Cycling 2012

For the last couple of years I haven't done as well at my cycling. Oh nine, 2010 and 2011 are my worst years in a long time. Mostly, I have attributed this to being older than Bob Hope. I decided to redouble my efforts this year and I am very pleased with how things went.

Just reviewing my stats, I realized I did MUCH better than the recent past and on par or perhaps even better than my best years of 06-07-08.

Some numbers: highest year mileage total (4409.38, I did this mostly with just consistently getting miles in as often as possible, no one week was more than 184 miles, and most were in the 130-140 range); second highest MPH average (but only .07 MPH behind my best, and if not for a relatively disastrous two weeks at San Clemente, I would have bested it by about .05 MPH); more miles in each month from April to October (except July, didn't want to try for another 1000 mile month) than in any other corresponding month previously; fastest “solo” ride ever (I'm giving myself the benefit of the doubt because I ran into Craig Buchi and rode with him for the last 9 miles of the ride); three other rides in my top ten fastest solo rides; and fastest avg speed for the month 20.91 mph in September. Just to mention a few.

My highest ranking on BikeJournal came in September when I was at position 714 out of 49,397 riders.

I did quite a bit of tandem riding with Ameer mostly and we finally started turning in some good speeds. Even made it over 21 MPH average for one ride.

I had a couple of days in the middle of July within a week of each other where I did two separate rides (each day) for day totals in 54-59 mile range where I also had very good speed, comparable to my epic 60 time trial I did in Parker, AZ in 2006.

I was introduced to Strava.com by Craig and Teal Buchi and really enjoyed tracking my rides on that site. I am still listed in 7th place out of 471 on my favorite segment.

I did three organized rides: the ULCER ride (metric distance) with Ameer on the tandem; the Fall Tour de Saint George with Stuart; and the Salt to Saint Relay.

This last was quite fun. But, also kinda grueling since I didn't sleep for 36 hours and drove and rode 700 miles and was a little ill. We did well for a novice team and averaged 19.8 MPH.

One thing I did learn is that miles do count. (If you want to ride fast, ride more.)

One last item: I finally moved on from my old steel Bianchi frame that I have had for 15+ years. More than a year ago Teal Buchi tried to interest me in buying a Time carbon frame that he had. It took a while to get him and Craig to be desperate enough to come down to my price. There weren't too many other people out there who would want an extra large frame. So, I figured if I just bided my time, it would work to my advantage. I am very happy with the new bike. I didn't have to change out any of my components. Everything transferred over just fine. While the old frame was very light for a steel frame, the new frame is about 1.75 pounds lighter, quite amazing. After selling the old frame and fork, I was only out of pocket about $400. So pretty good deal.

Let's see what happens in 2013.