Orny's Cycling Journal

Since imperial centuries have become as rare as hen’s teeth for me, I guess I have to start reporting out on the metric centuries I do, or at least the 100 km “event rides”.

After a post-PMC lull, which included last month’s trip to South Carolina, my October was focused on building back up to fitness in preparation for the upcoming Livestrong Challenge. Two weeks before Livestrong, there was a nearby event ride that I figured would be a great warm-up.

So last Saturday I rode the Barrows Volksride. It was my first 100 km ride since my PMC, 2½ months ago. And it had been 18 months since I did a “new-to-me” organized event as a first-time rider.

As I was focused on building fitness, I decided not to taper my training, only taking one day off the bike to freshen the legs somewhat.

Ironically, during that rest day I discovered the Real Ale Ride down in Blanco, another local event which took place at the same time. Both are put on by breweries (something I feel pretty iffy about), but raise money for their local volunteer fire departments. With Austin cycling events being pretty rare to begin with, it seems stupid for these two fundraisers to take place on the exact same day.

For the Volksride, at 8am three or four hundred riders set out on the roads around Salado and Holland, Texas. The delightful mid-October weather started out around 22° C, with scattered clouds. A 13 kph wind out of the south was at our backs for the first third of the ride, allowing us to easily roll along at 38 kph with minimal effort. There was a long section of fresh chipseal, but it was well-packed, and thus not too painful. The biggest negative was the morning sun directly in our faces, occasionally blinding us.

For the first time in a big event ride, I broke out my HoverAir selfie drone and captured some video as I rode past Summers Mill on Salado Creek, but it wasn’t smart enough to get the framing I wanted. As I stopped to retrieve it, it recalcitrantly kept its distance, until I sneakily turned and leapt up to snag it out of mid-air.

Although the ride mostly featured flat farmlands, there were two noteworthy hills right after the second water stop, 40 km into the ride. After that point, the route turned south into the teeth of a 24 kph headwind, making progress a hard, painful slog for the next 30 km.

After 90 minutes of fighting the wind, I reached the final rest stop at 10:54am. Temps had risen to a record 30° C, but at least the steady wind kept the heat from building on the roads. As we zig-zagged north and west, I’d hit segments where I could easily cruise, and others where you had to fight for every meter.

My lower back started complaining, so I took numerous opportunities to stand and ride out of the saddle. My fitness held out until the very last corner, when I started feeling the first hints of leg cramps. I looked forward to working those out with my impact massager later in the evening.

Just 250 meters later, I crossed the ride’s finishing gate at 12:06pm. I’d accrued 102 km in just over 4 hours, with a modest but surprising 730 meters of climbing. More importantly, I’d gained 240 points of Training Stress (TSS), and yet another big finisher’s medal to add to my trophy case.

But the important part here is to give you my impression after doing this ride for the first time. Overall, it was a pretty good ride. It was a nice, unchallenging route (save for the wind), and it made for a pleasant morning in the saddle, accruing training load. I’d consider returning, although I might also want to try the Real Ale Ride too, which is held in a lumpier – but potentially more scenic – section of the Hill Country.

And now we look ahead, toward the next big challenge…

Every year has its ups and downs, and its major milestones. But every so often something happens that is so significant that you can divide your whole cycling career — perhaps even your entire life – into “before” and “after”.

2024 started quite well; I was riding consistently, tried some new things, made a few events, but missed a few others. In the first nine months of 2024, I knocked out 7,000 kilometers, an average of 25.75 km per day.

Showing off the Austin skyline during my Pan-Mass Challenge ride.

And then there was October 4th: my stroke. Thankfully it was extremely minor, but it negated all my plans and goals as a cyclist in an instant. It reduced everything I’d done before then to history, forcing me to begin again from scratch.

The good news is that I’ve recovered remarkably well. As I mentioned in my first post following my stroke, I’ve prioritized riding the indoor trainer over riding outside. Since I got back on the bike in mid-October, I’ve logged another 2,000 km, or about 25 km per day, a rate which is almost even with my pre-stroke riding.

My plan was to get back out on the road this spring to test my capabilities. But that’s the future; for now, let me look back on the past year and give you an idea how things went both before and after October 4th.

All told, I knocked out a total of 9,250 kilometers, or the distance between London and Tokyo, or from Los Angeles to Rome. That actually surpassed my 2023 total by 1,000 km, and my riding was split 63% outdoor rides and 37% Zwift.

As for whether I met the goals I’d set for myself…

My Original 2024 Goals

Ushered in 2024 with a New Years Day Pan-Mass Challenge group ride on Zwift.

I returned to the Fire Ant Tour metric century for a second year.

Tried the Team Tacodeli group rides, but barely saw anyone but these two…

I was again a regular at the Friday Truancy group rides, tho I struggled to keep up.

Last year at this time, things were still up in the air following our move to Austin, so my 2024 goal-setting exercise was short on specifics. But I did call out three specifics areas of focus.

More 100k and Century Rides

2024 was a little better than 2023 in terms of long rides, but there were also a lot of missed opportunities.

On the plus side… I did complete two centuries: my first Red Poppy Ride, and my solo Pan-Mass Challenge Day 1. As for metric centuries, I rode my second Fire Ant Tour, plus two solo rides out to Manor, one of those comprising my PMC Day 2.

But the list of excuses and missed rides is regrettably long. I didn’t feel ready for the early-season Pedaling the Prairie or the two-day Texas MS 150. I skipped the Tour de Boerne so that I could make a rare kyūdō practice at the outdoor range. I canceled my planned Katy Flatland Century when I learned that the local Trek club was hosting a long tour around Austin, which I still missed because I contracted COVID. And my second Livestrong Challenge eluded me when I had a stroke two weeks before the event.

So I was both happy and a tiny bit disappointed with the first nine months of the year. And after my hospitalization, long rides just weren’t in the cards anymore.

Find My Group Ride Niche

I continued my frustrating quest to find enthusiast-level group rides in Austin.

Continuing last year’s trend, I regularly attended the Friday Truancy rides, making 28 of them before being sidelined by my stroke. However, for the first time in my life I was utterly incapable of keeping up with the group. So, for me, these still wound up being essentially solo rides: group rides in name only.

