Years Go By Like Lines in the Road
My 2011-2012 cycling season has come to a close, and it’s time to look back and reflect on the year gone by and think about what next year holds.
This year I rode 3,000 miles, which is exactly the same distance I rode in the previous year. On the other hand, that’s a little below my usual average, thanks in large part to spending my weekdays working for a living. I also fell just 500 miles short of surpassing 40,000 miles since I took cycling up again back in 2000, but that’s a milestone that will fall soon enough. (charts)
In 2012 I only did five centuries ( Tour d’Essex, Outriders, Mt. Washington, PMC, and Maine Lighthouse Ride), and fell just five miles short of a sixth when I overheated and opted not to finish a solo ride in June. That too is below my usual pace of seven or eight rides of a hundred miles or more.
On the other hand, I went into this year with an intention to enjoy myself more by doing some new and different rides, and in that respect I really succeeded. In addition to the aforementioned Tour d’Essex, Mount Washington Century, and Maine Lighthouse Rides, I also did my first ride with the Kennebec Valley Bike Club, and fulfilled a longtime dream in going to California to do the Buddhist Bicycle Pilgrimage. (If you’re interested in the BBP ride report, you’ll find it here, in my regular blog.) And I have to say that I really enjoyed every one of those five new routes, so the experiment was an unalloyed success.
And I can’t say I missed the two familiar rides that they displaced: the Climb to the Clouds and the Flattest Century. Overall, I enjoyed the new rides, and felt it really added a lot more interest to my riding. My only regret is that my riding buddies weren’t able to join me on several of those rides, and it’s not quite as fun when you’re riding alone.
I did, however, get to ride with my buddy Jay during this year’s Pan-Mass Challenge, which was our last ride together before he moved to Florida. That made this year’s PMC extra special. And I raised over $11,000 this year for cancer research, treatment, and prevention at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which puts me in good shape to reach my lifetime goal of $100,000 in 2014.
So while 2012 didn’t feature huge miles or dramatic turns of events, it was both interesting, fun, and very satisfying.
This was also probably the last season for the Plastic Bullet, the Specialized Roubaix that has been my primary ride for the past seven years. Ironically, after sitting idle for a week while I was in San Francisco, the lower set of headset bearings rusted solid, freezing my steering and requiring a trip to the bike shop to have the entire headset replaced. It’s just another instance of the old girl showing her age.
Which brings me around to my predictions for the upcoming 2012-2013 season.
I’ve begun the process of test riding new bikes, but there’s still a lot more evaluation to do before I pull the trigger, and unless the weather improves, that may not happen until spring. I am taking the time to ride just about everything I can put my hands on, so you can expect to read more about that in the future.
As I mentioned above, I should crack the 40,000-mile barrier shortly, too. That’s quite an achievement, I think.
I definitely expect to return to some of the new rides I did this year. Those were fun, and hopefully I can convince my buddies to tag along.
But that’s going to be the big question for next year; Jay was really the social center of our group, and now that he’s gone I’m not sure our riding group will survive. My other two buddies, Paul and Noah, are both married and living in the distant Metrowest suburbs, and neither of them ride the PMC anymore, so we may not synch up very often.
That could be a problem for me, because it may be hard for me to find transportation to most of the major rides in the area. So even if I have the desire to ride, next year might look a little bit different than recent years, when there was usually someone to beg a ride from.
But we’ll see. For now I’m content to use the remaining fall weekends to test ride potential new bikes, which is a luxury unto itself. Then next spring I’ll hopefully be ready to hit the road with renewed enthusiasm and a zippy new machine.
That should make 2013 another interesting cycling season. I’m looking forward to it!