2023: Austin City Limits

[ornoth_cycling]

It was the most of times; it was the least of times. My 2023 cycling year was very noteworthy, but in ways that were mostly peripherally related to riding my bike.

Welcome to the new hometown!

On the downside, I began the year off the bike for two months due to our move from Pittsburgh to Austin and subsequent discovery of a fatal crack in my beloved primary bike of the past ten years. Then I lost another month in September for a warranty replacement of the rear wheel on my new, successor bike. I only completed one century – my fewest since 2007 – and vomited right after finishing it. Throw in a couple frustrating flat tires, the challenge of navigating a new town, and the harsh reality of turning sixty years old. 2023 provided a litany of disappointments, and my Fitness and distance numbers reflected it.

But there were a lot of major high points, too. I got a brand new bike that I love, at a steal of a discount! I replaced my old, frail bike GPS with Garmin’s newest model, which has tons of cool new features and reliable battery life! I enjoyed meeting local cyclists and exploring my new hometown of Austin, and even got to bike on a Formula One race track! At my first Livestrong century, my old grammar school friend Scott came down from New Hampshire; it was also my first event as an official member of Team Kermit, and I got to ride with several old and new Pan-Mass Challenge friends who had flown in from Boston!

From an athletic standpoint, 2023 wasn’t a superlative year, but a decent one. And I’m pleased by all the memorable stuff that did happen.

My Original 2023 Goals

At this time last year, my bike and all my cycling gear was locked away in a moving van in an unknown location somewhere between Pittsburgh and Austin, while Inna and I spent our last couple days in Pennsylvania at her mother’s apartment.

Therefore I had no idea what cycling in Austin would be like, or even what our lives would look like when we got there. So it made no sense setting any specific goals for 2023. The new year was going to be imperfect, but that meant that whatever I did achieve would be gravy.

However, I did list four general themes that I thought would be foremost. They were:

Moving and Orienting in Austin

I knew this year’s biggest change would be finding my niche in a new city, and I did okay, as outlined in my Austin On-Ramp blogpost. However, I still need to put more energy into this, in every category of knowledge. I explored a few group rides, but there are several more that I haven’t. I’m familiar with a few bike shops, but still haven’t found “the one”. I’ve done a couple big event rides, but nowhere near as many as usual. Similar to my move to Pittsburgh in 2015, I’ve leveraged Strava’s Flyby feature and other riders to find some good routes for solo riding, but my options are still extremely limited. So orienting myself and finding my crew is still a work-in-progress.

All smiles on a scorching Friday Truancy group ride

Showing off the new 2023 Æthos

Celebrating another XP-filled Tour of Watopia on Zwift

Another looming concern with the move was coping with the Texas heat, and the summer of 2023 delivered, with no less than 78 days above 37°C (100°F). I continued to ride through it, but limited myself to short rides first thing in the morning… Except for the Friday Truancy group ride, which – despite being the most congenial group ride I found – was often a challenging mid-afternoon scorcher!

I knew I couldn’t commit to riding 10,000 kilometers this year, but thought I might be good for 8,000 KM – the same as last year – which I surpassed. In actuality, I rode at an 11,000 KM per year pace for nine months of the year, but couldn’t ride at all for the other three.

Amusingly, in last year’s writeup I mused that “I might go and buy myself a new steed”. That happened unexpectedly at the start of the year, right after the move, when a local shop discovered a crack in my old bike’s frame. More about that below, where I talk about the year’s purchases.

18th Pan-Mass Challenge and $125,000

I kinda knew that I wouldn’t be able to do a remote PMC ride this year. I had no idea what I could use for a route, what the August heat would be like, whether I’d have the time to do the required fundraising, or if I’d be in physical shape for 300 KM over two days. So I bagged it, and rode a lesser substitute: joining the PMC’s visiting Team Kermit to ride Austin’s Livestrong Challenge in September. Goal deferred; I’ll reconsider this in 2024.

Zwift Level 60

I also didn’t know how much I’d use the smart trainer in Austin, but I did rack up 3,400 indoor KM, which was was more than 2022. Although it can be prohibitively hot or cold to ride in our uninsulated and unheated garage, Zwift incentivized me by creating new roads and moving the Tour of Watopia from March to October. And in December I completed my fifth year on their platform.