I did try riding with Team Tacodeli on Monday evenings, which were shorter and at a more moderate pace. I joined them five times in June, but three of those were only attended by two other riders, and once I was the only rider to show up at all! Then they went on summer hiatus, and that was the end of that. To my knowledge they haven’t resumed on any regular basis since.

So despite giving Team Tacodeli a fair shot, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.

A Big Pan-Mass Challenge

On a much more positive note: after skipping the event in 2023, I enjoyed a tremendously successful return for an 18th PMC ride. In brief, it was:

• My first PMC ridden remotely in Austin
• My first PMC as a member of Team Kermit
• My first PMC as a sexagenarian
• The ride went really well
• I enjoyed creating an awesome 2024 PMC highlight video
• And I raised $7,300 for cancer research; a stunning 62% increase over my previous ride (2022), bringing my lifetime fundraising total to $130,800

My ride video and all the deets live in my 2024 PMC Ride Report.

So in terms of meeting the goals I’d set for 2024, I’d say I did okay. It certainly could have been better, but I’m still happy with how it went.

Charts

Because I kept riding throughout the winter of 2023-2024, I had virtually no drop-off in my Fitness level, as measured by my Chronic Training Load (CTL) numbers.

Previous years – including my first year in Austin – featured a lot of variability, characterized by peaks in Fitness during the summers, and troughs in the winter. In contrast, my Fitness stayed almost constant throughout 2024. Thus it wound up being my most consistent year on record, as you can see in the following chart.

To quantify how steady it was: in the decade from 2012 to 2023, the standard deviation of my Chronic Training Load averaged 16.7 – and it was never less than 11.7 – but in 2024 it was just 4.9! And it was actually a mere 3.5 before I contracted COVID in July and my stroke in October, which were the only noteworthy hiccups in my training all year.

Another way of looking at it is to compare my Fitness with my long-term average, as you see in the following chart, which zooms in on 2024:

In a February blogpost, I predicted that my my natural response to having rideable weather year-round would produce a much flatter curve than in previous years. I projected that my Fitness would be higher than average during the winter months, but during the extreme heat of summer it would never reach my usual peaks… and might even decline slightly from springtime highs. And that’s exactly what happened in 2024.

Basically, this is what I think it’s gonna look like to be a year-round cyclist in Austin.

The Centuries

Big turnout at the start of the Red Poppy Ride, my first century of the year.

Early morning haul down Lime Creek Road toward Volente on my 2024 Pan-Mass Challenge century.

All I can say is that two is better than one. After one lone imperial century in 2023, I was eagerly planning for Livestrong to bring my 2024 tally to three, but greater concerns intervened. But the two I did complete were:

5/11: Red Poppy Ride

Although marred by a flat tire and criminally bad route markings, this was a delightful return to long-distance riding, and a big relief after the bad experience I had on the 2023 Livestrong Challenge (blogpo). But this ride’s challenges still prompted me to invest in new tire levers and a tire jack.

8/3: Remote PMC Day 1 Century

I’ve already covered this above, but my 110th century and 18th PMC was the biggest high point of my year.

It’s still a little premature to say for sure, but it’s worth mentioning: considering my age and health issues, it’s possible this was the last imperial century that I will ever ride.

Noteworthy Purchases

This year’s spending report falls into two main categories: a ton of mostly minor maintenance stuff, and not one but two automated selfie camera drones.

The first of those drones – the HoverAir X1 – created the entire category of selfie drones, and would have been the best purchase of the year on its own, after giving me the ability to take pretty decent video footage of myself while riding.

But later in the year they released the X1 PRO, which took the groundwork laid by the X1 and improved upon it immensely. I’ll spare you the details, and instead point you to my Gear of the Year blogpost for a full writeup. But in summary, it’s a fantastic piece of equipment that I hope to make even more use of in the upcoming year.

Here’s a two-minute compilation video I made that only uses footage from the original X1. Starting next year perhaps I’ll add a new section to my year-in-review post for an annual cycling highlight video!

Beyond that, my purchases were all pretty regular stuff.

In terms of new kit, I got a new cycling jersey for riding the 2024 Pan-Mass Challenge, and ordered three sets of PMC-branded fingerless gloves. As a team rider, I also purchased a 2024 Team Kermit jersey, and received a couple PMC-branded insulated (non-cycling) water bottles that our team captain had surplused from the ride organizers.

After struggling with hydration on last year’s Livestrong ride, I picked up a bottle of SaltStick electrolyte gelcaps. I’d used them back in Massachusetts in 2010 for cramping, but hadn’t noticed any obvious benefit; however, I was willing to give them another shot in order to help me deal with Texas’ heat. Results continue to be inconclusive.

Routine maintenance included buying inner tubes, CO2 canisters, a new tire, a replacement saddle bag, helmet padding inserts, and a new heart rate monitor. Also had to replace a battery cover on my Garmin power meter pedals, which I’d over-tightened and had to destroy to get into. And I got a new electric shaver (for the legs, of course).

In hopes of alleviating some of my tire-changing worries, I replaced my Park Tool tire levers with ones from Pedro’s, and a funky tire-seating device called the Rehook Tyre Glider; but I actually didn’t get to test either of those, so I can’t say they were of any value. I also tried my hand at patching punctured inner tubes with vulcanizing glue patches, which was an almost universal failure.

So really, aside from the selfie drones, it was a pretty underwhelming year in terms of equipment.

Additional Highlights

Dramatic backdrop on the new Walnut Creek bike path extension to Manor during my PMC Day 2 ride.

A stunning sunset atop Turn 1 at the Circuit of the Americas F1 track.

Unlocked Level 80 on Zwift’s indoor trainer platform.

Proved there was no drop in my FTP after my stroke on Zwift’s new “The Grade” hill climb.

Team Kermit group photo at the finish line of the 2024 Livestrong Challenge.

Obviously, the highest-impact unplanned event of the year was my stroke, and starting my cycling life over from scratch. So far, my recovery seems near complete, even though I’ve kept my focus strictly on the indoor trainer so far. And I also recovered from my first bout of COVID in July.

