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Happy New Year!

12.31.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 1 Comment

I had to get one last ride in during 2013, and finally got some free time today to go. I was out for a little over an hour, just 16 miles in the neighborhood. The temperature started falling, and I wasn’t as comfortable as I was when I started out.

When I got home, I added the day’s mileage to my spreadsheet, and discovered that I ended the year with 3,391 miles. That’s the lowest annual total since 2009.

So it’s time to do some reflecting on the past year, and where my biking has come. Perhaps, where it’s going.

One reason for the low mileage is that I haven’t been riding very far this year. As I look back over my stats, I see that my longest ride was a whopping 48 miles. When you ride only three days a week, as I generally do, the miles don’t mount up. I have always relied on longer weekend rides to keep my totals higher. For some reason, I’ve found it easy this year to ride 20 miles instead of 25, 15 instead of 20, and 25 instead of 30. Heck, in 2011, I was contemplating riding a metric a month. It worked for about three months, then stopped.

I know I’m something of a weather wimp. I don’t ride when it’s below 40 degrees (4C), but over the summer when I got home in the afternoon, I found it easy to skip rides when the temperature was past 100 (38C). I don’t ride in the rain, if I can at all help it. So, all that cuts into ride possibilities.

Then there are some health-related things. I wrote about my gout in September. Thought it had been handled, and I’m now on medicine to lower the uric acid levels in my blood. But I got another gout attack over the weekend. I rode, except for Monday. The attack has subsided, and I feel fine now. But I’m going to have to be more aggressive at combating this, because gout attacks are no fun.

One way to combat it is to lose weight. I was a bad boy during both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Lived high. Gained weight. Not good.

So, looking ahead to the coming year, what are my resolutions? I don’t make resolutions. But I am going to set some goals. One is to peel off the pounds (I won’t say how much, but I have a specific course of action I’ll be taking). One is to ride more, and farther, than I have this year. I’ll target some specific rides, which I haven’t done this year, in the hopes that preparing for them will help me reach those two other goals.

I’m looking at 2013 as something of a setback. I won’t lose my drive, however. Like a football team that has a bad year, I’ll just rebuild in the coming one. I hope the new year sees you reach your goals, too.

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Categories // Records & stats Tags // long distance, mileage

A Look Back at 2012

12.30.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 4 Comments

My wife and I decided a ride today was a must. She wanted the exercise, since she hadn’t been out for several days. I wanted to get in one last ride this year, since the forecast for the 31st calls for rain, and the combination of chilly and wet doesn’t appeal to me. So off we went.

It was only 40 degrees (4C) when we left home. That’s about the coldest temperature I care to ride in. What’s that old line — “There’s no bad weather, only bad clothes” — when it gets chilly around here, we don’t have much in the way of really warm cycling gear.

So we bundled up as best we could, and did some laps at the Veloway. It was nice to run into our friends, Rick and Penny, who were also cramming in one last ride. Rick figured 30 miles would bring him up to the same mileage he rode last year. After 15 miles today, I just wanted to go home and sit in front of the fire, but decided to do one more lap with the two of them, while Pat said she’d had enough, and headed for home alone.

I’m glad I got out today, even though I’m still cold as I write this. The ride gave me a chance to mull over the past year — what I accomplished, and where I came up short. On last year’s last post, I indicated some things I’d try to do this year, although I was careful not to consider them full-blown goals.

First, riding longer. I had mostly short rides in 2011, with just a few over 40 miles. I decided to correct that this year, and go for more long rides. One way to do that: train for centuries. I wanted to do at least two centuries this year. I did one, and concluded that rides of that length are no longer appealing to me.

Likewise, randonneuring. I thought about trying a brevet this year, but since I won’t be doing centuries, I certainly won’t be doing rides even longer than that.

I wanted to try out some new routes, since my riding had gotten predictable. I’m afraid it’s still predictable.

I also wanted to do more organized rides, simply because I like the atmosphere, and it’s one way to treat oneself to new routes. Didn’t happen. I did three organized rides this year.

Then there’s the weight thing. Luckily, I didn’t pledge to lose more weight this year, although I intended to see if I could maybe get it down a little (waffling enough?). I did finish this year at my lowest weight since I started riding. However, since I’m on of those guys who gains weight during winter, I’m still heavier than I am in mid-summer. Lots of room for improvement there.

One area where I did show marked improvement over previous years — total miles ridden. I finished the year with 4,519 miles — almost 500 more than my previous best. I probably won’t ride on the 31st, because of the afore-mentioned rain, so that’s my final total for the year. It’s also 2,000 miles more than my first full year of “serious” riding, back in 2008.

What does the coming year hold? I have no idea. If more miles come, they come — I won’t try to improve on this year. I’m going to try once again to ride more and different routes, just to add some spice to cycling. I’ll have to give some thought to organized rides — which ones to shoot for, what distances to ride. But I’m going to keep riding for the sheer enjoyment of it. See you on the road.

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Categories // Records & stats Tags // long distance, mileage

So You’re Interested in Randonneuring?

03.01.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 7 Comments

I woke up this morning to find a record number of page views of this blog on Wednesday. This surprised me, because I didn’t think the post — about two randonneuring-oriented websites — was one of my better ones. Apparently, a lot of Bike Noob readers are poking around, trying to find out more about randonneuring, or maybe just bike rides of longer distances.

Jan Heine, a member of the Seattle International Randonneurs and editor of Bicycle Quarterly magazine.

Actually, information about randonneuring — in which cyclists must ride a prescribed distance within a certain time frame — is very easy to find online. Start with Randonneuring USA, the governing body of randonneuring in this country. Its website has links to randonneuring (or “rando”) clubs all over the country, so you can see if there are any groups of like-minded folks in your neck of the woods.

It’s interesting to note that randonneuring is gaining in popuarity but that increased interest is not spread equally throughout the country. There seem to be pockets where interest runs high, and a potential rider can find lots of choices for brevets, permanents, or populaires. For my money, the most informative rando website is the BC Randonneurs in British Columbia. It’s got scads of info about their upcoming rides, results and ride reports from completed brevets, an extensive results page for permanents, often with reports and photos. Close by on this side of the border, the Seattle International Randonneurs are a very active group as well, and their website is almost as informative as their BC cousins.

Randonneurs seem to be avid chroniclers of their rides, judging by the number of rando blogs that are easily found. Try checking out some from the plethora of blogs linked here.

I enjoy reading rando blogs — I’m a “lurker,” because I haven’t actually ridden any brevets yet — and I have found several that I won’t miss. They’re either very well written, or very informative, or both. My favorite is “Chasing Mailboxes” by a member of the DC Randonneurs in our nation’s capital. It just so happens that she wrote an excellent guide to randonneuring just a couple of days ago. Take a look and see what the sport is all about.

I’m still not convinced that randonneuring is in my future, although I will be making an effort to do more longer rides, starting this weekend. Since Sunday is my birthday, I figure I have to ride my age, so I’m looking at something in the neighborhood of four hours (I’ll withhold the actual distance until Sunday evening’s post). Wish me luck.

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Categories // Odds 'n ends Tags // long distance, randonneuring

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