biking goals 2018.

[fxbooks]

I want to play!

*2017 Goals*
Freezing Saddles! And try hard not to fall off my bike
DONE!
Find a bike that doesn’t make my hands numb after the first mile
ALMOST! Instead, I got new wrists that don’t make my hands go numb after the first mile, even while riding the same bike
Continue commuting at the same rate even after my commute doubles when we move
DONE!
Beat my previous long distance ride of 45 miles
DONE! OK, 47.1 miles is technically longer, but there was a baseball game in the middle of my ride.

I’m also pretty pleased to have beaten my 2016 mileage, even with 4 months off recuperating from carpal tunnel surgery

For 2018, I hope to

Continue to not fall off my bike during Freezing Saddles, while sleazing a little less than last year
Bike 2000 miles (keeping up my current pace year round), with a stretch goal of 2500
Beat my previous long distance ride of 47.1 miles
Bike faster on my commute (thanks for the idea, lordofthemark), aiming for 12mph, which is a giant leap for me*

*I hit 13mph as my average on my commute home yesterday! Not sure how that happened, but yeah, me! 1/11/18

[Judd]

Mixed results for my 2017 goals.

2017 Goals
Bike the entire C&O – I made it as far as Shepherdstown.
Centuries in 5 more states – I added Georgia this year bringing the total to 11 states.
Attend Bicycle Advisory Committee Meetings – I started attending the Alexandria BPAC instead
RAGBRAI again – I did Bicycle Ride Across Georgia (BRAG) instead
Do all of my own bike maintenance – except for stuff that was warranted, I did this, although this was mostly just brake bad replacements and adjustments and derailleur adjustments this year.
Volunteer at more events (DC Bike Ride, Air Force Classic, WABA Rides) – Volunteered for two BPAC bike rodeos, handed out blinkies with WABA
Ride 11,000 miles in 2017 – I hit 12,000 at the beginning of December
Stop and take more pictures – I got better at this, but could do better. I read a lot more signs and took a lot more pictures and spent a lot more time hanging out and drinking coffee.
Finish the fixed gear project – I’m really awesome at putting bikes half together.
Try bikepacking – I had a great trip to Shepherdstown. Also rode the entire Greenbrier River Trail.

Other great things that happened that weren’t goals:
Became a League Cycling Instructor
Helped a new bike commuter get to work for the first time
Led some awesome group rides (President’s Day Ride, Tulip Ride, Lilly Festival Ride, Wednesday C&O Canal Rides)
Captained the winning Freezing Saddles Team
Found Bike in Bloom
Raced for the first time
Filed an ADA complaint that led to a trail repair
Made lots more friends

2018 Goals
Seriously, I’m going to bike the entire C&O.
Try bike camping
Do more bike touring
Try to cut back on the mileage
Continue advocating for safe, active living communities
Launch Bike University

[drevil]

Link to last year’s goals:
http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?11407-2017-Biking-Goals&

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Harry Meatmotor]

@Harry Meatmotor 151038 wrote:

2017:

• Podium in a CAT3/4
• 8k miles or 500 hours in the saddle
• ????
• Profit!

Ended up terrorizing the 4s too much this season. Only a couple 3/4 races, so no 3/4 podiums.

2017 Highlight reel:

• 2nd @ Ride Sally Ride M4 – almost lapped the field from a 2-man break
• Solo breakaway for over an hour @ AVC RR M3/4 35+ – biggest gap was 3:15 on the field
• 4th @ Shenandoah Speedway M3/4 – just off the podium
• 2nd overall/GC at Tour of Washington County M4/5, 1st in the TT, 2nd from a breakaway in the Crit
• Teammate 2nd @ Tour de Tysons M4/5 – probably our best race as a Cat4 squad: took a 60+ field down to 35-ish in 3 laps, completely decimated the field. Monster effort from three of my guys and me. Attack, counter attack, counter-counter attack; set tempo to “eye-bleeding.” Most fun I had all season.
• 3rd @ BikenetiCrit Open SS (behind two AMAZEBALLS fast guys… major tip-o-the-hat to Jay and Jared!)
• Cat3 road upgrade on points
• First CX podium, 3rd @ Hub Labels M3/4/5 35+
• 7.5k miles in 420-ish hours

2018 Goals:

• 8k miles/500 hours
• Hang on for dear life in M1/2/3 races

[lordofthemark]

@Judd 169917 wrote:

Mixed results for my 2017 goals.

2017 Goals
Bike the entire C&O – I made it as far as Shepherdstown.
Centuries in 5 more states – I added Georgia this year bringing the total to 11 states.
Attend Bicycle Advisory Committee Meetings – I started attending the Alexandria BPAC instead
RAGBRAI again – I did Bicycle Ride Across Georgia (BRAG) instead
Do all of my own bike maintenance – except for stuff that was warranted, I did this, although this was mostly just brake bad replacements and adjustments and derailleur adjustments this year.
Volunteer at more events (DC Bike Ride, Air Force Classic, WABA Rides) – Volunteered for two BPAC bike rodeos, handed out blinkies with WABA
Ride 11,000 miles in 2017 – I hit 12,000 at the beginning of December
Stop and take more pictures – I got better at this, but could do better. I read a lot more signs and took a lot more pictures and spent a lot more time hanging out and drinking coffee.
Finish the fixed gear project – I’m really awesome at putting bikes half together.
Try bikepacking – I had a great trip to Shepherdstown. Also rode the entire Greenbrier River Trail.

