Orny's Cycling Journal

Ornoth modeling the 2025 Team Kermit jersey.

Just as 2024 was all about my late-season stroke and return to fitness, 2025 was defined by my heart surgery in March, and my post-op recovery.

Happily, the procedure went well, and after a two-month break, I was able to resume training, taking three months to build up to a successful remote Pan-Mass Challenge ride in August, followed in November by the 100-mile Livestrong Challenge.

In the end, 2025 was a very successful year, and there were lots of milestones and noteworthy highlights along the way. Here’s my year-in-review post to distill it all down to a coherent narrative.

My Original 2025 Goals

Last December 31st, my 2025 New Year’s Eve began with a visit to my cardiologist to schedule my PFO closure heart surgery, which I learned would take place on March 7th. After that appointment, I drove home, finalized my list of cycling goals for the coming year, and posted them in my 2024 annual summary blogpost.

At that time – just months after my stroke and facing impending heart surgery – it was hard to commit to any concrete goals, but here’s what I thought made sense at this time last year, and how it played out.

Stroke & Cardiac Recovery

The Amplatzer Talisman Patent Foramen Ovale Occluder they implanted inside my heart!

Ornoth meets the sunrise, already four hours into his Day 1 PMC ride.

Taking a quick break as a freight train passes Austin's 1947 Amtrak station.

Obviously, my primary goal was to get back to full health and fitness following my heart surgery.

I was off the bike for 10 days surrounding the March procedure, and wasn’t allowed to do any meaningful training for another month. Although I hoped to recover as quickly as I could, it would be a long, gradual process, exacerbated by my bike being in the shop for an unexpected two weeks.

However, from today’s vantage point, it went miraculously well. Just 2½ months after resuming training, I was able to complete the Fire Ant Tour: a metric century. That gave me the confidence to register for my big remote PMC ride, which I completed in August. And in November I rode the 100-mile Livestrong Challenge, which I’d missed in 2024 due to my stroke.

It took me four or five months to get back to my normal level of fitness and endurance, but I’m as confident and capable as cyclist today as I was before my stroke, and that’s an immensely satisfying feeling.

My 19th Pan-Mass Challenge

Although I listed riding another PMC as one of my goals for 2025, it was with a humongous questionmark. Would it even be physically possible?

After surgery in March, I would have barely enough time to recover, train up to adequate physical fitness, and do the necessary fundraising work. Thankfully, I suffered no physical setbacks, and on PMC weekend I completed my usual two-day, 300 kilometer remote PMC ride. It was incredibly heartening to show that I’d overcome my health issues, and a poignant reminder of what a blessing it is to be able to spend a long day in the saddle.

Given the Trump administration’s 44% cuts to the NIH budget, this year’s PMC fundraising was more important than ever, and I brought in a post-hiatus and post-pandemic record of $9,450 for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. I chose to earmark 25% of my fundraising for the pediatric neurological cancer lab favored by Team Kermit, and the rest was unrestricted, so that DFCI can use it wherever it is most needed.

That’s all I’ll say about this year’s PMC. For my full writeup – plus my 5-minute highlight video – be sure to check out my 2025 Pan-Mass Challenge Ride Report.

And look below for my Goals for 2026 and some exciting news about next year’s PMC!

More, Better Videos!

In terms of video, I could have done better. I made limited use of the new selfie drone and its expanded capabilities, but I did capture a number of short video clips here and there.

On the plus side, I pushed out another 30-second PMC ride jersey reveal, produced another PMC ride video, and gathered many of my little clips into a second yearly highlights reel, which appears just below.

I hope to do even better next year, especially since I recently picked up a wireless DJI mic that’ll hopefully allow me to capture decent in-ride audio.

Some Anticipated Purchases

When I wrote last year’s goals, I was grasping for anything I could, so I included a “goal” of pulling the trigger on several planned upgrades. That was kinda lame, since I always devote an entire section of my annual review to stuff I’ve bought, anyways.

But briefly: I made those expected purchases, as well as several others. As expected, 2025 was an interesting year in terms of equipment; however, I’ll enumerate all that in detail in the “Noteworthy Purchases” section below.

