July 2nd, Day 14: Pocatello, ID to Idaho Falls, ID: 67 miles, 892 ft ascent, Mairs-Heggie point 16.8910

Today’s 67 mile ride to Idaho Falls was flat, fast and uneventful – aside from some fairly spectacular potholes, even by frontage road standards. Fortunately the re-trued back wheel stood the test, and we managed a Heggie speed (includes all rest stops) of 16mph.

With the perfunctory ride details out of the way, onto more important things: Both our regular readers will remember that we mentioned the Mairs-Heggie sequence a few days ago. This is a fascinating (to us), but entirely useless mathematical construct pertaining to multi-day journeys.

Each day with non-zero mileage on such a journey has its own Mairs-Heggie Point. The Mairs-Heggie Sequence for the journey is simply the chronological sequence of all the Mairs-Heggie Points for that journey.

The Mairs-Heggie Point today occurred at 16.8910 miles.

The Mairs-Heggie Points for Day 0 through to today (considered as parts of the entire 3,653 mile journey described on our route page) are as follows:

0
0.5583
2.0542
3.1832
3.9911
9.8934
9.4334
11.5549
10.3427
9.4811
19.0127
8.5683
19.8445
16.8910

From now on, the introductory line to each blog will include that day’s Mairs-Heggie Point (MHP).

The first person to correctly articulate how Mairs-Heggie Points are calculated will receive a valuable (but as yet unspecified) prize. They will also be honoured by the publication of their definition in this highly regarded journal of mathematical nonsense.

Hopefully the usual Shorter, Snappier and More amusing service will resume tomorrow.