But before my stroke, there were still some nice surprises. The Southern Walnut Creek trail was extended another nine kilometers to the town of Manor, which could serve as a gateway for rides farther to the northeast of Austin. And I made two trips down to the Circuit of the Americas Formula 1 track for Bike Nights, which is the same number of sessions I made in 2023. Sadly, illness forced me to miss their first actual post-sunset “under the lights” night ride.

Life on the indoor trainer was eventful. My Kickr CORE smart trainer got its first firmware updates in 2½ years, adding automatic calibration, which is a nice convenience. I also picked up Zwift Play handlebar-mounted controllers, which provide several convenient functions, including virtual shifting (which I disliked) and in-game steering.

Within Zwift’s virtual world, I began the year at Level 62 and finished at Level 81, although after four poorly-conceived redesigns, they’ve botched the XP system so horribly that levels just don’t mean that much anymore. In addition to an updated heads-up display, Zwift introduced a couple dozen new routes, including two small but noteworthy expansions: The Grade, a hilly section which features a short-form FTP test; and an updated copy of Zwift’s original 8 km Jarvis Island loop. So it took some work for me to reinstate my “Route Hero” status. And after having avoided the initial hoopla, I finally checked out Zwift’s Climb Portal, and had the pleasure of riding up Mt. Fuji while that route was featured back in May. Four years later, I’m still waiting for Zwift to bring it to their permanent Japan-inspired Makuri map.

But I have to call out two of my formerly-favorite vendors, who made stupid, user-hostile decisions that have me seriously reconsidering doing business with them.

Garmin Screws Its Users

I’ve been using Garmin’s portable GPS units to plan routes and record rides since 2000, using the original yellow eTrex, the eTrex Vista, the bike-specific Edge 800 and Edge 820, and about 18 months ago I picked up their newest bike computer, the Edge 840 Solar, which I reviewed here.

For the past two and a half decades, when you connected a Garmin GPS to your computer, it would appear as a disk drive that you could interact with just like any other: copying and moving files on and off the unit as desired. It was incredibly convenient, and one of my top criteria when evaluating bike GPS units.

However, a December update disabled disk access in favor of MTP, simulating an Android device that the user cannot interact with directly.

This is an immense pain in the ass for me. I have automated programs that rely on disk access to automatically save copies of my logs after every activity I complete. Furthermore, I use disk access to backup all my user data, settings, and key system files quarterly. Garmin’s change means there is no way for my programs to read anything on the device, or for me to manually copy files from it.

So far I’ve been able to decline installing the update that does this, but that also means forgoing all future fixes and enhancements. There are shareware programs that give some limited access to MTP volumes, but they’ll never be as scriptable as the simple file system disk interface.

As I said, being able to programmatically read files from the unit is one of my most important criteria when buying a bike GPS. If Garmin is no longer going to support that, it forces this longtime Garmin user to very seriously consider moving to their competitors.

Strava Screws Its Users 

Despite being the incumbent athletic social network, Strava has a long history of lack of innovation and user-hostility. But this year they’ve shown a newfound ability to screw their customers.

First, there was their amateurish handling of a substantial price increase, which was never publicly announced and varied pricing dramatically by country.

Next, Strava alienated or outright forbade the API-based applications that most athletes rely on. By prohibiting third-party applications from showing one user’s data to anyone but that user, they immediately destroyed a whole ecosystem of communities that rely on their data, including athlete coaching, athlete leaderboards, and the ability to sync Strava data with other platforms. Strava has stupidly banned the very apps that make it useful to its customers!

Finally, in another completely unannounced change, Strava stepped up its effort to get rid of spammers. But in typical Strava fashion, they completely botched it. Instead of using technology to identify problematic users, they simply decided one day to ban every Strava user from using URLs. Suddenly overnight, and without any notice, any link posted in a user profile, an activity description, or a post simply disappeared, with no error message or notice. Worse yet, this was so poorly coded that even decimal numbers like “30.4 kilometers” were deleted for looking too much like those dreaded URLs!

This is all just so typical Strava, and it absolutely underscores the company’s completely user-hostile orientation. Needless to say, I’m unlikely to renew my paid subscription when it comes up for renewal next spring.

Blogposts

In recent years, I’ve had less to say in blog form, and loaded more of those things into my usual ride reports or my annual year in review. But here’s this year’s inventory:

• 2/11: The Shape of Things to Come (charting changes in my seasonal cycling pattern)
• 5/16: Poppies! (Red Poppy Ride century ride report)
• 5/10: Anty Up (Fire Ant 100k ride report)
• 8/20: 2024 Pan-Mass Challenge Reimagined (just a pointer to my full PMC ride report page)
• 9/15: Covidiocy (comparing my fitness pre- and post-COVID)
• 11/14: Livestroke Challenge (my cancelled Livestrong Challenge and cycling after my stroke)
• 12/7: Gear of the Year (my new HoverAir X1 selfie drone)
• 12/31: 2024: Second Life (my year in review: you’re reading it!)

Goals for 2025

Ornoth’s 2024 cycling calendar/log

My 2024 Strava Year in Sport summary

For the past few years, this section could have been shortened to just “more of the same”. I wish I could say the same again for 2025, but my life as a cyclist has changed at a fundamental level, forcing a complete reset in my expectations. So we start with my most basic and important goal:

Stroke & Cardiac Recovery

While the symptoms of my stroke have long passed, the followup continues, with several hematology and cardiology visits planned.

I have two more months of relative normailty, but then I will have cardiac surgery to repair a hole between my atria, and will be under doctor’s orders for absolutely zero exercise for all of March and into April.

Once I’m cleared to exercise again, cycling life will start from scratch all over again, while I first test whether I’m okay to ride, then rebuild some fitness, and finally test my endurance and learn what demands my body will still be capable of meeting.

My questions won’t have changed much since I came home from the hospital: Will I be able to participate in group rides? Can I still do a metric century? An imperial? Will I be able to trust my body again? Can I ever return to what used to be “normal”?

