2013: A Tale of Two Seasons

[ornoth_cycling]

As in: it was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

This couldn’t have been exemplified better than Monday, April 15th 2013. That day I was supposed to pick up my brand new road bike. It had electronic shifting, and I’d gotten a $1,000 discount from the manufacturer. I was utterly stoked, but destined for disappointment. Unfortunately, that was also the day of the Boston Marathon bombing, so the shop closed early due to the ensuing chaos.

That up-and-down rollercoaster ride of emotion continued throughout the year. Along with the new bike, I scheduled my first professional bike fitting, which was pretty disappointing. Similarly, this season I experimented with massage treatments, which were nice but not providing enough benefit to justify their cost.

The one unalloyed high point of the year was this year’s Pan-Mass Challenge fundraising. I planned to raise $16,000 over two years so that I could end my PMC involvement in 2014 having raised over $100,000 for cancer research. However, my supporters flabbergasted me by contributing all $16,000 in one year, breaking my previous one-year fundraising record by 40 percent and rocketing me past my $100,000 goal. That will always be one of the proudest achievements of my life and certainly the emotional high point of this year.

In keeping with the overall theme, however, two weeks later I found myself in the emergency room after being nearly hit by a car who failed to yield at a stop sign in South Boston. Over $2,500 in damage was done to the brand new bike, none of which will be covered by insurance.

That put both me and the bike out of commission for a long time, ending my season. Having completed six centuries in 2013, I had been on pace to have more 100-mile rides than any previous season. However, due to the crash, I haven’t ridden more than 65 miles at a time in the past four months.

I had been enjoying the long rides I had done, which included a blazing hot Tour d’Essex County, the Outriders ride, the Mt. Washington Century, PMC day one, a solo ride via Harvard, and an interesting new route: a solo century up around Cape Ann and back. However, I missed out on two late-season favorites: the Maine Lighthouse Ride and Boston’s Hub on Wheels.

With my job ending in September, I had also been looking forward to having a lot more time to ride in the autumn, but again that was curtailed by the accident. Although I had been on pace to ride more miles in 2013 than the past two years, I wound up with about 3,000 miles, which makes for a pretty average year.

I’ve now recovered, and done the repairs that were necessary to get the bike back on the road. Of course, now it’s December, and century rides just aren’t practical during winter’s short days and 30-degree temperatures.

On the other hand, until I start a new job I’ll have the opportunity to get out for short rides if the conditions permit. And hopefully that will allow me to retain some of my fitness, so that I can make 2014 a banner year.

After all, 2014 will still be my last Pan-Mass Challenge ride, and I’m planning on doing the extra 100-mile day to make it a true ride across Massachusetts, as I did back in 2010 for my 10th ride.