Week 12

Date
March 22, 2018

Distance
100 miles

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Week 12

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I finally did some climbing, and boy do I feel out of shape. I definitely do not have my climbing legs right now, and on top of that I put on a little extra upper body muscle in preparation for some bikepacking, so I felt very slow. Hopefully I can keep on climbing and get back in the groove again.

Nevertheless, it felt great to be out there today. I can't wait to explore more of the roads around Cloudcroft as the weather gets warmer.

Week 11

Date
March 17, 2018

Distance
100 miles

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Week 11

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As mentioned in the video, I have bad news for my yearly goals already. I decided to take a new job in Alamogordo, mainly because I'll be working 3 12-hour shifts per week. It may sound crazy, but that's been a big goal of mine for a while now because I love the idea of having 4 days off every week. I can take a lot of random trips and ride in new places more often.

The downside is that I will not be doing the Trans Am this year as planned. It sucks to miss out on such a big goal, but I think it's the right thing to do in the long run. I'll be able to have more fun all year long as opposed to just cramming most of my fun into one month.

I'm going to need some new goals, and I have some ideas. I'm thinking of trying a non-stop ride across NM, which would be just under 400 miles. I also want to do some point-to-point rides. The first one that comes to mind is to ride from Tucson to Alamogordo. That's about 450 miles and I could do it in 3 days. I already have a route planned out. Things will be a little busy for a while, but hopefully I can do something in April.

Also, even though I don't live right next door, I do plan on heading out to California in May to watch at least 1 stage of the Tour of California.

Week 10

Date
March 10, 2018

Distance
100 miles

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Week 10

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I went out towards Las Cruces and back again. This is becoming my go-to route. I hope to start doing more climbing soon.

Week 9

Date
March 3, 2018

Distance
100 miles

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Week 9

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I broke 5 hours again on a solo century. That's only the 3rd time I've ever done so but the 2nd time this year. This one was mainly about good timing, though. I managed to leave early enough to beat the wind when I was riding south and then the wind picked up quite a bit not too long before I hit the halfway point and turned around to ride north. Last time I was very tired after the ride. Today's ride just felt like a normal weekly ride. I've timed the wind poorly enough times in the past that I don't feel guilty about today's ride.

Week 8

Date
February 25, 2018

Distance
100 miles

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Week 8

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I went out to Valley of Fires and fought the wind today. As you can see in the video, I get very whiny when it's windy out there.

Week 7

Date
February 18, 2018

Distance
100 miles

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Week 7

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I did something I've only done once before: I rode a solo century in less than 5 hours. Like the last one, this wasn't a planned attempt. I hit my turnaround point at 50 miles, was close to 2.5 hours, and knew that I usually have a tailwind on the 2nd half of the ride, so I went for it. I was fortunate enough to make it.

You never know what's going to happen when you get out there and ride. Sometimes you have big plans and your legs aren't worth a damn. Sometimes you feel super strong when you haven't been training hard or anything. I suppose there's a metaphor for life in there somewhere. Sometimes bad things happen unexpectedly and you just have to keep pushing. The next good day could come at any moment.

Week 6

Date
February 11, 2018

Distance
100 miles

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Week 6

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Ride Report
It was cold and windy today, so I headed south towards El Paso for an otherwise easy ride. You may be looking at the weather graph and asking yourself, "What do you mean, 'cold'?" That's the beauty of living in Alamogordo this year.

Week 5

Date
February 3, 2018

Distance
100 miles

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Week 5

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I'm back from Hawaii and did an easy ride today.

Today is the 4-year anniversary of breaking my hip. If you go back in my archives to 2014 (here) you'll find lots of information on the recovery process. It sounds strange, but breaking my hip was one of the best things that ever happened to me. It made me realize just how lucky I am to have my health and inspired me to take better advantage of it. Ever since I was able to ride my bike again I made it my top priority to make the most out of my health while I still have it.

Get out there and ride while you still can!

Week 4

Date
January 28, 2018

Distance
103 miles

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Week 4

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I spent a week in Hawaii towards the end of January and just so happened to ride my weekly century on my 35th birthday. Getting old isn't fun, but this ride was.

I went to Maui mainly to ride the Haleakala climb. You can learn more about the ups and downs of that adventure here. However, I was surprised at how good the riding is on the island as a whole. This week's video is from a modified version of the West Maui Loop, which is the 2nd most popular ride to do. As you can see, the scenery is spectacular and the traffic was pretty low on the northwest shore there. Most of the main highways have plenty of shoulder and are good to ride on. You could ride the road to Hana, but I wouldn't recommend it if you're not fearless in traffic. The road is narrow and there are tons of sightseeing tourists out there. It is an awesome road, though. It all depends on your tolerance levels.