But taken as a whole, while 2025 won’t top my list of greatest cycling achievements, I’m absolutely delighted by the success I’ve had in achieving these goals and exceeding the expectations I had, coming into 2025.

Highlight Video

Here we go: a quick 2½ minute look back at some of this year’s highlights (or at least the ones I got on camera).

For my Pan-Mass Challenge buddies, you might see how many different PMC jerseys you can count!

Charts

Let’s start this section with a new chart to understand how my cycling has changed in recent years. Here’s how many kilometers I’ve logged each year since getting back on the bike as an adult cyclist 25 years ago.

There are two things I want to call out. The first is that I’ve ridden considerably more each year after 2018. As you can see, that extra ~4,000 km per year is almost entirely attributable to Zwift and the indoor trainer I purchased at the end of that year. And that trend has surprisingly continued even after our 2023 move to Texas.

The second thing has to do with 2025 in particular. This year I logged 9,500 kilometers in the saddle, split pretty evenly between the indoor trainer (47%) and the open road (53%). It might not look like much on the chart, but despite losing a big chunk of time due to my surgery, I still rode more this year than any year since 2021!

Now let’s look at my cycling Fitness numbers, which only go back to 2011. Still, that’s a full 15 years of Fitness data, as you can see in the following chart.

Looking at this, I’d concentrate on the right half of the chart. 2017 was a normal year, but it ended with my only Dirty Dozen ride, which left me shattered, leading to a very mediocre 2018.

But at the end of 2018, I bought an indoor trainer, which allowed me to begin each spring at a higher level of Fitness, leading to higher summertime peaks. In terms of Fitness, the four years from 2019 through 2022 were my lifetime peak.

My most recent inflection point was at the end of 2022 when we moved to Austin. Two years ago I wrote a blogpost entitled “The Shape of Things to Come”, considering how my riding might change following the move. I expected my Fitness to be much more steady throughout the year, with fewer lows during the winter months and fewer peaks in the summer. And, as you can see above, that’s exactly how the past three years played out.

Now, let’s look more closely at 2025:

Having regained my Fitness following my stroke, and with heart surgery coming in March, I spent January and February doing as much cycling as I could and maintaining a fairly high Fitness level.

March and April show two consecutive dips in my Fitness, as I recovered from heart surgery and then sat around doing nothing while my bike was serviced. My Fitness plummeted to its lowest point since I bought my new bike three years ago.

In May, June, and July, I was committed and focused on steadily rebuilding my Fitness in time for August’s two-day Pan-Mass Challenge. I was overjoyed to complete it, which also marked my maximum Fitness of the year.

For the rest of 2025, I tried to keep my Fitness at a reasonably high level, including a secondary peak leading up to November’s Livestrong Challenge century. Then things fluctuated a bit in December, while I recovered from a pulled hamstring and broken toe.

The Centuries

Crossing the finish line after 100 miles of the Livestrong Challenge.

Last year, I wrote that – due to my age and health issues – I might have ridden my last 100-mile ride. I’m happy to tell you it wasn’t true. This year I trained back up and knocked out two imperial centuries. You already know what they were, but here are my ride reports:

• 8/3: Remote PMC Day 1 Century This year’s Pan-Mass Challenge was my 111th imperial century and a signal accomplishment in my recovery from stroke and heart surgery.
• 11/2: Livestrong Challenge A full year after my stroke, I enjoyed a triumphant return to the Livestrong Challenge, capping an insanely busy week that included a big concert the night before my 112th 100-mile ride.

My Year in Zwift

For the first time since the COVID lockdown, I rode nearly as many kilometers on my indoor trainer using Zwift as I did outdoors. And because Zwift usually gives me several things to talk about, I’m going to put all the Zwift-related business into this new section. And since there’s so much of that this year, I’m just gonna do bullet points.

Modeling the Level 100 jersey in front of Zwift's Austin-inspired 360 Bridge.

Ornoth (in his Didi the Devil cap) leading the PMC group ride on Zwift.