Other great things that happened that weren’t goals:
Became a League Cycling Instructor
Helped a new bike commuter get to work for the first time
Led some awesome group rides (President’s Day Ride, Tulip Ride, Lilly Festival Ride, Wednesday C&O Canal Rides)
Captained the winning Freezing Saddles Team
Found Bike in Bloom
Raced for the first time
Filed an ADA complaint that led to a trail repair
Made lots more friends

2018 Goals
Seriously, I’m going to bike the entire C&O.
Try bike camping
Do more bike touring
Try to cut back on the mileage
Continue advocating for safe, active living communities
Launch Bike University

You definitely win the “bike advocacy in a jurisdiction other than the one you live in” award Thanks!

[huskerdont]

I think my only goal was to ride 5,000 miles. I’m at 5,675, so yay.

I am not going to up that to 6,000 because I don’t like the way the goal makes me approach riding. So, for 2018:

Goal #1: 5,000 again.

Goal #2: Try a fat bike (this will either happen or won’t in a couple of weeks in Vermont)

Goal #3: Do southern portion of the Skyline Drive to get all or part of what I haven’t done.*

*Note to self: If including the 8 miles south of 211, go south to north so it is a descent instead of an ascent. That thing was seriously evil.

[Steve O]

My consistent goal is 400+ miles per month (bumped from 300 in 2015 and prior years). I did well this year:
J- 587; F- 493; M- 607; A- 541; M- 602; J- 692 J- 778 ; A- 703 ; S- 1042!! ; O- 660 ; N- 574 – 376 (thru 12/20)

Not a goal I had set or even anticipated, but I did race in my first ever bike race a couple of weeks ago, which was fun.

Same goal next year.

[ChampionTier]

2017:
– 3K miles –> 3499.1 (pretty sure I’ll top 3.5k at this rate)
– C&O again –> SWEET bikepacking trip again!
– bi-monthly century –> yes, but the ride was broken up over several days.
– meet more people –> Finally made it to a coffee club AND rode with AFHokie, Emm, Judd, Reji and a bunch of other cool folks to Annapolis
– commute at least 2x a week –> Done.
– Can’t race Dirty Kanza…any suggestions??? –> DK200 will forever be the white whale of my schedule. We’ll see how 2019 looks….

2018:
PLAN A (Not moving this summer)
– 5K miles.
– Get a dedicated commuter bike.
– Get on a team.
– Continue 2-3x a week bike commute.
– 2-night bikepack on the C&O.
– NOVA Ring Route x4.
– CC Wed Night Spins!
– Write about this stuff more…
PLAN B (Moving this summer)
– 4K miles.
– Get a dedicated commuter bike.
– Find the gravel.
– Bikepack somewhere…anywhere.
– Find the cross races. If they don’t exist at the new place then make one.
– Write about this stuff more…

[Judd]

@lordofthemark 169922 wrote:

You definitely win the “bike advocacy in a jurisdiction other than the one you live in” award Thanks!

Alexandria BPAC has the best bike advocacy going game in the region. Plus Casey does a great job of updating the forum with BPAC business that there were lots of opportunities for initial engagement.

[PeteD]

Had two goals this year:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]15937[/ATTACH]
Climb all three sides up Mont Ventoux in one ride.

and…

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15938[/ATTACH]
Climb 4 2000m Cols and the other 3 in the Ubaye valley.

Ancillary Things:
– Over 7000 miles.
– Bike Commute, since I no longer work from home – Hitting 80% there.
– Completed two self-organized 200k efforts.
– Sub 5h Century
– Cat 4 upgrade & Race.

2018 Things:
– Commute enough that the Metro Rate (~13 a day) pays for the Boone.
– 7000 miles again.
– Get my daughter off Training Wheels.
– Mt Washington or Pikes Peak Hill Climb.
– Do an “official” 200k brevet or two.
– If I don’t go to Scotland for summer vacation, do a Luberon / Vaucluse / Drome hilltop-town bike trip.

[ChampionTier]

@PeteD 169937 wrote:

Had two goals this year:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]15937[/ATTACH]
Climb all three sides up Mont Ventoux in one ride.

and…

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15938[/ATTACH]
.

That is very bad ass! Congrats!

[hozn]

It is always inspirational to see what others have done.

My goal in 2017 was to ride less and enjoy it more. Looks like 8600 miles this year; it’s funny that this is a light year now. A couple of fantastic months or riding in Switzerland (less frequently, since splitting morning exercise time slots with my wife).

One road race was one too many. There are a few fun races, but as an unattached rider road racing is not that interesting. And I have no time to join a team. So I still have a goal to podium at Page Valley someday — or start by hanging on with the Masters — but for 2018 I don’t plan to renew my USAC license.

