Bicycling in 2019

I began drafting this in mid December. Now that it’s January 1st, it’s time to post and get my 2019 cycling New Year’s Resolution out there.

I started road bicycling with my first “serious” ride being the very first Obliteride in 2013. If I back up just a touch… I was a very casual cyclist when I lived in Columbus, Ohio (my whole life until I moved to the Seattle area in 2006.) You see, Columbus is FLAT. I did one “real” ride while living in Columbus and actually borrowed Tom’s recumbent bike to do that ride.

Alright, back to 2013… My friend and former colleague, Amy started Obliteride as the first Executive Director. I took that on as a challenge to do the serious and long — 25 mile — route. It occurred to me that my 10+ year old bike was probably not up to the challenge and I bought a lovely hybrid bike at REI. I survived that 25 mile ride and even did the 50 mile route in 2014!

I must have gotten serious in 2015 as I started uploading each and every ride from my bike computer to Strava starting with a three mile ride on 3/5/2015 :). Sadly, 2018 was a pretty crappy cycling year for me. Must have either been too much going on or I got lazy and found lots of excuses.

Year     Miles Ridden (according to Strava)
2018     300 😦
2017     1000
2016     1050
2015     850

After a couple of years of the nifty hybrid bike and tracking 170 miles on it in Strava, I rode Reach the Beach – OR with Les and Jeff in mid May 2015. It was a 54 mile ride and felt like there were headwinds the entire ride and no matter which direction we were riding in. This was the ride the broke the camel’s back. I’m never riding that distance on this hybrid bike again.

After multiple local bike shop visits (maybe 5 or 6 shops and about a dozen bikes) I bought a Cannondale Synapse Carbon 105 just over a week after the Reach the Beach ride. I have made the big time!

So far, I’ve ridden something like 2500 or so miles on my Cannondale. I rode RSVP once. Fun two day ride. For me it ended up being just shy of a double century with the first day being 114 miles starting from my house rather than the start line, joining the route and going to Bellingham, the day one stop. Day two, Bellingham to Vancouver was about 80 miles that year.

Every year the STP comes up in discussion but so far I haven’t motivated myself / made it work in my schedule. Let’s see what happens 🙂

In 2017, I got nuts and decided to commit to riding the Israel Ride. My daughter was spending a gap year in Israel, the cause was a really good one and, hey, I could bike for a week in Israel. Bring it! That will likely be a post of it’s own. Suffice it to say that I rode from Jerusalem to Eilat in five days of riding for a total of about 300 miles. Will I ever do that again? See below for that answer.

Finally, back to bicycling in 2019. I like to bike. I like riding on my own, I like group rides *but* I am terrible at getting off my ass, getting motivated and, um, getting on my ass. So, here it is – I am going to commit to riding at least 2019 miles over the course of 2019. I’ll be starting with the Cascade Tunnel Ride in early February. It’s only a 12 mile ride so I know that I can do it without any prep but I’ll try to get some training in (indoor, outdoor or both) during January.

I’ll try to keep myself honest by posting some of my additional rides here but on the radar / planning to do are:

• Chilly Hilly
• West Maui Loop – 60 mile, 3300 foot ride. I’ll be in Maui in March celebrating with Brenda. I feel like I want to rent a bike for at least a day and make this ride happen.
• Shooting for at least one, organized, group ride ~50 miles each of April – August
• A couple additional Cascade rides
• Maybe STP (see above)
• Culminating in my second go at the Israel Ride in November. It looks like Jeff and Tom will be going too. I’m going to see about recruiting more friends to join.

That’s enough for now. I’ve put it out there. 2019 miles, Israel Ride. Gotta start riding right away. Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for keeping me honest.

Happy 2019!