Riding It Out

Jan. 18th, 2026 07:46 pm

In mid-October of 2000, I bought a bike: my Devinci Monaco. Although I’d done a little riding off and on before then, that’s the date I began logging how many miles I rode. And thus, I consider that the start of my career as an adult cyclist.

A little over 25 years later, today my cycling log ticked over 100,000 miles. Mathematically that averages out to 4,000 miles per year. Or roughly an hour-long, 11-mile ride, every single day for 9,226 consecutive days without break.

That may or may not sound like a lot to you. But as I said in my recent 2025 year-in-review, 100,000 miles is a common expected lifespan of a typical automobile. It’s the equivalent of riding around the Earth at the equator… four times. Or perhaps it’ll make sense if I tell you that it’s like traveling the whole Oregon Trail 46 times, without dying of dysentery!

Of course, it’s not that accurate a measurement. I did a bit of riding – on two previous bikes – before I started my mileage log, so those miles weren’t counted. And some of my riding – such as pre-ride warmups and pre-Zwift indoor trainer rides – never got logged. And all the miles I’ve done on Zwift are only estimates based on their rather optimistic algorithms. And 100,000 miles has no inherent meaning other than being a round number; if you converted that to 160,934 kilometers, then it doesn’t seem like a noteworthy milestone at all.

But despite the inaccuracy, I’m definitely in the ballpark, and 100,000 miles is my best estimate for my total distance as an adult cyclist.

Since that inaccuracy meant I couldn’t pinpoint a precise moment when it happened, I didn’t feel any pressure to commemorate it with some sort of memorable ride. Instead, I just watched my odometer until it ticked over on today’s lumpy but rather typical route into Austin’s Northwest Hills.

But this arbitrary number does capture how long I’ve been committed to cycling as a lifestyle. How many activities have you consistently stuck with for more than 25 years?

Yeah, cycling is a lifelong passion of mine, driven by several different, mostly-healthy obsessions. I will revisit the topic of motivation in full detail in an upcoming blogpo.

With my performance numbers undeniably in decline in recent years, and after my recent health scares, I can’t help but ask myself how much longer will I be able to ride.

The answer is, of course: no one knows. But every mile brings me one mile closer to the end. I try to keep that in mind, remembering that every ride is a treasure. And whatever adversity comes my way, I’ll do my best to “ride it out”…

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My Chariot of Fire

Dec. 20th, 2019 08:52 am

Cyclists come in many flavors: roadies, commuters, mountain bikers, racers. Then within the ranks of roadies, you have sprinters, climbers, all-rounders, endurance riders, and more.

It might sound odd then that after such a long time—exactly 1,000 weeks, in fact—I still struggle to find where I fit in that spectrum.

Cycling Roman legionnaires

It’s obvious I’m not a sprinter. My top-end power is perfectly described by the term “pedestrian”.

Does that mean I’m a climber: a grimpeur, as they say? Not if you judge by my build, or my performance in the Dirty Dozen! True climbers are much lighter than my (reasonably scrawny) 77kg, and usually much shorter, too. My best strategy for becoming a climber involves losing 6kg of weight and nine inches of height by cutting my head off at the neck.

But I do drop people on short, steep climbs. Perhaps that makes me a puncheur. Tho to be honest, rolling hills wear me out and leave me more exhausted than any other kind of terrain.

I might be a rouleur, an all-rounder: another word for someone who sucks equally at all elements of the sport. Not exactly a flattering image to have of oneself.

Fifteen years ago, I considered going down the very, very, VERY long road to becoming a randonneur: a long-distance rider. I enjoy spending a day in the saddle as much as anyone, but for a randonneur, 125 miles is the shortest ride they’ll do. Their normal rides run 250, 375, or 750 miles at a time, and sanity (at least my sanity) has its limits!

But enjoying (moderately) long rides is what defines me as a cyclist. The label “endurance cyclist” would fit perfectly, except that an “endurance ride” might be 400 miles for a randonneur, or maybe just 30 miles for a casual rider. That’s so vague that the title “endurance cyclist” is essentially meaningless.

I define an endurance ride—and the type of ride I enjoy—as 100 to 125 miles (200km). The ride that matters to me most is the 100-mile imperial century. That’s what I do, what I enjoy, and how I judge my success. So if I were to give myself a label, it would have to reflect that.

That’s where things have stood for the past twenty years: no real resolution, and no real identity. But last week I was thinking… If the sport didn’t provide me with a category, maybe I should come up with one myself. What word would convey the idea of a person with an affinity for centuries?

Once I thought about it, the answer was pretty obvious: a centurion!

By leveraging the common term for a 100-mile ride, it’s instantly recognizable among cyclists, denoting a long-distance cyclist while removing the ambiguity associated with “endurance riding".

It also has the positive connotations of a warrior—strength, experience, self-discipline, and leadership—which translate equally well to cycling.

So if you ask me what kind of rider I am, I can finally answer you: I’m a centurion!

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Brake Dancing

May. 17th, 2017 01:26 pm

Here’s another rule of thumb I’ve developed for endurance cyclists: if you have to use your brake, you’re doing it wrong. That might sound a little silly, but it’s good science.