Maui may have topped Tenerife as my favorite island for cycling. Haleakala vs. Teide is a tossup. Haleakala is longer, but Teide is steeper and has some very difficult sections. Both will wear you out and have awesome volcanic scenery, which I absolutely love. When it comes to riding on the rest of the island, I would have to give that victory to Maui. I feel like there was a wider variety of scenery on Maui and I love how the main roads have shoulders. However, Maui is way more expensive than Tenerife as far as lodging and food are concerned. Both islands have tons of bike rental options and great winter weather. You can't really go wrong either way.

I had a great trip. I climbed Haleakala, which is the longest paved climb and is a must-do for all road cyclists. I did a century in my 31st state. I got to ride in just shorts and a jersey, which is always a treat in January. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come in 2018.

Week 3

Date
January 18, 2018

Distance
106 miles

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Week 3

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Just squeezing in one of my normal routes before I head to Hawaii next week.

Week 2

Date
January 9, 2018

Distance
100 miles

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Week 2

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Ride Report
I took advantage of some warm weather and did the climb to Cloudcroft for the first time in 2018. I took the rest of the ride easy with a loop on 70 and some extra miles on 54. I'm not in good climbing shape right now, but it's great to be able to do a good climb this early in the year without freezing my butt off. Living in Alamogordo definitely has its benefits.

Week 1

Date
January 1, 2018

Distance
100 miles

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Week 1

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Welcome to 2018. I did an easy out and back on January 1st. It always feels good to start the year off on the right foot.

2018: The Preview

As always, my mission is to make the most out of my health while I still have it.

I made too many goals last year. I'm going to keep things simple this year and only list my most important goals. Here they are, in order:

1. Ride a century per week.
2. Ride a century in 7 new states.
3. Complete the Trans Am Bike Race in 20 days or less.
4. Everest this climb.

That's it. This will be my 6th year riding a century per week, so that's nothing new. As I've mentioned before, I still love doing a weekly long ride and it keeps me in somewhat decent shape all year long. It's my #1 goal because I like the consistency that it requires and as long as I reach this goal I will consider it a mostly successful year.

Goal #2 is something that I've failed 2 years in a row. In 2016 I wanted 5 states, then in 2017 I upped it to 6 just to remind myself of 2016's failure. I'm upping that to 7 in 2018 as another reminder. Also, completing goal #3 would give me 2 new states and I like the idea of doing 5 extras on their own. If all else fails, a week-long trip to the northeast should solve this problem.

The 3rd goal is huge, so it feels weird to put it so low on the list. I'm going to focus the entire first half of 2018 on this goal and it means a lot to me. This is by far the toughest challenge on my list and the one that I'm not 100% certain that I'm capable of doing.

As for the 4th goal, I keep telling myself that I'm done Everesting, but I'm always drawn back. When I moved to Alamogordo and started doing this climb regularly, all I could think about is how it's the perfect long climb for an Everesting attempt. I don't have a specific date in mind, but probably Spring or Fall since the Trans Am is in June.

I'm sure I'll add a few extra smaller goals along the way. I usually have a yearly mileage goal, but I'm not too concerned about that this year. 12,000 is my normal target. I should hit that again as long as I accomplish the 4 goals listed above.

Best of luck to you all in 2018.

2017: Year in Review

First, a few numbers:

 12,716 miles

 819 hours

 678,066 feet

 1 Everest

 66 centuries

 3 double centuries

Now let's look back at my goals (red = fail):

1. One century per week
2. One Everest
3. 12,000 total miles
4. 1,000 MTB miles
5. 2,500 commuting miles
6. Ride across the country (South to North)
7. Century in 6 new states
8. Ride across Nevada in 2 days
9. 3 bikepacking trips

As you can see, I failed most of them. 

4. I only did 420 MTB miles. This is mainly because, when it comes down to it, I don't like mountain biking as much as I think I should. It always sounds like fun. I love being in the woods and I love riding my bike. Shouldn't they both be even better together? For some reason at the end of most MTB rides I find myself wishing I had gone for a ride out on the road or a hike out in the woods. 

5. I'm not going to bother adding up the commuting miles because I know I wasn't even close. I have two excuses. First, this winter was very bad, so I fell behind early. Second, I decided to move to Alamogordo and thus spent a few months without a job to commute to. 

7. I only did a century in 3 new states, all of which were part of my ride across the country. I have to blame my move to Alamogordo again. I had planned on doing 3 new states in the Fall, but moving was a higher priority for me because it's going to give me the chance to achieve more goals in the long term.

8. I did not ride across Nevada, but I did do a ride to Las Vegas (a similar distance) in 2 days and a non-stop 400-mile ride, so I would give myself half credit for that goal if half credit was worth a damn.

