As a good “new years resolution” i want to get more often by train and bike to work than last year and also ride to the nearby lake for a swim more often.
Also want to do some cycle holidays again and just the regular cycling i always do.
Bike to work (25mi/40km). I’ll start small by taking the train halfway (10mi/16km).
Oh wow. That is quite the tall order. Is it one way? I have 30km to work and it’s too long for me, other than do it occasionally. With the train i do like 8km one way.
A client of ours goes i think 35km, but he is riding 30+ km/h average on his 10000€* road bike, i don’t see me ever doing that on any of the bikes i have.
*edit: that may have been an exxageration.
Yup, each way, so 50mi/80km total per day perhaps a little more since I’d be going on side paths instead of on the highway.
I used to go about that fast on my old 11mi/17km commute and finish in 30-45 min, depending on wind direction. So with some training, I could probably do my new commute in ~1.5hr each way. It’s not going to be a regular thing, just a goal I have. Maybe I’ll do it more regularly if I get an ebike, and I probably will if I like the route.
For the train route, it’s 3mi/5km to the stop, then 7mi/11km to my office. That’s pretty reasonable, and I’ll use that to train myself up to the full distance (e.g. skip a stop, then skip the train entirely). My office only has one bus that goes to it, and it’s awkward to get to. If I did transit only, it would take >2 hours (car is 30-40 min), so the bike is a time savings.
While I don’t think someone would commute on a bike that expensive, I wouldn’t say it’s out of the question.
I typed that out thinking that was what it had cost, but then i thought about it some more and it may have only have been like 6000€ or something, definitely a high end roadbike.
edit: i also was kinda skeptical what he claimed for his average speed, but turns out he was not exagerating, he ‘proved’ it by having a meeting with a co worker of mine somewhere further away and then rode to our office with his bike while my co worker drove his car back, i calculated his route and it must have been something like 33 km/h.
I served with a guy who did road biking, and 33km/h seems reasonable for a commute. Kinda not surprised at the 6000 euro price tag. Road bike tend to be expensive.
I’m going to get back into riding again. I had a small accident last August which put me out for a little while the bike was in the shop, then life happened and I put cycling on hold. I’m now a few kilograms heavier than I was when I stopped and even more from my goal weight. I’ll be going on my first (easy) ride of the year today.
My goals this year are 2000 km, completing my first century ride, and a multi day bike packing trip.
There are cycling trips that a friend and I were talking about; there is a car graveyard, different tourist locations, provincial and national parks. I don’t really do new year’s resolutions, but I am intending to ride more consistently when I need to go somewhere and not mainly using it as a means of recreation.
In 2023, I rode 4,500 miles (7,200 km), of which about 3k was outdoor and the rest indoor on Zwift. My goal was 4,000 miles, which I hit at the end of November. I was on a road trip for about 4 weeks in 2023, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to ride much during that time (I got a few rides in, but nothing like I would have at home), so I’m surprised I hit the goal so soon.
Failed goal: I like to do at least one imperial century each year, but in 2023 I did not achieve that goal - I was all ready to go, building up my endurance for long rides in the preceding weekends, then I got sick AND the weather was miserable the weekend I would have done it. Dang. The ride was rescheduled, but we were out of town that day, so I couldn’t join. My longest ride in 2023 was 92 miles (148 km).
Achievement, aside from the miles: Since late July, I’ve been riding a metric century or more each weekend, except for about 5 weekends when other things intervened (the sickness and weather above was one; one was a mechanical issue where I still got ~55 miles; the rest were other commitments that didn’t allow time to ride). I don’t know why I’m doing it, other than because it’s kind of interesting. There’s no larger overall goal.
Goals for 2024:
- Same mileage goal, 4,000 miles. I just don’t see how I could increase that significantly without dumping oodles of extra time into it that I just don’t have. Fortunately the 4k isn’t a major motivation for me - it’s useful to see where I am throughout the year compared to what I now “usually” ride, but I didn’t stop riding when I hit it early in 2023.
- Finish building my rocker plate for Zwift (that should be in the next week or two, hopefully) - I have the major components but will need to get the hardware to assemble it yet.
- Continue my weekly metric-or-more riding, as much as possible. I know there will be some I miss, but that’s okay. If I accomplish, say, 42 of them (missing 10 weekends), that’s roughly 2,600 miles right there.
- Go on a bike tour. I built a gravel/road touring bike a few weeks ago, now I need to use it. I haven’t figured out what I want to do yet, maybe Cumberland or Pittsburgh to DC.