I advanced from Level 53 to Level 58 on my slow and painful trudge toward Zwift’s pinnacle: Level 60. Then, with a month left to the year and 85% of the way through Level 58, Zwift moved the goalposts. On one hand, they made it easier to reach Level 60 by reducing the amount of XP needed to level up by about 75 percent. But at the same time, they made it harder to reach the top XP level by tacking on forty new levels, from 61 to 100!

The easier leveling let me zip through Level 59 and reach Level 60 in a matter of days, even finishing the year on Level 62. Although I achieved my goal of reaching Level 60, it’s just not as satisfying because Zwift made the last couple steps much easier to achieve.

Health and Turning 60

On the other hand, no one made the “Turning 60 years old” achievement any easier. I definitely checked that one off, and my flagging on-bike performance showed it, as I discussed in this blogpo.

Fortunately, my time in the saddle wasn’t limited by my health. A heart monitor investigating my cardiac palpitations produced a mostly clear result, with the interesting side-note of registering a sleeping low heart rate as low as 37 BPM! Otherwise there were the usual inconveniences: threw my back out, saddle sores, saddle abrasion, and the joys of colonoscopy prep.

The biggest health question I faced was how to manage heat and hydration in order to avoid problems like I experienced on September’s Livestrong century ride. Before moving to Texas, I could easily do a century without paying much attention to that equation, but now it’s something I really need to solve.

Charts

This year I made my Fitness charts a little wider, and added red vertical lines denoting significant dates. These make it a little easier to see major changes and some context for why they happened.

Let’s begin by comparing 2023 to previous years.

There’s really three things to note here. First, due to the move, I started 2023 at my lowest level of Fitness (as measured by CTL) since January 2017. Second, 2023 continued a clear trend of decreasing Fitness highs from my recent peak in 2021. As any stock analyst will tell you, a sequence of lower highs and lower lows makes for an unhappy trendline.

And finally, my level of Fitness in 2023 was quite similar to 2018, which was my last year without an indoor trainer; a year that was hampered by tons of travel, record-setting rain, plus malaise and fatigue following the intensely challenging Dirty Dozen ride the preceding fall.

That comparison to 2018 is extremely apt. If you count by Fitness or long rides or number of hours on the bike, 2023 was my worst year since 2018.

So let’s take a closer look at how 2023 unfolded in detail:

The year breaks down into five distinct periods: down, up, flat, down, and up; all of it swerving above and below the grey line that represents my average Fitness level throughout the year.

I didn’t ride at all in January, while we were still unpacking from our move. In February, I brought my beloved, ten year old bike to the shop for a major overhaul, only to learn that there was a crack in the frame. I put a few miles on my old folding bike while I waited for Specialized to decide whether I was eligible for their Assisted Replacement Policy, and then procure and assemble my new steed. After more than two months off the bike, my Fitness was at a six-year low, way behind where I’d normally be.

Then the “up” phase. When I finally received my new Specialized Æthos, I rode every day for two months straight, as shown by my steadily increasing Fitness in March and April. When my consecutive rides streak ended on May 1th, I was well ahead of my usual training, and at my peak Fitness for the whole year.

I rode regularly during the summer months from May into September, but coped with the Texas summer by only doing short rides, early in the morning, and focusing on the cheeky goal of being the rider who did the most ascents (within 90 days) of the notorious Ladera Norte climb. With no major events and low riding volume, my Fitness plateaued just below my seasonal average. Summer ended with a secondary Fitness peak in September following the Livestrong Challenge, my only imperial century of the year.

But my planned autumnal riding came to a screeching halt when I discovered that during the Livestrong ride, a rock strike had broken my carbon fiber rear wheel rim. I spent the next month off the bike completely, my Fitness plummeting again while I waited for Specialized to get me a warranty replacement.

Once that was fixed, I was back where I’d been in March: spending most of the fourth quarter recovering the Fitness I’d lost during my hiatus. But similar June’s recovery, I ended the year at a tertiary Fitness peak, well ahead of my wintertime average, and that will carry over into the nascent 2024 season.

In the end, it was a year dominated by stops and starts, but I still accrued a respectable 8,250 KM of riding.

The Centuries

I rode with Team Kermit at the Livestrong Challenge

Ornoth limping across the finish line

Pæthos at autumnal Lake Austin

But it was a terrible year in terms of long rides. Between bike repair woes, lack of fitness, unfamiliarity with the area, and prohibitive Texas heat, I only attempted one imperial century in 2023. That’s the fewest I’ve done in sixteen years, since 2007.