• I started the year at XP Level 81 and successfully made my way to Level 100, which is the highest you can go… for now! This was a huge achievement that was 7 years and 34,000 kilometers in the making (see blogpo).
• When I reached Level 85, Zwift sent me a free pair of Zwift Play controllers, which replaced my old ones that had been malfunctioning. But Zwift also decided to stop making them.
• Zwift started granting experience points for regular outdoor rides, with four outdoor kilometers earning the same XP as one km in Zwift. Yaay!
• Zwift held big events to introduce major expansions and new routes in France and New York City, plus a handful of miscellaneous other routes.
• By completing the “Tour Fever” Climb Portal challenge, I earned a full Didi the Devil cycling kit. While I usually wear the in-game PMC kit, my avatar still wears the skullcap with devil horns from the Didi kit.
• Zwift introduced a handful of new in-game bikes, but also implemented ways for users to earn five levels of upgrades for their bikes, and the ability to unlock (frankly stupid looking) “halo” bikes.
• They also introduced a major new long-term challenge: the Factory Tour, which eventually unlocks “lightning socks”.
• Zwift also finally added TSS points, Fitness, and Form charts and trendlines: the same data I’ve tracked and charted for the past 14 years.
• They also replaced the beloved double-XP Tour of Watopia with a new Zwift Unlocked Tour. It still grants 2x XP, but they moved the time frame from late winter (when you’re building fitness for spring) to mid-autumn (when you should be relaxing), which is disappointing.
• The PMC’s Zwift group rides decreased from weekly to monthly, and moved to 7am on Saturdays. Not a huge fan, but we’ll make it work somehow.

All this (plus the XP bonus for keeping a weekly ride streak alive) actually kept me Zwifting throughout the summer, when I would normally put the indoor trainer away. There’s no denying that Zwift has been a major contributor to both my recovery from medical issues and my overall fitness each year since 2019.

Noteworthy Purchases

It was a good year for shopping, and there’s a lot to cover. To conserve spacetime, let’s divide this year’s purchases into two groups and just list them out.

First the new kit:

• Two pair of Craft bibshorts, which were discounted by 20% after I talked with customer support
• A new pair of Shimano SD501 cycling sandals to replace my old ones
• The 2025 Team Kermit cycling jersey
• Of course, the 2025 Pan-Mass Challenge jersey
• A blue & gold Reggie Miller “BoomBaby” cycling jersey
• Doublewide wrist sweatbands for Zwifting and occasional outdoor use; although I never used to sweat, having it running down my arms has been a problem since moving south!

A lot of my cycling equipment purchases were covered in my October blogpost “Rolling Resistance”, so here’s just a quick enumeration:

• My inexplicably slow and expensive tune-up included new brake pads, chains, bar tape, and cassettes (I erroneously ordered the 30-tooth version rather than the 34), and a long-awaited firmware update for my Di2 shifters.
• New Pirelli P-Zero clincher tires were great, if prone to cuts, but TPU plastic inner tubes proved completely unusable.
• Fanttik battery-powered pocket air compressor/inflator has been a lifesaver.
• I enthusiastically recommend the Rehook Tyre Glider to easily mount & dismount even stubborn tires; I will never ride without one!
• Replaced my outer chainring, after I bent the old one when I dropped the bike.
• Installed a pair of cheap but very useful plastic enlargers for the hidden buttons on my Di2 shifters.
• A new CamelBak Podium Ice water bottle (plus a new dishwasher to clean them!)
• DJI Mic Mini Bluetooth microphone to capture quality audio to go with the video I capture while riding (to debut next year).

Finally… This might be a bit odd, but it’s worth mentioning three products that I was eagerly awaiting, but did not purchase. Coincidentally, all three were announced on the same day: September 9th! Those were:

Wahoo Kickr CORE 2 indoor trainer

My original Kickr CORE – from 2018! – is still working fine after 34,000 simulated kilometers, and the new, revised version doesn’t have any compelling improvements, other than being $250 cheaper. It can wait.

Garmin Rally 210 SPD power meter pedals

Similarly, the second generation of my power meter pedals aren’t significantly better than my old ones, and come with a 10% price increase. Plus they’re a whopping 60% more expensive than Assioma’s equivalent power meter pedals! No thanks.

Garmin Edge 850 GPS bike computer

I’m a huge fan of advanced bike computers, but Garmin’s newest generation is a big step backward compared my two year old Edge 840. Garmin cut the battery life in half; they removed the solar charging feature; its weather maps are awkward and crash the unit; and they raised the price 30-40%! Those are the kind of “improvements” I can live without.