My 19th Pan-Mass Challenge?

Sadly, the PMC is once again a big question mark. While I really want to do it, I won’t have any idea what’s physically achievable until May, at earliest.

Even if I were in perfect health, there are still a lot of questions up in the air. Would I try to simulate the full 2-day, 300 km route? Would I still do it in August, or perhaps choose a different time? Would I ride as a member of Team Kermit or return to being a solo rider? And will I have time and energy to fundraise?

Like everything else, I won’t have any way to answer these questions until I get through my upcoming heart surgery.

More, Better Videos!

Whatever riding I do, I hope to capture it with the newer, more capable HoverAir X1 PRO autonomous selfie drone. With video quality, subject tracking, and speed all improved, I’m excited to see what I’ll be able to do with it, and equally excited to share the results with you in this cycling blog and on my Strava feed.

My trusty steed waits, ready for another summer in the Texas sun.

Some Anticipated Purchases

Having spent the past three months on the indoor trainer, I’ve been sitting on a few ideas for next year’s cycling upgrades, including the following:

On the bike: After two years and almost 18,000 kilometers, my bike could probably benefit from its first thorough tune-up. And some new bar tape.

Cycling kit: Although my current ones are only 18 months old, I could probably use a couple new pairs of bibshorts. And my Shimano cycling sandals really need to be replaced.

As for tires: I’m really tired of struggling to get my Conti GP5000 tires mounted on my tubeless-ready rims, so when they wear out, I’m going to replace them with Pirelli P-Zero tires and see how that goes. And I’m perpetually on the fence about whether I should try running lighter and higher-performance latex or TPU inner tubes, instead of the much more convenient and economical default latex. Maybe next year we’ll give those a shot; just don’t expect to ever see me going tubeless!

Conclusion

2024 started well, but ended on a sour note. The high points that I’ll remember include a very successful first solo Austin PMC ride, and the purchase and videos captured with my first autonomous selfie drone.

But by far the most defining moment of the past year was my stroke. It was a miracle that I came away from it without any significant loss of function, but also a very grim reminder that one’s time is limited, and life can disappear in any instant. And my upcoming cardiac work casts an immense shadow onto 2025 and beyond.

It’s hard to get past that realization and return to making plans and setting goals as if nothing had changed.

And at the same time, it underscores how precious every day – and every ride – is, how big a blessing it is simply to be able to get out, travel around under our own power, and experience nature and the world around us.

That’s the attitude I’ll try to bring with me on every precious ride this year as I deal with my surgery, then try to recover enough to resume outdoor riding.

Happy 2025 to everyone I share these roads with!

This is just a placeholder to direct you to my 2024 Pan-Mass Challenge Ride Report, for the full details of this year's remote "Reimagined" PMC ride. As always, my lengthy writeup is supplemented with photos, videos, maps, and GPS logs.

This year, I also created the following 4½-minute summary montage. I hope you enjoy it!

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

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!

I’ve been in Austin for six months – although only cycling for four – so it’s time to share my initial impression of cycling in Austin. I’ll cover the bike shops, clubs, group rides, organized events, routes, road conditions, drivers, online community, and weather.

These are my limited observations, so they may not accurately reflect anyone else’s experience. Ready?

Downtown Austin from Town Lake boardwalk

Mellow Johnny's Friday Truancy ride

The Fire Ant Tour

The Veloway

Bike night at the Circuit of the Americas

Looking back from the top of Ladera Norte

Bike Shops

Austin is still dealing with the fallout from everyone’s favorite independent bike shop being bought out by Trek in 2020, in an effort to force Specialized out. The friendly Austin Trek staff are trying their best, but they’re hampered by being brand-tied and the bad blood the company earned in that buyout. In a city preoccupied with losing “the old Austin”, it was a prime example.

Specialized is recovering, but slowly. They’re now based in a cramped showroom in an inconvenient mall north of town, but much of their operation is run from a sketchy, anonymous warehouse in South Austin, while presumably looking for more functional retail space.

Of course, you can’t talk about bike shops without mentioning Mellow Johnny’s, still owned and operated by Austin’s disgraced former pro cyclist. I found the shop unfriendly, but their support of the local cycling community robust.

There’s also a Rapha store, which – in addition to hawking their overpriced wares with a pretentious attitude – coordinate some popular group rides. And there’s also REI and several small neighborhood shops of unknown quality.

Clubs & Group Rides

There are lots of opportunities to ride, although surprisingly few of them are run by the local bike shops. Here are some highlights.

Mellow Johnny’s has a popular Friday Truancy ride of their own, but many of their rides are led by the Violet Crown Cycling Club, which I naturally refer to as the “Violent Crowd”. Due to time conflicts, I haven’t been able to ride with them yet.

The Phenom Cycling Club runs a couple challenging hilly group rides. That’s fine I guess if you want a hard workout, but they predominantly cater to young racers, and don’t spare much attention for laggards.

Long-distance riders are served by the Hill Country Randonneurs. However, they require membership in Randonneurs USA, whose policies I take exception to, so I really can’t ride with them.

There’s an exceptionally popular monthly Breakfast Club ride which again I haven’t made because of timing. I’ve heard mixed opinions about it.

There’s also an overnight Full Moon Ride every four weeks. I enjoy night rides, but it’s a pedestrian ride. Although they’re around, I’m really not interested in the casual populist rides like Critical Mass, Social Cycling Austin, and some of the Meetup groups.

Aside from many group rides happening at difficult times (i.e. early mornings and Saturdays), I haven’t found anything that suits my level: non-competitive but serious enthusiast. There’s lots of rides for young, fast, elitist racers; and plenty for slow, pot-smoking townies and commuters; but nothing for us devoted middle-of-the-road riders that I’ve found.

Organized Events

Here’s another area where I’m struggling to find my place. Perhaps it’s because of the Texas heat, but despite scouring the online ride calendars, I’ve found shockingly few organized events around Austin to suit my preferred ride distance of 100 to 200 KM.

One option is the infamous Hotter’n Hell 100 (August), although that’s a solid 5-hour drive away!