In fact, I only did seven rides over 100 KM (62 miles): four Zwift fondos on the indoor trainer, a ride down to the Veloway and back, the Fire Ant metric, and my one century, which was:

9/10: Livestrong Challenge

While I only did one – and suffered tremendously, vomiting shortly after finishing – at least it was noteworthy. It was:

• My first and only century of 2023
• My first imperial century in 11 months
• My first century in Texas
• My first century on my new bike: Pæthos
• My first century with my new Garmin Edge 840 Solar bike GPS
• My first event as an official member of Team Kermit
• My first Livestrong ride

Noteworthy Purchases

In contrast, 2023 was an incredibly productive year for the “procurement department”. With so many new toys, I’ll try to keep it brief…

Topping the list is my new bike: Pæthos, a Specialized Æthos that Specialized gave me an unexpectedly generous discount on. It’s been a very worthy addition, carrying on the performance endurance lineage that my previously-favored Roubaix model abandoned when it went all comfort/gravel/gimmicky. I’m slowly transitioning my kit to match its understated “Chameleon Oil Tint / Flake Silver” (aka black & white) design. My only complaint was the short-lived carbon wheels, which Spesh replaced after the rear wheel broke on its first century ride. Otherwise it’s been a complete delight. In-depth review here.

With a new bike came a handful of new accessories. Hearing rumors of fragility, I picked up a spare seatpost clamp and derailleur hanger in case of breakage. Frustration with flat tires led me to pick up a bunch of spare inner tubes, a CO2 dispenser, and a new Lezyne mini-pump. The latter frees up the bottle cage mount that my old frame pump occupied, so I have finally added a second bottle cage, which will be handy for long rides in the Texas heat. Also a handful of plastic disc brake spacers.

There’s been lots of regular gear replacement as well, including a new Garmin HRM-Dual heart rate monitor, and two new pairs of Craft bibshorts. The new bike needed to be supplied with 28mm Conti GP5000 tires, and a new set of name tag stickers (this time in white, to match Specialized’s own logo decals).

After the bike, another huge development was upgrading my bike GPS head unit from my decrepit old Garmin Edge 820 to the long-awaited new Edge 840 Solar. It too has been an absolute delight, so it also warranted its own separate in-depth review. Since that writeup, Garmin has added the ability for the head unit to display images and photos in incoming text messages.

In addition to new daily-wear bibshorts, I gained a couple other bits of new kit. A jersey from the Buddhist Bike Pilgrimage: a ride I completed back in 2012. And a 2023 Livestrong Challenge jersey, which I earned for surpassing $500 in fundraising. And my very own 2023 Team Kermit jersey and bibshorts. The team uniform even included my very own Kermit the Frog stuffed doll for mounting on my helmet: a traditional (but decidedly non-aerodynamic) part of the team kit.

My most recent purchase was an Ekrin Bantam cordless massage gun, which has been delightful to use, but its effectiveness and safety are still under evaluation.

And finally, the most notable addition to my indoor pain cave was Zwift’s Play controllers. These mount to your handlebars and offer lots of shortcut buttons for in-game actions. But the most useful function they provide is the ability to steer, allowing you to position your avatar in or out of the draft or take an optimal line through corners.

Big sky fulla giant Ornoths at the Fire Ant Tour

Bike night at the Circuit of the Americas

Red Bud Isle (more green than red, akshually)

Additional Highlights

Naturally, moving to a new city produced a lot of new experiences. I rode a challenging Fire Ant 100k up in Gatesville. I got to ride on Austin’s dedicated cycling circuit, the Veloway. I spent two evenings “zooming” around the Circuit of the Americas: Austin’s Formula One grand prix track. I joined more than a dozen Friday Truancy group rides. And it was great hosting old and new New England friends on Team Kermit rides in the lead-up to the Livestrong Challenge.

Flats – and a non-functioning frame pump – were a problem this year. I had to call a Lyft rideshare to get home after a quadruple snakebite on Blue Bluff, and also walked to The Peddler for repairs after taking a screw on 51st in Mueller. Hence all the new flat-repair equipment mentioned above.

I’m tempted to list out the two dozen Strava “Local Legend” achievements I earned by being the person who rode a segment more than anyone else in a 90-day period, but that’d be a waste. I’ll just mention the two biggies: becoming LCL on Austin’s infamous Ladera Norte climb, and the Friday Truancy ride’s spiker up the Arpdale to Cedarview Kicker.

