systems of the world, but there's always something about them that feels awkward. There's always too much overlap between certain abilities, or cases where it doesn't make much sense for you to automatically become better at multiple unrelated things. For example, bench pressing should increase your Strength, but in most games that would also increase your leg power, even though they're different muscles. With that being said, I do enjoy the use of ability scores as measures of characters that aren't directly controlled by players, because then those abilities end up being used in more broad stroke ways, and so it makes more sense. For example, if you have a character with high dexterity, you can't guarantee that they'll succeed at a certain parkour move, but if you give them an entire parkour course, they'll probably complete it more quickly than someone with a lower dexterity score. That brings me to my discussion of Characters, inc.

In Characters Inc, you the player send a party of characters out on a quest, and only receive the results of said quest. As such, this is the perfect place to make use of ability scores, as they can be used to broadly define a character's strengths. Here are the ability scores as I remember them in Characters, Inc. I will describe the ability and what it used to do, if I can remember, as well as what I would have them do if I was to remake the game.

Strength (STR) - Every quest in Characters, Inc has a hidden power level the party has to beat in order to complete the quest. STR contributes directly to meeting that power level. In addition, when distributing damage amongst the party, characters with more STR will have been targeted more by enemies, and so will receive a larger portion of the damage.

Agility (AGI) - I don't remember what this does in the original version of the game. If I was to remake it, it would have 2 main effects: it would influence how long it takes for a party to complete a quest, and it would act as a buffer relative to one's STR such that they are targeted less if they have high AGI.

Endurance (END) - Endurance directly impacts how much health a character has.

Toughness or Defense (TOU) - After getting assigned damage, TOU reduces the amount of damage that a character takes. If I remake the game, it might also increase the amount that the chosen character is targeted, because otherwise a high TOU character is useless without high STR.

Magic (MAG) - Similar to STR, this directly contributes to the power level of the quest. It also increases the chance the character is targeted, but at a much lower rate than STR. Thus, it pairs well with characters that have lower END or TOU.

Luck (LUCK) - Increase the rewards characters receive from the quest. Every quest has guaranteed rewards, but this stat increases the chance for additional gold and/or item rewards. In the original version, each character's luck was used independently to figure out additional gold and items, such that you could get at most +1 item per character. If I was to remake it, I'd probably have it that the character with the highest luck is taken as a base, and each other character's luck is added on to that, but not to the full amount.

That's all. There's no pics today, as the ride was rather bland and boring. Tomorrow I'm headed straight North to Ann Arbor. I hope the wind will've calmed down a bit by then, because I'd rather not ride 80+ miles with a headwind.

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[ellies-cycling-notes]

Day 16: Mill Creek to Findley Park

Distance Covered: 84.48 miles

Total Time (including rests): 7:52 (8:01am-3:53pm)

Time spent riding: 6:56

Average Speed: 12.2 mph

Apples Eaten: 4 (fuji - 7/10, fuji - 5.5/10, fuji - 6/10, fuji - 6/10)

Today's ride was fine. I don't really know how else to describe it. It was another long one, one that I tried to take a little slow. Almost all the ride was on state roads, except a little bit on a rail trail called the Freedom Trail. That trail was really nice, with good pavement and flat ground. However, I was only on it for a few miles.

Most of the ride was rather flat, with only a few hills here and there. Even when there were hills, the inclines were usually rather gradual, making them a lot easier to ride on than on previous days. Overall, today kinda felt like a nothing day. There wasn't much of interest along the ride, but I still spent most of the time focusing on riding.

I ended up taking 2 breaks, at about 1/3 and 2/3 of the way through the ride. First one was a snack break at Kent State. It was actually a great place to stop, cause I could actually use the wifi there, so I could check a few things I hadn't been able to in the last couple of days. The other stop was under some random tree in the shade in the middle of nowhere, where I had lunch.

Probably the most interesting part of the ride apart from the Freedom Trail was the last 20 miles of the ride. Those last 20 miles were all on a single long straight road, with almost no hills, just cutting across rural Ohio. It perfectly encompassed how I felt about the entire ride today.

After getting to my campsite and getting set up, I took my bike for a short ride (without any of my luggage) to a nearby grocery store to refill on bread and apples, as I was beginning to run out. I should now have enough to last me through arriving in Ann Arbor in 2 days' time.