And there’s the Texas MS 150 (April), whose century route starts in Houston. I passed on it this year, having lost too much fitness over our move.

Austin is also home to the Livestrong Challenge, which several New England friends take part in, so hopefully there’ll be reunion opportunities when that rolls around in September.

And there are occasional smaller, less-familiar rides. Rather than enumerate them here, I’ll point you to my work-in-progress Austin Cycling Calendar webpage.

For my Pittsburgh friends, there’s a local semi-organized hill ride in the spirit of the Dirty Dozen. The Tour das Hugel takes place in November and incurs a whopping 175 KM with 3,200 M of climbing.

But so far I’ve only managed one 100 km ride, the Fire Ant Tour up in Gatesville, which I wrote about here. It was fine, but I’m still searching for my first century even as we enter the forbidding heat of summer in Texas.

Routes

There are a couple unique cycling facilities that are especially noteworthy. One is the Veloway, a winding 5 KM circuit that is limited to cyclists and skaters. It’s a delightful wooded loop on the south side of town. However, it’s a bit far to ride to, and I imagine it gets busy on the weekends.

And in the spring and fall, the Circuit of the Americas racetrack – which normally hosts Formula 1, NASCAR, and MotoGP races – regularly opens their 5 KM track to cyclists from 6PM to dark. It’s a memorable experience, but again it’s a bit far away to make it a regular event.

For racers, there are criteriums at the Driveway: a private track designed to instruct auto racers. Not being a racer, those are of limited interest to me, save perhaps as a spectator.

In terms of bike paths, there are a couple around town. The most noteworthy is the Southern Walnut Creek Trail, which is pretty long, quite rideable, and one viable way to get out of the city and into the outskirts.

Shoal Creek is partially an on-street bike lane, but there are off-street segments. While it looks like a straight route into downtown, part of it is shut down long-term, and it’s more suited to leisure rides than getting somewhere in good time.

And there’s an extensive network of jogging paths around Town Lake. While scenic and featuring an amazing investment in elevated boardwalks over the river, these gravel paths are crowded with oblivious tourists and locals, so they’re of limited value for road cyclists.

I’ve spent a lot of time exploring Austin’s roads, but I’ve still only just scratched the surface. As when I moved to Pittsburgh in 2015, I’ve had excellent luck identifying fellow roadies through Strava’s Flyby utility and then following some of the routes they frequent. That’s given me insights into popular local routes as well as further afield (such as over toward Manor, or out Spicewood Springs and the Volente loop).

And I’ve found several methods of getting from my base in the Northwest Hills across town or into downtown, including Balcones Drive to Scenic Drive or Pecos Street or Exposition; or Winstead to Atlanta; Jefferson or Bull Creek or Shoal Creek; 51st Street for heading east; and Mesa and Jollyville heading north.

As for hills, we’ve got hills. I’m on the border between the flatter terrain to the east and the hilly terrain of the Hill Country’s Balcones Escarpment to the west. In fact, I have to climb a short but vicious hill just to escape my little cul-de-sac. But I’ve explored some local hills that would be right at home in Pittsburgh, including the infamous Ladera Norte, which is now part of my regular workout. If you wanna climb, there’s no shortage of it; but (unlike Pittsburgh) there’s plenty of nice flat riding, as well.

Road Conditions & Drivers

My memories of Austin from before I moved were of narrow roads with no shoulder and high-speed traffic, and that’s proved out. But those are the urban roads and suburban highways that are popular for cars; there are other roads that are calmer and quieter, and in town there are a number of side-roads that are adequate for cyclists getting around town.

And there’s a fair amount of bike infrastructure, including my first experience with parking-protected bike lanes, which are about as appealing to me as licking an electrical outlet. God save us all from well-intentioned bike advocates!

Road surfaces vary a lot, but they’re generally rougher (and thus slower) than I’m used to up north. The rural roads bake in the sun and can develop dangerous cracks. I managed a quadruple snakebite puncture by hitting one of those on a descent! And down here they use the term “sealcoat” for their variant on the universally hated oil-and-chips road surface treatment, which Texas uses more than any other state.

Drivers… For the most part Austin drivers have been surprisingly conscientious, although there are hundreds of online tales of absolutely insane driving. Of course, there’s self-important drivers going too fast for the conditions everywhere, and streets that pit all road users against one another, but in 200 hours of outdoor riding over four months, I’ve only experienced one legit instance of harassment on the bike.

Connecting Online

Another surprise: I have yet to find any useful Austin cycling forums online. There’s the Reddit group /r/BikingATX, but it’s not especially active or useful. If there’s a forum that’s commonly used – say, hosted by one of the bike clubs or something – I haven’t found it. Honestly, Strava has been the most useful online resource for finding other riders, clubs, and routes.

The best events calendar I’ve found has been the state-wide WheelBrothers Texas Bike Rides page.

Weather

From February through May, the weather was absolutely stellar. Of course, we had temperatures below freezing for short periods (including a devastating ice storm), but most of our days were between 10 to 25° C. That was delightful.

Then the heat came. We’ve had four straight weeks with high temps around or above 37°C, which limits outdoor riding to either mornings or short daytime rides. Save for a couple major events, summer is the off-season for riding.

Which brings up the question of when and where to use the indoor trainer. Over the winter, I could get away with riding it in the unheated and un-insulted garage, so long as it wasn’t too cold outdoors; but I wonder whether it makes more sense to bring it inside. Over the summer, it’s too hot to ride in the garage, but I’m not convinced it’d be much better if I set it up inside. Still needs some figuring out, so we’ll see!

Conclusion

The bottom line is that I’m getting settled and finding my way around both the cycling community and the city, but with a lot more still to learn. I can’t quite say that Austin is a cycling utopia, but I think it’s quite workable.

Specific things that I still need to look at are:

• Check out the group rides I’ve missed, including: Violet Crown, Taking Care of Business, Breakfast Club, Major Taylor, and Rapha
• Find more organized 100 to 200 KM and imperial century rides
• Find the subset of roadies around town that aren’t hardcore racers
• Build up an inventory of routes and rest stops for longer solo rides outside of town

But for only having been on the roads for a few months, I’m pretty happy with Austin’s cycling scene. And delighted by the weather, even at its hottest!