Additional Highlights

Riding past Salado Creek on the Volksride 100k.

Friday Truancy group ride on Austin's Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge.

The Bicycle House ride regrouping at Walnut Creek Park.

Ornoth's 2025 cycling calendar/log.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, what else stood out about 2025? Here’s a small handful of significant bits.

Outside of my centuries, I did a few noteworthy event rides. My first long ride after surgery was June’s Fire Ant metric century (my third year). And my late-season included doing the Barrow Volksride metric for the first time. And I made it out to the Circuit of the Americas F1 track once in May, just before they closed it up for the year (they didn’t open for their usual fall dates).

Between surgery, Zwift, and event rides, I didn’t do as many Friday Truancy group rides (about 20), and when I did I was mostly alone off the back, as I’m really not able to hold the pack’s pace anymore. But I tried a half dozen Saturday morning shop rides out of Bicycle House, and those went really well (except for having to get up at 6am on a weekend).

I also reported out on my experience consulting with a nutritionist, which was marginally useful.

In one of the more noteworthy developments, I finally canceled my paid membership on Strava, which is why you won’t see my “Strava Year in Sport” summary image for this year. Although they’re the default social network for cyclists, in recent years Strava has taken numerous corporate actions that are overtly hostile to their users. I complained about them in last year’s annual summary, and somehow it got even worse in 2025! Those actions have included: banning all users from posting any links in activities, comments, or posts; claiming ownership of users’ data; surprise price increases; lack of new feature development and bug fixes, especially on the website; drastically restricting their API and thereby breaking numerous popular third-party tools and services with no warning; and filing a frivolous lawsuit against Garmin – their closest business partner and number one data provider – for requiring the exact same data attributions that Strava themselves force on their third party developers. Strava’s corporate “leadership” is deluded, out of touch, and utterly out of control, and I (along with many other users) are done giving them money to enable their asinine, hostile behavior. Don’t let the door hit you in the face as we leave, Strava!

Blogposts

I only post about once a month, but when I do, my articles are kinda long and jammed with detail. Here’s this year’s inventory, in case you wanna dig deeper into any particular topic:

• 1/7: Rolling into 2025 (a notable update to my blog’s Fitness chart)
• 3/10: Special Operations (leadup to my heart surgery)
• 4/16: I Care About Nutrition (my experience consulting a nutritionist)
• 4/24: Rode to Recovery (my progress seven weeks after surgery)
• 5/1: Why Specialized? (why I ride their bikes)
• 6/2: Event-ful… Or Not (missed some events, made some others)
• 6/18: Adamant (my 3rd Fire Ant 100 km event)
• 8/18: 2025 Pan-Mass Challenge Reimagined (just the usual brief pointer to my full 2025 PMC ride report page)
• 10/5: Rolling Resistance (lots of new equipment, especially tires & tubes)
• 10/23: Volksriden (my first Barrow Volksride 100 km event)
• 11/13: Strong Living (my return to Austin’s Livestrong Challenge)
• 12/4: Zenturion (hitting the max Level 100 after 7 years of Zwifting)
• 12/31: 2025: Ya Gotta Have Heart (my year in review: you’re reading it!)

Goals for 2026

So that was 2025. Let’s talk about next year’s goals, because now that I’m fully back, there’s some big things I’m looking forward to. Let me share ’em with you…

Surpass 100,000 Adult Cycling Miles

In the arbitrary milestone category, I am about to surpass 100,000 miles of riding since I took up cycling as an adult back in 2000.

100,000 miles is a common lifespan of the typical family car. 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!

That also means I’ve averaged nearly 4,000 miles a year for the past 25 years. That’s a measure of how devoted I’ve been to this particular pastime.

With good weather and only a couple hundred miles left to go, I ought to tick this one off soon. Look for a commemorative blogpo before the end of January.

Return to Boston to celebrate my 20th PMC and $150,000 in fundraising

Yes, it’ll be my 20th Pan-Mass Challenge. Yes, I’m coming back to Boston to do the in-person ride for the first time since 2014! It’ll be my 15th traditional PMC, having ridden my last five alone and remotely in Pittsburgh or Austin. And in 2026 the PMC will be inaugurating a new starting location in Worcester, rather than the traditional (and now former) start in Sturbridge. Very exciting!

