Orny's Cycling Journal

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!

Watch on YouTube

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!

I’m an old man. I’m not gonna set any speed records (aka Strava KoMs) on the melty-sweltery streets of south-central Texas. Especially in a city full of amateur and pro racers like multiple and current Tour de France participant Lawson Craddock.

However, what I can do is ride frequently, and if you’re the person who has ridden a road segment more often than anyone else in the previous 90 days, Strava recognizes you with their “Local Legend” award (aka LCL).

Looking back from the top of Ladera Norte

So with few century-length rides happening in the unrelenting convection oven heat of summer in Texas, and needing some kind of cycling goal to motivate me, I decided to try to win the LCL on one of Austin’s most notorious hills: the kilometer-long, 100-meter, 16%-max climb up Ladera Norte, where the aforementioned Lawson Craddock holds the fastest ascent.

My first introduction to Ladera Norte (Spanish for ‘North Slope’) was during our apartment-hunting trip last Thanksgiving. We had just completed our second viewing of the house we would eventually lease, and took some time to drive around and explore the neighborhood. Just three kilometers from the house, we randomly turned at a sign for “North Cat Mountain” and up a slope that immediately reminded us of the ludicrous hills back in Pittsburgh, like maybe Hazelwood Ave. It was a huge eye-opener.

Becoming the Local Legend on it wasn’t gonna be an easy task. Not only is it a challenging climb, but the guy who held the title had ridden it over 30 times. I’d have to climb that beast more than once every three days, for three months straight! During… wait for it… June, July, and August.

So I added the climb to the start of my short one-hour recovery ride loop and started doing it as often as I could tolerate. By riding first thing in the morning, I could avoid Austin’s daily 40° C heat, although it gets unpleasantly humid overnight. Doing this route so often really limited my other riding, but I wasn’t planning on many long rides in that heat anyways. Riding straight out to the climb, over the top, then cooling down with my recovery loop became my not-quite-daily ritual.

Because I was riding the same route so often, I became the LCL on a number of other segments along my route: No Hills Drive, Mesa, Greystone, Bull Creek, Hancock. And, eventually… Ladera Norte!

After much repetitive climbing, I finally stole the LCL on July 30th. Having done 30 climbs over 65 days, I’d completed nearly one ascent every other day for 9½ weeks. Mission accomplished, at least temporarily.

See, when you take the LCL from someone, Strava sends them an email letting them know. So the next question was whether the former LCL was in the mood to go out and immediately take it back from me.

It’s been a week since I took the title, and he hasn’t made any attempt to catch up. Meanwhile, I’ve done a few more reps, and our current tallies are 33 to 27. So it looks my status as the Local Legend on Ladera Norte is somewhat secure.

Which means it’s time for me to switch goals, and that’s something I need to do anyways.

Five weeks from today I will be doing my first Livestrong Challenge, which is also my first attempt at a 100-mile ride in Texas, and my first century on the new bike: Pæthos. If I keep doing these dinky 26km morning rides, there’s no way I’ll be prepared to tackle 100 miles, so now I’m changing my focus to: getting lots more kilometers under my belt, and getting better acclimated to the extreme heat of high noon in Texas. Wish me luck!

And of course if you can, it would be wonderful if you expressed your support via a donation to the Livestrong Foundation, which supports cancer survivors. You can do that on my LC rider page: https://give.livestrong.org/ornoth

Thanks for being with me!

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!

If you log your rides to Strava and find yourself making the same changes to every Activity, you should know about the free ActivityFix utility.

After you set it up, whenever you upload a new Activity, ActivityFix will automatically make whatever changes you’ve asked it to do.

What can you ask it to do? A ton! Almost any change you can imagine doing by hand to an Activity, except for changing its privacy settings. You can set up Rules to update the Activity Title and Description, Activity Type, Gear (bike) used, Map Type, and more.

You can include dynamic data derived from your Activity itself or set up custom counters. And each Rule can be triggered conditionally based on all kinds of criteria, giving you the ability to program all kinds of really powerful possibilities.

For example, here’s the Rules that I am currently using:

1. For all Activities, automatically prepend the current date to the Activity Title, in my preferred abbreviated YYMMDD format.
2. If Strava recognizes the Activity as a “Ride”, set Gear Used to my 2013 Specialized Roubaix road bike. But if the Activity is a “VirtualRide”, set Gear Used to my Wahoo Kickr CORE indoor trainer.
3. If my Activity contains Wattage data from a power meter, set my Strava Map Type to show power; if there is no power data, set the Map Type to show heart rate.
4. If the Activity is 100 miles or greater, append text to the ride description, using custom counters to say what lifetime century number it was, and what century number it was for the current year. The latter counter automatically resets when a new year begins.

And all of this happens instantly and without any intervention from me.

And that’s just a tiny smattering of what ActivityFix makes possible. Want to automatically add your annual total miles to date to the ride Description? No problem. Include the number of days counting down to a major event? Add your normalized power and average W/kg, but only for outdoor rides after 6pm on Tuesdays? Automatically hide commutes from your public feed? Or hide short warm-up rides on your indoor trainer? Hide all rides where your average speed was below 20 km/h? Yup, all of that and more. The unattainable is unknown at Zombo.com!

