2010: The Great Leap Forward

[ornoth_cycling]

Since I’ve always calculated my cycling season beginning and ending in mid-October, it’s time to look back and review my 2009-2010 cycling year.

In many ways, this was one of my best years ever, with lots of noteworthy accomplishments, but it also had its disappointments, which seemed to cluster at either end of the season.

2010 started with a bang. On my first outdoor ride of the year—a short shakedown cruise to make sure the bike was working properly—a female Asian student crashed into me head-on on the Charles River bike path. I was left with a permanent scar on my left hand and a $300 repair bill which the girl responsible for the crash bluntly refused to help pay. (blog post)

Despite that setback, I managed to do 60-70 miles on each of my first three training rides of the year, which is double what I can usually handle in March. Despite the injuries I received in the crash, my early season fitness and endurance were surprisingly strong.

My biggest disappointment of the year also took place right at the start of the season. In 2009, Paul, Jay, and I had formed a solid riding group, and in 2010 we wanted to add a few more people to it. In order to bring people into the fold and build some enthusiasm for the coming year, I invited 13 prospective riders to a pre-season planning dinner. Only six people accepted the invite, and in the end only four people showed: Paul, Jay, and I, plus Jay’s friend Mary. It was a truly pathetic showing. (blog post)

Although we tried to expand the group throughout the year, we were never successful. Mary, who was the most active addition, became known for bagging out on us. We added a girl named Suzanne, but she really only showed up for one ride and her riding style was actually downright dangerous. But toward the end of the season we added Paul’s friend Noah, who hopefully will stick with us next year. And our regular Quad Cycles buddy Lynda was probably our most regular riding partner all year long.

As the season progressed, I took advantage of my unemployed status to lay down a lot of miles, setting a new yearly record of 5,000 miles, a 400-mile increase over my previous record and more than double what I rode in 2007 and 2008. That took me to a total of 33,500 miles over ten years, and 15,500 miles on the Plastic Bullet, my Specialized Roubaix. I set monthly mileage records in October and December of 2009, as well as June, July, and September of 2010. (charts)

In 2009, I was impressed that I’d done five 100-mile rides, but in 2010 I actually did eight full centuries. We ticked off every major goal we had, including my first-ever 130-mile Outriders ride from Boston to Provincetown (blog post, GPS log, video), the Climb to the Clouds century (GPS log, video), my first 93-mile pre-PMC ride from the New York border to Sturbridge (GPS log, video), the Pan-Mass Challenge itself (ride report, GPS log 1, video 1, GPS log 2, video 2), and the Flattest Century (GPS log). On top of those explicit goals, I also did my first-ever CRW Spring Century (blog post, GPS log, video), my first Hub on Wheels (blog post, GPS log), and three ad hoc centuries (GPS log 1, GPS log 2, GPS log 3). I also did my first training rides with the Green Line Velo group that meets at Cleveland Circle on Tuesday nights (GPS log).

Looking specifically at this year’s Pan-Mass Challenge, it was probably the best year I’ve ever had. In addition to a great experience on my first “Day 0” pre-PMC ride from the New York border to Sturbridge (GPS log, video), it was also my 10th PMC ride and my 5th year in a row reaching the esteemed Heavy Hitter fundraising plateau. I raised over $10,000—my second best fundraising year ever—which brought my lifetime cancer fundraising to over $63,000. I had over 140 donors, more than doubling my previous record of 71 sponsors. And none of that does justice to the fun and personal satisfaction I experienced during the event. (ride report, GPS log 1, video 1, GPS log 2, video 2)

After the PMC, things wound down, and the year ended not with a bang, but a whimper. The Flattest Century (GPS log) was cold and overcast, and I spent the whole day riding alone, having flatted and let my buddies get far ahead of me. Then I had to forfeit my registration money for the CRW Fall Century because no one was willing to give me a ride to the start. And I had to cancel my entire San Francisco trip for the Buddhist Bicycle Pilgrimage when my buddy Mark bagged out and finances got tight. So the end of the year was pretty disappointing. Still, looked at as a whole, this was arguably my best year.

One thing that helped make it memorable was the series of video ride reports that I created after the CRW Spring Century, the Outriders ride, the Climb to the Clouds, and PMC Day 0, Day 1, and Day 2. I think they all came out pretty well and will be wonderful mementos of those rides. The next step for me in doing these videos is to apply some more creativity to ensure that they don’t all wind up looking the same, using the same visual techniques. I think it’ll be fun to spend the off-season thinking about how I can continue to improve on them.

I also started putting GPS track logs of all my significant rides online on my Garmin Connect page. In addition to serving as a place where I can go to review my own rides, hopefully they will be of some use to other riders, as well as any of my friends who are curious about the places I ride through.

So despite some disappointments, I really did have a tremendous year. It’s well within the realm of reason to say this was my best biking year ever. But it’s also quite possibly the best year I will ever have on the bike. Being unemployed, I’ve had two summers off to build up to peak conditioning, and I probably won’t have another opportunity to devote that much time to cycling until I’m well into my fifties and feeling more of the slowly-accumulating effects of aging.

But if this really was the best year I’ll ever have, I can still be quite happy with that. I spent a lot of time in the saddle, knocked out a bunch of new personal records, did a whole slew of interesting new rides, raised all kinds of money for cancer research, had a ton of fun, and was able to share it all with my two great riding buddies Paul and Jay.

That ain’t bad.