Plus, I have a huge fundraising goal: to surpass a lifetime total of $150,000 raised for cancer research at the Dana-Farber. Raising the necessary $10,000 is a makeable stretch goal, and I’m asking you and all my amazing sponsors past and present to help. Plus if fundraising goes exceptionally well, it could also mark my return for a 10th year as a PMC “Heavy Hitter”.

The PMC has always been the most important highlight of my year, but next year’s PMC is going to be out-of-this-world special, and deeply emotional. I hope you will be part of it too, in one way or another!

Conclusion

So that’s 2025 in the books.

Starting with last year’s stroke, and through my heart surgery nine months ago, I had no idea whether I’d be able to continue riding. After eight long months of uncertainty, I’ve worked my way back to full fitness and proved that – even in my sixties – I’ve still got what it takes.

Despite my age and health challenges, 2025 was a surprisingly successful and memorable year, highlighted by covering more ground than any year since 2021, strong performances in my solo PMC and Livestrong century rides, tripping Level 100 in Zwift, raising another $9,450 for Dana-Farber, as well as all the other bits I’ve mentioned in this writeup.

After nearly a year of uncertainty, today life as a cyclist is pretty much back to normal again, and that’s an incredibly rewarding and reassuring feeling.

And it’s great to be able to look forward to an exciting 2026 season, featuring a very special trip back to Boston to ride and enjoy and celebrate my 20th Pan-Mass Challenge, with renewed confidence and free of worry.

Ready? Let’s do it!

With Pæthos in the shop for a tune, this seems like a good time for a post-op update.

On March 7, I had a metal mesh plug implanted in my heart in order to close a hole between my two atria: a possible cause for my past and potential future strokes. It’s been seven weeks since the operation, so let’s review how my return to fitness has gone… And, of course, the prognosis going forward.

So grand... and living!

Phase One of my recovery consisted of 10 days completely off the bike. I had incisions into both of my femoral arteries that needed to fully heal before I could do anything as strenuous as walking, climbing stairs, or having a bowel movement, never mind cycling! I had tenderness and a sizable hematoma in my groin, and heart palpitations that mostly dissipated over time. After a few days I started doing short walks around the neighborhood, working up from 1,500 meters to 3 kilometers, but my athletic Fitness (aka CTL, or Chronic Training Load) dropped from a pre-op 56.6 down to 44.6.

During Phase Two, I got back on the indoor bike trainer. The only constraint my cardiologist had given me was to keep my heart rate below 110 BPM, which was the perfect level for me to keep up with one of Zwift’s “robo pace partners” at 1.5 W/kg: a mild but not sedate pace. I Zwifted for 13 of the next 16 days, steadily increasing duration from 15 minutes to 30, 45, 60, and eventually 90 minutes at a time. Being back on the bike felt great, but I wasn’t riding hard enough or long enough to keep my Fitness from continuing to fall to a low of 33.4. The tenderness ended and my hematoma started to fade, but I still had a few palpitations from time to time.

On April 1, 25 days after my surgery, my cardiologist gave me the green light to gradually resume all normal activities, doing whatever felt right for my body. And just in time, because Austin has been having truly glorious spring weather.

That was my signal to begin eagerly-awaited Phase Three: my return to outdoor riding, while gradually increasing both duration and intensity.

Distance and duration came easily. I started with a couple 90-minute rides, and over two weeks moved up to 2-hour 50 kilometer rides, then 3½-hour 80 kms. So long as I stayed below 90% effort, I could ride all day.

Intensity came more slowly. Between my own innate caution and continuing cardiac palpitations, I wasn’t very eager to push my maximum heart rate. So I avoided hills for a couple weeks before gradually testing myself on those inclines, where I reached ≈150 BPM.

Since I got back on the bike, I’ve ridden 29 of the past 39 days, totaling 770 kilometers, or an average of about 20 km per day. To my delight, my partner has already commented on the return of my “distinctive markings”: her terminology for my stark cyclist’s tan lines.