Small Notes:

Water bottle - I kept the bottled water I got yesterday and have been keeping filled and in my front bag. It's been helpful in allowing me to make the additional push I sometimes need to get to a proper resting spot to refill my water

Croc - I carry Crocs on the back of my bike to wear when I'm not riding (you might've seen them in a pic or two). I'm sorry to say that the strap on one of them has broken. I can still wear them and walk around, but it's now going to be harder putting them in my bike, because I don't have an easy way to loop a bungee cord through that croc (I'll figure something out, though)

Design Notes

It's the return of design notes! Today I actually had something that came to mind naturally that I spent a lot of time thinking about, so I don't feel awkward and like I'm pushing myself to think of something to write about.

Procedural Generation

I'm gonna talk a bit about procedural generation, and specifically about how I like using it in cases other than map-making. This thought came to mind because I was thinking about Time Loop, and how the Assistance App in that game might decide what events should occur and why. For example, I don't want too many events that do similar things to occur, and you also want the threat of events to grow realistically over time. I don't know quite yet how I'd do this Proc-Gen, but I do have two other theoretical cases I've thought about before that will probably help me:

Proc-Gen in Dominion: For those who do not know, Dominion is a tabletop deckbuilder card game, where players are given a random assortment of cards which they can buy 1 or more copies of throughout the game, and they make use od those cards ro gain Victory Points. And also, it's probably my favorite game of all time. The base game of Dominion has about 25 different cards which can be in the Supply or shop, and you play with 10 each game. But then, you add in expansions, and the number of possible card combinations becomes near limitless. I mentioned earlier that you pick cards for the shop randomly, but that's not quite true. You can do that, but that will often lead to unbalanced or unfun game setups. Instead, there are generally a few heuristic rules you follow when selecting cards, such as not having too many or too little of any cost of card, or not having multiple different cards whose effects are too similar. With that in mind, I've thought in the past about coding a program that selects a set of 10 cards, such that cards are selected randomly yet it minimizes the possibility of poor setups. How I think I'd do it is by giving each card various tags/attributes, such as their cost and generalities about their effects (such as "trashers" or "villages"). Then, the first card would be picked completely randomly. However, whatever card that is will change the weight of other cards in the pool such that you're more likely to pick a wider variety of cards. Of course, the system as it is has a few problems, such as the fact that it may lead to certain cards being picked too often or almost never, just because of what attributes they have. It could also still lead to situations where you have too many or too few cards of certain costs, because it doesn't account for that.

Characters Inc: Two years ago, I made a game called Characters, Inc. for a programming class, where you are given randomly generated characters, and have to equip them with items and send them on quests in order to make enough money to survive. Unfortunately, I never got to do one of the things I wanted to with that game, which was to have a system that procedurally generates items with stat bonuses and effects, as selected from a random list. Instead, I just had a list of possible items, and they would just be randomly picked. However, the idea stuck in my mind, so I had some thoughts on how it would work. What's important to know as a precursor to this is that Characters Inc is a rather simplistic game when it comes to characters and their items: you just send them on a quest, and depending on their stats, they come back with a certain amount of loot and damage taken. Because of that, it was really easy to design equipment that basically all just had conditional stat changes and related effects (for example, a Bloodied item would give a basic stat increase, but would give a larger stat increase if the character carrying it started the quest already damaged). Thus, most item effects could be represented as quantitative values. My idea for the Proc-Gen for this would be the following steps: (1) randomly select the level of the item, as this would determine how powerful it is. With that, you get a quantitative power level in the bank (2) randomly select an ability for the item to have, and increase or decrease the power level in the bank according to that ability (positive abilities would spend power, while negative would gain it). (3) decide whether the item should have another ability. If yes, return to step (2). If not, (4) randomly assign the item basic stat bonuses, spending the rest of the power in the bank. (5) decide what type of item it is, partially based on the stats it provides (e.g. defense-granting items are more likely to be shields or armor).

Both of those examples are ones which could serve as good inspirations if I decide to actually work on Time Loop, as they are more about generating a realistic creation from a list, rather than creating a picture or map.

This is all for tonight. There won't be any pictures tonight, partially because I didn't take any, and partially because the service is so bad at my campsite I don't think I'd be able to share them. Tomorrow's another long one, and it's just a straight shot West across Ohio. Luckily, at the moment it looks like I'll have a Northeast wind, but I don't know if that'll hold true.