A lot has happened over the past two months while I was gathering real-world experience for my blogpo about the Austin cycling scene… A lot that is worth sharing, but which isn’t strictly Austin-specific. So I figured I’d share a bit of that while I continue exploring the town and gathering data.

But if you need a short summary of what Austin has been like so far, here’s the lowdown. The weather is stellar. The roads are, as you’d expect, hit-or-miss. There’s a good variety of flat and short, steep hills, and I’ve done a fair bit of exploring. The drivers have been surprisingly tolerant. Fauna has included actual roadrunners and actual vultures. The bike shops each have significant issues they’re trying to work through. There’s tons of clubs and club rides, but they’re heavily biased toward early mornings, rather than daytime or evenings. There’s not much of an online community, and I’ve found shockingly few centuries and major organized events. But I’ve met several riders, who have all been reasonably welcoming. Overall grade: B-minus.

In terms of other developments, the biggest thing of note is that since I bought my new bike on February 23rd, I’ve ridden nearly every single day, either outdoor or on the indoor trainer. For 63 days from December through February, I did virtually zero riding while moving to Austin and then replacing my old bike; but I compensated for that by riding 68 days in a row! After a catastrophic start, my fitness is back to a normal level for late spring.

The new bike has performed almost flawlessly, save for a quadruple-snakebite flat that prompted an unplanned and expensive Lyft ride home. And a slightly-bent rear derailleur hanger when the Texas wind tipped the bike over while I’d left it leaning against a tree. I’m really pleased with the new bike, and I’m looking forward to putting it through its first century. In the meantime, I do have to replace my old heart rate monitor.

Between the indoor trainer and riding outdoors, I’ve put 2,550 KM on the new bike. 1,176 of those came in March, which was more than I’d ridden in any single month (winter or summer) in the past two years! Between winter weather and Zwift’s annual Tour of Watopia, I spent more time on the indoor trainer than I would otherwise have chosen to do, but I’m totally focused on outdoor riding now.

Speaking of Zwift, I’ve had fun with a new Zwift feature: 16-second video captures of my avatar riding around their virtual world. That matched up nicely with the short video feature that Strava introduced last summer, so now both my indoor and outdoor ride summaries can include video highlights… Very cool! And I’ve been making my way through Zwift’s new XP levels, from Level 53 to 56.

That’s all the factual shit; but the overall gestalt is pretty happy. I’ve got a nice new bike, an interesting new town and environment to explore, and incomparable weather. Although age has significantly reduced my top-end power and speed, my fitness and endurance are back up to normal levels following that long two-month hiatus off the bike. I’m pretty happy right now, and it’s only early May, so there’s a long, hot summer still ahead of me to (hopefully) enjoy.

And you can look forward to my Austin cycling scene blogpo in the next month or so.

2022 began poorly. For the second year in a row, my winter training was interrupted by worrying chest pains, and also a lengthy scouting trip to Austin in April.

However, the majority of 2022 was pretty satisfying. Another year brought another incremental step toward normality following the Covid-19 pandemic. I got to enjoy many of the major events that Covid had interrupted, although I missed some opportunities due to weather and other considerations. As summer turned to fall, I was pretty pleased with how my season had gone.

Ornoth and the Allegheny River, with the downtown Pittsburgh skyline in the background.

The FTP test that set off my January chest pain and interrupted my training.

The first Team Decaf group ride of 2022 at the Point State Park fountain.

Four friends' ride out to Sewickley, with Suraj, Ornoth, Ben, and Oscar.

Ornoth modeling the 2022 PMC Jersey with downtown Pittsburgh as a backdrop.

But the year also ended abruptly. I spent some time off the bike in November, recovering from saddle sores and a tooth extraction, and that was followed by another two-week trip to Austin over Thanksgiving to secure housing. My early winter training was crowded out by the hectic insanity of packing up house in preparation for our move, which is currently in-process. Really… We said goodbye to all our belongings – including my bikes and indoor trainer – on Wednesday, and won’t see them again for a couple weeks!

2022 was a pleasant return to my “normal” summertime routine. However, it might be the last year I’ll enjoy the standard six-month summer cycling season I’ve always been accustomed to. I expect the seasonality of my riding might look somewhat different once I set my wheels down in Austin!

My Original 2022 Goals

As always, let’s begin with how well I achieved the goals I set out for myself when 2022 began…

Go 100% metric

My big New Years resolution was to go fully metric, and that was surprisingly easy. It was like learning a new language, but one with only a couple dozen words and prefixes, so it quickly became familiar to me, to the annoyance of my life partner.

Another 10,000 KM year

My January chest pains and our April travel immediately put me behind the pace I needed to ride 10,000 kilometers in 2022. And my late-year health issues, November travel, and packing meant this goal just couldn’t be met. But I still racked up a thoroughly enjoyable 8,000 KM.

While I’m on that topic, I should mention that 61% of that distance was outdoors, making 2002 the first year since 2019 that I’ve ridden more outside than I did indoors on Zwift!

More major events

This year I enjoyed several events that had been suspended or shortened in recent years due to Covid. In addition to 18 weekly Team Decaf group rides, I returned to the Absolutely Beautiful Country ride, the PMTCC 3-State Century, Pedal the Lakes, and Pittsburgh’s Every Neighborhood Ride. But travel, weather, and cancellations meant I still missed several annual favorites.

Video ride reports

I expected to put together a handful of ride videos this year, following last year’s purchase of a new GoPro action camera. Unfortunately, videos are a lot of work to assemble and put together, so I wound up doing just one 7-minute video for my “reimagined” 2022 Pan-Mass Challenge ride. Still, the GoPro was handy to carry around to capture still photos.

Although not full ride reports, I did capture and post a few brief video clips. Strava began allowing users to attach short videos to their activities, so I took advantage of that cool new feature several times.

Another remote PMC?