The only way that a bike moves is through the rider producing the force to propel it. You invest a lot of muscle energy to get the bike up to speed, and then its momentum allows you to keep it rolling along while expending just a little bit more muscle energy. When you stop pedaling and coast, the bike gradually loses momentum and will eventually come to a stop. On an ideal ride, you would only have to produce enough energy for the bike to just make it to your destination.

Since we don’t live in an ideal world, there are times when we need to use our brakes and come to a stop. For the endurance cyclist, stopping and starting is a really expensive operation.

First, the stop. For most stops, a rider uses the bike’s brake, which dissipates the energy built up in the bike’s momentum. That’s momentum that originally came from the rider’s muscle power. When the rider has used more muscle power than needed, he must use the brake to get rid of that excess momentum. Theoretically, he would have been better off expending less energy and coasting to a stop, rather than using too much of his limited muscle power and throwing the excess inertia away.

If you’re just out for a ride around the neighborhood, that’s no big deal, because you’ll never exhaust your stored muscle energy. However, if you’re an endurance rider doing a seven- or eight-hour 130-mile race, running out of energy (bonking) is a real possibility, so conserving every calorie of muscle power is critical.

Then comes starting back up again. As I indicated above, getting a bike up to speed is an investment of energy. It’s costly at first because you’re propelling both yourself and the weight of the bike; however, the investment pays off later in being able to use the bike’s momentum to keep it moving with much less effort. But every time you stop, you use an awful lot of your stored muscle energy getting back up to speed, especially when trying to do so quickly.

There are clear lessons here for cyclists. First, avoid stopping overall, because repeated stops and starts can consume a lot of energy. Second, manage your effort and try to ride in a way that doesn’t require much braking. You might even consider use of the brakes as a warning signal, a reminder that you probably expended more effort than absolutely necessary. I.e. if you have to use your brake, you’re doing it wrong.

Now, obviously the real world is a little more complicated than that. Downhills also put energy/momentum into the system that might need to be dissipated, and road design and traffic control placement usually don’t allow bicycles to gradually coast to a stop. Riders obviously need to apply a modicum of wisdom to these concepts.

But I’ve found it useful, especially on long-distance rides, to be very conscious of how much muscle power I use, which includes riding such that I can avoid using the brake as much as possible.

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A Journey of 50,000 Miles

Jun. 27th, 2016 08:19 am

I just biked my fifty-thousandth mile.

How to put 50,000 miles into a meaningful context? Well, let’s take a little road trip. Start out by driving from New York City across America to Seattle, Washington. That’s a start. Then drive down to Eugene, Oregon. That’s about how far I ride each year.

Then continue to drive down the entire west coast from Eugene to San Diego, California. From there, drive all the way back across the southern tier of states until you get to Atlanta, Georgia. Then drive up the east coast back to New York to complete one big lap around the United States.

50,000th Mile

Of course, that’s not quite far enough. That whole loop around the United States? Go back and do it a second time. And a third, and a fourth. Keep driving back and forth around the continent until you reach New York to finish your seventh round trip. Then you’ll still need to drive up to Springfield, Massachusetts to finally reach 50,000 miles.

Doesn’t sound like the easiest road trip in the world, does it?

Now picture doing that distance on a bicycle. While my route was a little different, that’s exactly what I’ve done.

Mind you, it took me fifteen and three-quarter years to accomplish that. That averages out to 3,175 miles per year, or 61 miles per week, every week, for nearly 16 years.

I finished my first 25,000 miles back in 2009; that had taken me 8.5 years, but the second 25k only took 7.25 more, as I averaged 500 more miles per year.

This week I also broke 100,000 feet of climbing for 2016. Translating that into real-world numbers, that’s 19 miles of vertical, or three and a half climbs up Mt. Everest. That’s not unheard-of, as I surpassed that much climbing in both 2010 and 2014. But in those years, I hit that threshold at the end of September. Compared to that, I’ve already completed an entire year’s worth of climbing before the end of June. A record pace? No question.

Do I have anything pithy to say about these accomplishments? Not really. Since back in 2000, cycling has just been what I do. At this point it’s just a lifestyle, with all its ups and downs.

Solo rides. Group rides. Charity rides. Night rides. Memorial rides. Ocean views. Mountain climbs. Nervous descents. Magical tailwinds. The beating summer sun. Urban flow. Winter commutes. Trying new roads. Early season long-distance brevets. The bike-washing ritual. Roadside repairs. Learning what that part does, and how to fix it. The pride of showing off a new bike.

Post-ride war stories. Sugar, sugar, and more goddamned sugar. Then feasting like a Roman emperor. Learning the lingo and the reasons why cyclists do things the way they do. Stinging road rash. Broken collarbones. Admiring clean-shaven calf muscles. Admiring preposterous tan lines. Learning exactly how much the mind and body are (and are not) capable of, and seeing them grow in strength and skill and confidence over time. Connecting with others who share the passion. Sharing what one has learned with others who travel the same road.

The cyclist inhabits a strange world, full of its own hidden rewards and meanings. It must seem like a very strange life to the driver and the pedestrian, who can only conceive of pedaling 50,000 miles as the most abject torture. But for the cyclist, it is a life full of passion and pain and achievement and the most sublime pleasures. And it has been a tremendous source of happiness and well-being for me.

Life is a journey, and as a wise man once wrote: the road goes ever on and on.

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