I went for a ride.

I went for a bike ride today hoping it would be fun, but after having a little too much absinthe the night before, it ended up being more painful than enjoyable.

Around mile thirty, I turned around and went back home. I know it’s ridiculous to some, but I have a bad habit, which has gotten worse as I’ve gotten older. Five or ten miles just isn’t far enough anymore. Forty miles is pretty good, but sixty or eighty is much better. Those long days of listening to music, climbing a hill, catching a drift – I really can’t get enough of it. Those moments when you feel like giving up, and that song comes on that inspires you to go a little further. I want more of those days, and fewer days worrying about having to pay the bills.

Now we have to talk about speed.

Speed is also really important when it comes to a ride. Given enough time, even the most unfit can go fairly far, so we factor in speed. 

How far did we go and how long did it take? Now this is where it gets a bit tricky, because speed is highly contingent on energy, and energy will be contingent on where I am on the digestion process.

For example, this morning I woke up, had a banana and peanut butter oatmeal, and then got on the bike. For me, typically riding on an empty stomach in the mornings is the most difficult.

And then there’s muscle atrophy; today’s ride was compounded by yesterday’s twenty-mile ride (in the afternoon), which was exactly four hours after eating burritos, where I set new record time.

So even though I still managed sixty miles today, it wasn’t a particularly good ride. Sore legs, an empty stomach, dehydration, and a rough night’s sleep all compounded into a performance that was below par.

We understand that performance matters.

Performance really is vital, and that’s why we test all of our plug-ins both as whitebox tests (using them in DAWS) as well as blackbox tests (testing in automated testing suites). If we find a bug or see a performance issue, we take care of it.