9. I didn't get the bikepacking trips in. Again, this was something that I was planning on doing in the Fall until I decided to move to Alamogordo.

It wasn't a great year for my goals, but overall I was still happy with the year. I rode my century per week and I got in the big RASN ride from El Paso to the border of Canada. Riding a century in 6 new states is the one goal that I am upset to fail on because that was a high priority for me and I've failed in this category 2 years in a row. I hope to finally turn things around in 2018.

Week 52

Date
December 25, 2017

Distance
102 miles

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Week 52

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Ride Video

Ride Report
That's it for the year. I did a little recap of the year in the video, but I'll have my full yearly review post coming next week, along with my goals for 2018. Enjoy the rest of the year and I hope 2018 is even better for you.

I will be back again in 2018 to ride a century per week. I still love doing this and there's no reason to stop!

Week 51

Date
December 19, 2017

Distance
101 miles

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Week 51

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Weather

Ride Video

Ride Report
One week to go.

Week 50

Date
December 14, 2017

Distance
100 miles

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Week 50

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Weather

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Ride Report
Not much going on this week. I did an easy ride out towards El Paso and back. It got windy out there, but otherwise it was a good day. Nothing to complain about when the temperature hits 60 in the middle of December.

2017 is coming to and end and I'll have my recap coming soon. Let's just say I was way too optimistic with my goals this year! I've been working on my goals for 2018 and will try to be more realistic. I'll still be making the weekly ride videos, but I'm also going to work on doing extra videos. Here's a warning ahead of time: some of them aren't necessarily going to be related to cycling except for the fact that I'll be riding my bike while talking. Cycling is my life, though, so everything I do is related in one way or another.

Week 49

Date
December 9, 2017

Distance
100 miles

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Week 49

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Ride Report
Good news this week: I signed up for the Trans Am Bike Race for 2018. This will be my #1 goal for 2018 and I'm going to put all of my time/energy/money into it. That means I won't be going to Australia or anywhere else in January like I was planning before.

The goal is simple: 20 days or less. That's a good number to shoot for because it's measureable and attainable. My real goal is less specific- to ride as much and sleep as little as I can. I'll shoot for 18 days, but I don't know how I'm going to respond to sleep deprivation.

I haven't been doing a ton of mileage lately because I've been spending more time weight training and doing yoga. I used to lift 2-3 times per week just to hopefully keep my bone density up, but now I'm lifting at least 5 days and going heavier than before. As far as yoga, I used to do 5-10 minutes a day mostly for my hamstrings, but now I'm doing at least 30 minutes. I'm trying to get healthier overall and be less one-dimensional. I also want to put on a little weight, which will help me in the Trans Am.

I'm going to focus on that stuff until probably mid February and then I'll step up the bike training. I'll shoot for back-to-back centuries 3 times per month and I'll start doing some dreaded intervals. I'll also do a test trip of 500-1000 miles in March or April so I can test out some equipment and do some mental training.

I'm excited for the Trans Am and I'm really looking forward to the racing environment. It's going to be something new for me and I know I'm going to learn a lot along the way.

Week 48

Date
December 1, 2017

Distance
106 miles

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Week 48

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Weather

Ride Video

Ride Report
Bad news: I was not selected to race the Indian Pacific Wheel Race. Like I said in my Strava description for this week's ride, I'm still mad and I don't want to say something that I'm going to regret later on. I will say that I'm annoyed that they put my little profile on their Facebook page. It's embarrassing now and it just makes me look like an idiot. Can't I make myself look like an idiot on my own platforms? Those have a much smaller following.

So, the original backup plan was to go to Australia on my own in January, which I mentioned in this week's video and have also mentioned in previous videos. However, I'm irrationally mad at Australia as a whole now and I'm looking into other places I might want to visit. I'm looking all over. I have a few places in mind, which I might talk about next week.

The more important thing to mention right now is that I am going to apply for the Trans Am Bike Race. I can do rides on my own and those are all well and good, but I really had my heart set on a race because I think the spirit of competition will make me push harder than I would on my own. Hopefully I have better luck this time.

Week 47

Date
November 24, 2017

Distance
100 miles

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Week 47

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Ride Report
This was a simple ride out towards Ruidoso and back. It seems like a pretty good spring or fall ride. There's not a whole lot of climbing, but just enough to keep things interesting. It's certainly more than the flat routes I do out towards Las Cruces and El Paso.

Here's a note about Ruidoso: I visited back in 2008 for the Tour de Ruidoso, which was my first ever century in New Mexico. Here's a link to that ride. (Sorry about the state of the other blog. I need to do some major updating over there and lots of pictures are missing now.) If my schedule allows, I should do the Tour de Ruidoso next year, which will be 10 years later. I'm getting old!