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[ellies-cycling-notes]

2 pics today: 1 of me right before heading out, and 1 of what was going to be my campsite if not for the storm

[ellies-cycling-notes]

Day 15: Pittsburgh to Mill Creek

Distance Covered: 87.30 miles

Total Time (including rests): 8:24 (8:46am-5:10pm)

Time spent riding: 7:07

Average Speed: 12.3 mph

Apples Eaten: 3 (??? - 5.5/10, ??? - 7/10, fuji - 7.5/10)

Today's ride was pretty good. Not on the level of the GAP trail, but still better than most of the rest of my rides. It was close today, which was really nice as I didn't have to drink too much water and didn't get overheated. I actually only took 1 "real" stop on the ride, about 70 miles in. I stopped a couple of times before that for refilling water and such, but those stops were 5 minutes at most. I would have liked to go the entire ride without having to stop, but the last stretch was rather tiring so I had to take a break. The first part of the ride took me through several small townships and industrial regions in Pennsylvania. Then, once I crossed the Ohio River for the final time (my route actually had me take several bridges over the Ohio River and back to be able to stay on bike-friendly roads), I entered rural Ohio, which was mostly just flat stretches of road. There were some rather hilly parts, but most of the ride was flat, and even the hilly parts were better than the area around Philadelphia and Baltimore.

A Change in Approach

Now that I've gotten the overview of the ride out of the way, I'd like to address a change that will be happening to this blog. In short, I will be probably writing less, and about less consistent topics for the rest of the ride.

I have finally started to reach the point of mental exhaustion, and was barely able to think about anything other than just riding on today's journey. I was able to focus a lot more by not distracting myself with other thoughts, which is what led me to making rather good time. I still expect to write things as I think about them, and will still give a general overview of the ride, but the "Notes on the Ride" and "Design Notes" categories may not appear at all some days. For example, today I don't have any design notes to write about. I've been feeling overly stressed about making sure I have things to write about, and that's not why I started this blog at all. In fact, when I started this blog, I note that I might not even post every day. I've just gotten too wrapped up in my own perception of the blog, and I need to take a step back and use it in a less systematic manner. With that being said, today I do have some notes from the ride, so here they are:

Notes on the Ride

Bugs on clothes - it is not unusual for me to encounter bugs on my ride that slam into me. However, today had two interesting specimens that were rather different that the usual "fly hits the face". (1) a butterfly flew onto my shirt while I was riding, and latched on, staying attached for a good 2 miles or so before flying off again; (2) a wasp flew at my chest and actually went under my shirt. Luckily, it soon flew out and away from me, but it was quite a scare in the moment.

Industrial train area - the most annoying part of today's ride was only a little bit outside eof Pittsburgh, when my mapping took me on a route through an industrial train area, on rocky gravel paths right next to various traincars.

Water bottle - I got my water refilled by being given a bottle of water from a very kind couple who I encountered on side roads in rural Ohio.

Switched site at campground - I'll discuss the campground more in detail later on, but here I'll mention that, due to the storm, there was great damage to my campsite, so it had to get switched with another one.

Plastic log cabin - I saw a plastic log cabin in the yard of one of the houses I passed by. This wouldn't be interesting, except for the fact that I realized it was the exact same model cabin as the one my family had when I was a kid.

Campsite Issues

I just need to complain a bit here. Mill Creek is not the worst campground possible, but I was rather unlucky, in that the storm from yesterday knocked out the power in the camp, so they don't have running water or working bathrooms. It's a relief that I'm doing alright on water consumption and it's not too hot today, or I might've had to take my bike out for a ride to a store to buy bottled water. Part of me feels like I should've searched for other campsites nearby and gone to one of them instead, not caring about the reservation I made here. This does give me an excuse, though, to go to sleep early, because there's nothing like a shower or such to keep me awake.

That's all for today. No design notes today, a rather good ride but not so good campsite, and getting mentally tired. I'll probably start riding early tomorrow, riding through rural Ohio all day. Tomorrow's ride is supposed to be a similar distance to today's, but I hope it's flatter.

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[ellies-cycling-notes]

Day 14: Pittsburgh (Rest Day)

Apples Eaten: 4 (all unknown types - 6.5/10, 7/10, 6/10, 6/10)

Today is just a very brief post. I rested all day today, stressing out about tomorrow's ride, as it's a long ride, but not on bike trails. I almost forgot to post today, but remembered just before calling it a night. That's why this post might seem less formal than my normal posts.

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