Although I attended 21 consecutive PMC group rides on Zwift over the winter, I delayed registering for my 17th Pan-Mass Challenge – my third riding remotely – due to my chest pains. At the last minute, the event I’d planned this year’s ride around changed its date, and then wet weather caused me to do a 130 KM indoor ride on Saturday, followed by a 170 KM outdoor century up to Butler and back. It wasn’t the ride I’d planned for, but it was still fun, and I raised another $4,500 for cancer research and treatment.

Zwift team time trial?

Although a TTT has been on my radar for several years, I’ve always been stymied by the chest pains that come when I push myself to my maximum. Needless to say, it was absolutely not happening this year. I might just have to let this one go.

Bike repairs?

My worn chainrings have become a huge issue, causing frequent chain drops when trying to sprint, but my options for fixing them remain very limited. All the bike shops I’ve gone to have told me the only thing I can do is scour Ebay for used, second-hand parts, which I’m reluctant to do.

I could, of course, replace my entire bike. I’d rather not do that because I really love my R2-Di2, and would rather keep riding it. But after our impending move, this might be something I can look into in the next year or so, once I know exactly what kind of riding I’ll be doing in our new location.

Charts

Every year I post and discuss my training and fitness as measured by my Chronic Training Load (CTL). That’s nice, but I update these charts after every ride, and I thought it might be cool to share that up-to-date data. So this year I added constantly-updated charts to a pinned/sticky post that will always appear at the top of my cycling blog. So now you can see how my year is going anytime you want, here.

But let’s talk about how my 2022 performance compares to previous years. Here’s the chart:

While it looks like a pretty good year, I never reached the same level of fitness I had in the previous three years. That’s because I started ramping up my training a lot later in the year, thanks to taking time off for chest pains and our trip to Texas. That was followed by a great summer, but I tailed off pretty quickly toward the end of the year due to health and relocation.

Now let’s zoom in on this year in more detail:

Here you can really see how much my fitness declined in January, and then again during that April trip to Austin. But after training back up in May and June, I enjoyed a productive summer, with six century-plus rides (the red dots). And note how my fitness plummeted due to health issues in October, travel in November, and packing and moving in December.

Still, six centuries is two more than I did last year. Let’s talk about those…

The Centuries

Rolling through flat, exposed Ohio farmland on the Akron Bike Club's ABC Century ride.

What passes for a Pittsburgh sunrise over Lake Wilhelm before setting out on the 2022 PtL ride.

Ornoth & Phil at Tomlinson Run SP in West Virginia during the 3-State Century.

Ornoth & Phil receive their finishers' medals following the 3-State Century.

My new Garmin Rally XC200 power meter pedals!

In addition to being two more than last year’s total, none of this year’s six centuries were simulated on the indoor trainer. I hadn’t done six or more outdoor centuries in one year since the good old days before Covid (2019)! And now I haven’t done an indoor “Zentury” in nearly two years (March 2021)!

Not that it was all great. The only reason why I didn’t do an early-season “Zentury” was because of my chest pain. Then I wanted to do the Pittsburgh Randonneurs 200k, but was away in Austin that weekend. I wasn’t trained up enough to do June’s two-day Escape to the Lake. I was rained out of doing my first Sunday in June. The Tour of Mercer County cancelled its century route due to insufficient registrants. The cursed Mon Valley Century cancelled yet again. And the Rough Diamond century on PMC weekend both changed its date on me, and then got rained out!

But neither you nor future-me want to read about rides I didn’t do, so let’s celebrate the long rides that did come off.

5/31: Bunola solo
This familiar route was an important test of both my cardiac health as well as my delayed training. I enjoyed the summery weather, but I really suffered from lack of form.

7/10: Absolutely Beautiful Country
Six weeks later, I drove to Ohio for one of my favorites – the ABC ride – which I last rode back in 2019. The weather was stellar, and my performance felt pretty normal. My only disappointment was that my power meter decided to conk out for the last 30 KM.

7/31: PMTCC 3 State Century
My friend Phil always seems to be my constant companion for this ride, and so it was in 2022. The day was temperate and a bit grey, providing (for once) unchallenging weather. It was a pleasant ride up until about 10 KM from the finish, when it started to drizzle. And then I pinch-flatted on a poorly-set railroad crossing on our finishing loop. But we made repairs and finished the ride.

8/7: Butler solo Reimagined Pan-Mass Challenge
I’d planned my “Reimagined” PMC as the Rough Diamond century on Saturday, but when they moved the date, I was left with no specific plan. When it rained on Saturday, I decided to do a shorter ride indoors, then made up the lost distance with a full outdoor century on a slightly-drier Sunday, using the familiar route up to Butler and back. It wasn’t the ride I’d hoped for, but it was successful enough.

9/3: Pedal the Lakes
Another ride I hadn’t done since 2019, the PtL route had been largely redesigned, broken into 50 and 110 KM loops. It wound up being an overcast, solitary ride, but pleasant, and I finished in exactly seven hours.

10/8: Every Neighborhood Ride
My final century was the always-challenging ENR, which I last rode back in 2018. I rode with the slower group and enjoyed a much less taxing ride. Between the pace, rest stops, and extending it to a full century, it was a 12-hour marathon. It seems appropriate that ENR was my last century before leaving Pittsburgh.

Noteworthy Purchases

This year’s most noteworthy addition has to be my Garmin Rally power meter pedals. I’ve wanted an SPD pedal-based power meter for many years, and I’m delighted with these.

A smaller but memorable change was when I got new brake pads, after suffering three straight flat tires when my worn, misaligned old pads wore through the sidewall of my tire! Gotta remember to keep an eye on that!

I also picked up the Fanttik Apex battery-powered tire inflator, mostly for our car’s steady leaks, but it also came with a Presta valve. However, its compressor is way too loud for indoor use, so I’ll probably only use it to top off before rides I’ve driven to, rather than packing my floor pump.

And I finally picked up something I’ve thought about for a long time: white brake hood covers! I’ll put these on next spring with some new white bar tape. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look quite as good as when I still had my bike’s stock white saddle, but maybe that can be switched up, too, depending on how long the R2-Di2 continues to be my primary vehicle.