Aside from the joy of being back outdoors on the bike, seeing my Fitness numbers making upward progress has been really encouraging. Long outdoor rides have been vastly more effective than Zwifting in raising my CTL, which has climbed to a recent (but still tepid) 40.6.

But I’m still a ways from where I need to be for major events or even spirited group rides. And I’ll lose a little Fitness this week, while the bike’s in the shop.

However, all that riding has helped me begin to get clarity about what this summer’s riding might look like. My hope all along was that I could do my third 100 KM Fire Ant Tour in mid-June, and that I’d be able to do a creditable (if shortened) ride for my remote Pan-Mass Challenge in August. At this point, those look reasonably likely.

But if I continue to do well, there’s a chance I might be ready earlier, and could ride the Stampede on the Chisholm Trail, another metric century that takes place in two weeks, or two months post-surgery. That would be extra cool because it’s another local event that I’ve never done before.

It’s delightful being back out on the open road again, and looking forward in anticipation of upcoming rides!

Friday I had heart surgery. Even though it was via intravenous catheters and I should fully recover, the recuperation period is still gonna blow a hole in my training and fitness. So this is a good time to get you caught up on what I’ve been up for the past two months, and where things go from here.

So far, 2025 has been a little bit of up-and-down, and a little bit of in-and-out. I took a bit of a break when the calendar flipped, and then it was an odd mix of indoor and outdoor riding, mostly dictated by Austin’s variable winter temps.

Pacing the CEO on a PMC Zwift group ride

Watch on YouTube Video of Austin's Friday Truancy group ride rolling out

Brilliant Texas skies along Walnut Creek trail extension

On the indoor side, I’ve logged about 1,000 km on Zwift, focusing primarily on riding a dozen+ new routes, advancing another four XP levels, and participating in eight delightful PMC group rides, which have just finished up for the season.

But knowing that a surgically-induced enforced break was coming, I did my best to ride outdoors as much as the weather would allow. February in Austin began and ended delightfully, allowing me to rack up over 500 real-world kilometers on a dozen rides, including my first two Friday Truancy group rides since my stroke at the start of October.

My final ride before the operation was last Wednesday’s 80 km trip out the Southern Walnut Creek path to Manor, which was my longest ride – indoor or out – since my stroke. It also marked my max Fitness level for the year (a pretty moderate 56 CTL), having finally recovered all the Fitness I’d lost by resting at the start of January.

So that brings us to the beginning of March, and Friday’s heart surgery. If you want all the details, you can read the accompanying post in my general blog, but here I’ll limit myself to the short- and long-term impacts to my riding.

In the short-term, the surgery is going to require some recuperation time, which means time off the bike. It’s really important that the two incisions into major veins in the hips are allowed to close up and fully heal before attempting any kind of exercise. If things go well, this week I’ll start doing some short walks. A week after that I might introduce some low-intensity work on my partner’s elliptical trainer. Then some easy rides on my indoor trainer. But for the next month I have to always keep my heart rate below an extremely mild 100-110 bpm.

I’ll have some post-op testing and a followup with my cardiologist in about three weeks, at which point I hope to get the green light for a gradual return to actual training. Over the next several weeks of minimal exercise, my Fitness is going to plummet, and April and May will be spent trying to get back to last week’s Fitness level.

And what will the rest of the year look like? It’s hard to say until after that followup appointment. I think I can expect a full return to endurance riding, but when and how long that’ll take is unknown. I’m almost certainly not doing the events I’d hoped to do in April: the American Stroke Association’s CycleNation charity spin-bike ride; and the Red Poppy Ride century. But I might be ready for June’s 100k Fire Ant Tour. We’ll see how it goes.

And what about riding remotely for August’s Pan-Mass Challenge? As I said in December’s annual summary post, that’ll remain a complete unknown until May, so I’ll defer my registration until I have more clarity. Hopefully I’ll be in shape to make it a good couple days of riding, to “properly earn” my sponsors’ donations to DFCI, even if perhaps it might fall short of the traditional 300 kilometers.

But I do expect I’ll be able to return to the endurance riding that I love. It’s just a question of when, and how long it’ll take to train back up to the fitness I need to complete such rides.

But until then I guess I’ll take a few weeks of enforced relaxation!