On the other hand, I discovered that I love gravel racing. Did monster cross (and won men’s open cx!), Hilly Billy and Iron Cross. I plan to do those again and add GRUSK and maybe one other. I started off with good fitness, but need to work harder to develop/maintain that into summer. Having goals helps.

Mostly in 2018 I plan to ride more with my kids, as they’re getting older and that is becoming a real cycling option. My son and I rode Meadow Wood for a bit yesterday which was SO MUCH FUN. And terrifying to watch him ride the BOSS Trail features. More of that.

And I just dropped the 20″ frame for the little kid at the powder coating place. Gears are a game changer. So that is a fun project for this winter. It is gonna be awesome. And probably building a cx/road bike for the 7yo/8yo next summer.

So basically, my goal for 2018 is to continue the “less is more” trend. Fewer, but better, races. More family rides. More rides with friends.

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

[drevil]

@drevil 151036 wrote:

2017 Goals:

• More bikepacking
• Be able to bounce on my front wheel only, like this
• Do the C&O in a day (my only attempt, 11 years ago on a fixie Karate Monkey)
• Try more stupid/silly stuff on the bike and not get (too) hurt

• Fail. I bikepacked more often by just leaving my house, but didn’t do any difficult trails (i.e., mountain biking). I didn’t tally it, but I may have bikepacked less this year. For me, this is the biggest bummer.
• Fail. Didn’t try/practice this enough.
• Fail. Didn’t even bother trying to do it.
• Win. Something I’ve never done before until this month was ride onto a Picnic table (https://vimeo.com/247750943). Another thing was riding on the wall in front of UM (https://vimeo.com/248512463). About the wall thing, I always imagined I’d hit the chainring on the tops, stall and fall over, but it was not the case. In fact, it was much easier than I thought

All said, I did do more miles this year (4,008.5 miles) than last (2799.1 miles), and that was primarily because I did more riding on the road. The reason I rode more on the road is because I joined Freezing Saddles. This was my first year, and I really enjoyed riding and meeting people through FS.

2018 Biking Goals:

1. Bikepack 8 times
2. Ride up and onto the UM Wall (instead of starting on top of it)
3. Manual for more than 5 seconds
4. Do at least 1 100 mile century

That’s it. I know it seems wacky, but that’s how I roll.

[AFHokie]

Due to some off the bike highs and lows, 2017 was a down cycling year for me.

For 2018, I want to do more more group rides. I really enjoyed the group O&B ride to Annapolis (and I hope everyone else did as well) and it made me realize that while I do enjoy my solo rides, sometimes it’s good to be with a group.

Ride more new routes and to new places; expand my Strava heatmap. To that end, I’m looking at a few century rides in New England

Participate in Wednesday Night Spins

Ride more gravel; Planning to ride the Croatan Buck Fifty and I’m interested in the Whiskey Rebellion Gravel, Hill Billy Roubaix, & GRUSK as well as a few others. Unfortunately, there’s a few scheduling conflicts with some other rides I’m interested in.

Not sure if I can take enough time off to do all at once, but finally ride the entirety of the the C&O & GAP trails.

I still feel yearly mileage goals tend to turn into obligations for me, but I do want to hit 1k in a month and complete over 300 in a week.

Other goals:

Finally learn to:
Ride with no hands, I can occasionally go for a short stretch, but usually feel like I’m going to slide off the front of the seat

Bunny hop sufficiently well enough to jump a curb

[Emm]

2017 Goals:

• Participate in freezing saddles and don’t land in the bottom 25%. I achieved this. I’ve never ridden through the winter before so this was fun.
• Attend more bike events. Achieved! I made it to more happy hours, fun club rides, WABA rides, and bike parties. And I’m really grateful I did–some forum members have become great friends this year, and that is something I’m endlessly thankful for.
• Increase mileage to 3,500ish. This is about 1,000 miles more than prior years. I’ll end the year at around 5,600 miles. I forgot to even check my mileage until I was over 4,000. The longer commute plus doing more group rides means I went way beyond what I expected.
• Ride 100 miles in a day for the first time. I achieved this in March on one of those ridiculously nice spring days, and then during the summer/fall rode 3 organized centuries, the ride to Annapolis (107 miles from my start point), and rode a surprise century with Judd. At one point I had ridden 4 centuries in 5 weeks (and only missed the 5th week by ~10 miles because I had to stop and let the dog out). This was the biggest goal for me personally. After hip surgery in 2016 I was pretty sad because I felt like I could never do the long (60-80) mile rides I used to do since it hurt so much. I learned during the first ride or two how to stretch and manage the pain without it becoming unbearable, and then pushed myself to keep riding as much as I could.

2018 Goals:

• Increase freezing saddles points to be above 2017’s 1200 points.
• Make it to 6,000 miles. This is going to heavily rely on bike commuting more during the winter and continuing to do long rides on the weekend during the summer/fall.
• Go on more bike-adventures. This means trying more trails, try biking somewhere like Harpers Ferry for an overnight, and anything else fun I can think of.
• Run more errands by bike. This will be helped if I can eventually move closer to the city this year, but even now I can grab groceries, and run other errands by bike. I just need to remember carry a bag and lock more often.

[Author]

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