Does a cardboard bike box and movers count as purchases? Perhaps not, but this is the first time I’ve ever had to box and ship a bike. Stay tuned to see whether that winds up being a success or a tragedy!

Additional Highlights

I’ve written enough about my chest pains interrupting my early-season training.

Aside from that, this year’s overarching theme has been enjoying my last season in Pittsburgh. But return visits are expected, due to intolerable Texas summers and Inna’s mother still living in Pittsburgh.

This year I was very consistent: I rode almost every single Tuesday, either the Team Decaf outdoor group rides or indoor PMC rides. I only missed a couple weeks, usually because I was in Austin at the time.

I was also pleased when a small riding crew spontaneously formed with locals Ben, Gary, Suraj, and Oscar. But it was also a year marred by friends having big crashes: Ben on a trip to Toronto, Suraj coming off multiple times, and a woman being seriously hurt on one of the Decaf rides.

Another big development was finally moving my blogs off Russian-owned Livejournal. As you know, my cycling blog now lives at https://ornoth-cycling.dreamwidth.org/ and also has a sticky post with my up-to-the-minute fitness charts.

In other social networking news, I started posting short videos of up to 30 seconds on Strava, and started using the ActivityFix plugin to automate some previously manual tasks when I post. And I started moving my fitness data over to the Elevate app rather than the browser plugin, which is being de-emphasized.

I did manage to assemble a video ride report for this year’s PMC ride. Although I haven’t used it yet, I also learned how to synchronize and overlay data from my bike computer on top of video, which could be fun and useful in some circumstances.

And there have been developments on the indoor training front, too. Zwift recently added roads in a new region called Urukazi, which is modeled after Japan’s Ryukyu Islands, and they’ve said that a small Scotland expansion will arrive in the next month or two. Another major update was their release of Levels 51 to 60, and I advanced to Level 53 on my last ride of the year. That also came with some new “fire socks” that leave a cool trail of fire during hard sprints. And I also unlocked the rider jersey from the “Long Riders” cycling anime series.

And then there was a final goodbye to the Plastic Bullet, my first road bike, which saw me through 30 centuries and seven PMCs.

Blogposts

• 5/16: Sticky: Up-To-Date Fitness Charts (new sticky post with current CTL charts)
• 4/8: Pedal to the Medal (power meter pedal purchase)
• 4/18: Heart of Glass (chest pain & winter summary)
• 5/30: The Fix Is In (ActivityFix plugin for Strava)
• 6/1: Bunola: Corn Goodness! (solo century ride report)
• 7/14: Ohio Gozaimasu (Absolutely Beautiful Country ride report)
• 8/2: Three States of Matter (3-State Century ride report)
• 8/17: 2022 Pan-Mass Challenge Reimagined (just a pointer to my full PMC ride report page)
• 9/12: Pedal More Lakes (Pedal the Lakes ride report)
• 10/11: Neighborhood of Make-Believe (Every Neighborhood Ride report)
• 12/7: Everybody Called It Good Clean Fun (saying goodbye to the Plastic Bullet, my first road bike)
• 12/31: 2022: Bye Bye Burghie! (my year in review: you’re reading it!)

Goals for 2023

Ornoth's 2022 cycling calendar/log.

My 2022 Strava "Year in Sport" summary, averaging 22 kilometers per day.

That pretty much covers 2022. What does 2023 hold? Thanks to the move, I have almost no idea! But here’s a couple aspirational guesses:

Moving and Orienting in Austin

This will be a chaotic year, for sure. I’ll be trying to orient in a new city and region, trying to find riding friends, group rides, and some noteworthy major events. I’ll be dealing with Texas heat, belligerent redneck drivers, and SUV-centric roadway design. And I expect my usual seasonality to get all screwed up. After all, Texas presents the possibility of riding more through the winter, but will perhaps force me to ride less in the summer, reversing my usual annual riding pattern!

I certainly won’t be committing to any 10,000 KM distance goal this year, and might even find my time taken up by gainful employment for the first time in years. And then there’s also the possibility that I might go and buy myself a new steed, or at least repair the old one. The move is going to be the biggest change my 22-year cycling career has ever seen.

And for the Yinzers in the audience… Just getting out of our new house’s cul-de-sac is a short 15-20% climb, and there’s a certifiable Dirty Dozen-difficulty hill called Ladera Norte (“North Slope” in Spanish) just 4km from home . So I can’t throw those Pittsburgh climbing legs away just yet!

18th Pan-Mass Challenge and $125,000

Even my remote participation in this year’s PMC is in question. Will Texas provide a suitable outdoor course and tolerable weather – and will I be ready to fundraise and ride it – in August heat? I have absolutely no idea! But I’m on the threshold of $125,000 in lifetime fundraising for cancer research, which is a tempting milestone.

And perhaps a summer trip back to Boston might be in order sometime… although the traditional route’s $6,000+ fundraising minimum would be nearly impossible to meet.

Zwift Level 60

How much use will my indoor trainer get over an Austin winter? Or summer? I have absolutely no idea! But I do know that I’ll continue doing the weekly PMC virtual training rides and progressing toward Zwift’s new peak: Level 60.

Health and Turning 60

While I’m here expressing my hopes for 2023, how about just getting through the year without a cardiac scare or other health issues such as dental surgery, saddle sores, calf pain, whatever… While aging comes with inevitable limitations and loss of performance, it’d be nice to enjoy a healthy last summer before I turn the big six-oh. And maybe I should start giving some thought to how I want to spend this milestone birthday…

Conclusion

R2-Di2 at Mon Wharf with river tug hauling coal barges beneath the Fort Pitt Bridge.

2022 saw the end of a seven year long chapter in Pittsburgh. I won’t try to summarize my time in Western PA; you need only read backwards through my blog to review those experiences. The cycling here has been superlative in both positive and less-positive ways, but in both cases it’s certainly been memorable, and I’m happy to have met some good people and gotten so much use of the topography of Western PA.

As the calendar transitions to a new year, I find myself making an immense, intimidating, and exciting change as Inna and I relocate to Austin. I hope you’ll stay tuned and continue to share this road with me!