In terms of Zwift highlights, the indoor training simulator released several enhancements. You can now capture short videos of your ride and share them directly to Strava. They added their new Climbing Portal, the Scotland world, the southern coastal road in Watopia, and introduced the Zwift Play controllers and the Repack Rush steering challenge. As mentioned above, they moved the popular double-XP Tour of Watopia to the fall, and introduced some major (and frankly asinine) changes to the XP system when they unveiled new levels 61 to 100. And there are rumors of more changes in the works.

Blogposts

• 2/10: Clowning Around In Austin (riding the folding bike post-move)
• 3/7: The Pæthos Æxpert (a brand new bike!)
• 5/4: Jalapeno Ketchup (spring catch-up post)
• 5/10: VC Sniper! (name decal vendor recc)
• 6/15: Fire Ant Cookout (first Texas 100k event)
• 7/5: Austin On-Ramp (first impressions of riding in Austin)
• 8/6: Legend on the Ladera (Ladera Norte Local Legend)
• 9/19: The Edge of the Sun (new Garmin Edge 840 Solar GPS review)
• 9/21: It's Not Easy Being Green in the Face (Livestrong Challenge & century ride report)
• 11/4: The Aging Cyclist (cycling as a sixty year old)
• 12/3: ‘Tis the Season (autumnal catch-up post)
• 12/31: 2023: Austin City Limits (my year in review: you’re reading it!)

Goals for 2024

Ornoth’s 2023 cycling calendar/log

My 2023 Strava Year in Sport summary

I knew that 2023 was going to be a chaotic year. Looking forward to 2024, I don’t know if I can plan on it being much better. I’m still learning about Austin and what is gonna work for me here, so most of my goals remain pretty vague.

More 100k and Century Rides

For various reasons, I haven’t done as many event rides as I hoped, so next year I’d like to do more. There’ll probably be another Livestrong ride, and I’m hoping to do the two-day Texas MS Ride in April, and possibly a repeat of the Fire Ant metric. Instead of limiting myself primarily to 100-mile events, as I’ve done previously, I’m thinking of signing up for more 100-kilometer rides, which seem more prevalent and feasible for a sixty year old riding in Texas heat.

Find My Group Ride Niche

I just don’t fit anywhere in Austin’s group ride scene, which is mostly divided between flat-out hammerfests for active racers, and short, plodding social rides for non-athletes. I’m hoping someday I’ll find a ride that splits the difference, much like Pittsburgh’s Team Decaf ride or Boston’s old Quad Cycles rides. There’s got to be more mid-tier endurance and charity riders like me in this area; but where are they?

A Big Pan-Mass Challenge

2024 is kind of a big year for both me and the PMC. It will be the organization’s 45th ride, and they will celebrate surpassing the immense and impressive $1 billion fundraising threshold. For myself, it would be my 18th ride, and bring my own fundraising to over $125,000. And it’d be my first PMC as a sixty year old.

I’m committed to ride, but still stumped by what it will look like. A 300 KM solo ride in August heat doesn’t sound very feasible. I’d consider returning to Boston for the in-person ride, but that’s impossibly expensive, between airfare, hotels, car rental, and transporting my bike. Plus the $6,000+ fundraising minimum is far beyond my current ability, and I’ll have to personally cover any shortfall. I could extend my Livestrong Challenge weekend riding while fundraising for the PMC instead of the Livestrong Foundation… But that’d be in October, rather than on the traditional PMC weekend in August.

There’s just no good option, but the decision needs to be made now, as the traditional PMC route will sell out before the end of January. I wish there was a better choice.

Conclusion

Previous Annual Summaries

2022 2021 2020 2019 2018
2017 2016 2015 2014 2013
2012 2011 2010 2009 2008
2007 2006 2005 2004 2003

So 2023 was a mixed bag. I turned sixty, said goodbye to my beloved primary bike, was off the bike for three months, skipped the PMC, and only attempted one imperial century. But I also had fun exploring my new town, rode with Team Kermit, got a snazzy new bike, new GPS, a cordless massager, and lots more.

After less than a year, my settling into the Austin scene is far from complete, so that process will be ongoing. I’m looking forward to finding more people, places, and events to enjoy in 2024. Stay tuned to hear how it goes!