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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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.