And ActivityFix is free like a free thing.

Want to hear moar? Here’s GPLama’s original 2021 review… But bear in mind that a ton of additional new features have been added in the seven months since this video was posted.

Watch on YouTube

This is just a placeholder to direct you to my 2021 Pan-Mass Challenge Ride Report, for the full details of this year's remote "Reimagined" PMC ride, as well as my thoughts and feeling upon completing my 100th ride of 100 miles or more.

As always, my lengthy writeup is supplemented with photos, videos, maps, and GPS logs.

From start to finish, 2018 was a disappointment.

After the extreme effort to conquer the 2017 Dirty Dozen (blogpost) and my 250,000-foot climbing goal (blogpost), I fell into an enduring malaise and lack of motivation that lasted all of 2018. On top of that, three long trips—smack in the middle of training season—ensured I couldn’t get back into proper form in the spring.

A wet, grim start to Escape to the Lake Day 2

As if that weren’t enough, 2018 was Pittsburgh’s wettest year in recorded history, washing out even more of my training. In July, when my travel was done, I struggled through my remaining four big events, eventually riding myself back into fitness just in time for the season to end.

If we only count outdoor road riding, I rode only 2,776 miles: my lowest total in five years (if we exclude the intentionally light year of my move from Boston to Pittsburgh). And it was by far the least amount of climbing I’ve done since the move. Though if we count the 486 virtual miles I did on the indoor trainer, my annual total rises to a more respectable 3,262: still 20 percent less than I rode in 2017.

2018 wasn’t entirely bad—there were a few minor highlights—but all told, it was a miserable year.

My Original 2018 Goals

I really didn’t have any cycling goals for 2018. In 2017 I had checked off everything I’d aspired to do in Pittsburgh, leaving nothing specific to reach for.

The only item I mentioned at the end of last year’s summary (blogpost) was a planned trip to Tuscany, where I hoped to enjoy some long European riding and even catch a stage of the Giro d’Italia elite cycling race. However, it rained the entire time, allowing only 80km of wet, uncomfortable riding; and I abandoned my Giro date due to a scheduling conflict (blogpost).

My rental Bianchi at our Tuscan villa

Morning light on the Pedal the Lakes century

Tag-o-Rama pickup on Lemon Way, Downtown

Orny descending a mountain in Zwift's Watopia

Dirty Dozen rider Jeremiah climbing Eleanor St. on a bikeshare

My 2018 cycling calendar

The Centuries

Another way I judge a year is how many 100-mile rides I complete; therefore, this year I’ve introduced this separate section to enumerate them.

In 2018, despite the weather, my travel, and lack of motivation, I matched 2017’s total of six centuries. I suffered more than usual on these long rides, either due to insufficient preparation or increasing age.

The first century was easy: a slow amble up the Montour Trail with friends De’Anna and Bill, which I spontaneously extended with a solo jaunt to Monongahela and back. But it was so unnoteworthy that it earned only passing mention in my entry for the second century of the year, which was…

The annual Escape to the Lake MS Ride (blogpost) was soggy and sloggy, with rain both days, compounded by an unannounced (and poorly signed) detour and relocated rest stop.

I made a road trip to Akron for my second Absolutely Beautiful Country ride (blogpost). Despite a flat course, it was still a sufferfest. After accidentally bringing only two right gloves, I rode bare-handed all day, which produced a painfully memorable sunburn.

August began with the always-difficult Every Neighborhood Ride (blogpost). This year I had to stop for a vicious cramp halfway up Forbes Avenue. After recuperating and cooling off at the Squirrel Hill rest stop, I fell back and finished the ride with the slow group.

Pedal PGH (blogpost) was as chaotic as usual. Extending the metric to a full century proved costly, as I needed breaks to let the legs recover while recuperating from the heat.

A week later, I drove up to Mercer County for my final century of the year. Though difficult, Pedal the Lakes (blogpost) was manageable, since I’d finally started coming into form… just in time for the season to end!

Additional Highlights

One 2018 highlight didn’t require much effort: picking up 25 tags in Pittsburgh’s Tag-o-Rama cycling/photography game. That was enough to break into the top ten players (out of 125). (blogpost)

I’ve already mentioned that Pittsburgh set a new all-time record for precipitation in a calendar year, receiving over one and a half times our normal rainfall. The resulting landslides washed away several roads, some of which still haven’t reopened ten months later. Many rides were canceled, including brevets, the Western PA Wheelmen’s spring and fall rallies, the Mon Valley Century, and numerous group rides. I only attended 5 out of 27 Tuesday night Team Decaf rides due to rain, and I bailed halfway through one of those due to a sudden mid-ride rainstorm!

The year was filled with other frustrations, as well. Several of those mentioned below are covered in more detail in a short mid-August blogpost tellingly titled “Yeah, Yeah, Bicycle”.

The local bike “advocacy” group decided to withdraw all support for BikeFest, a two-week cycling celebration it had run for 15 years.

My bike had several mechanical travails, ranging from a still-unresolved creak to a fancy new Di2 mount that promptly broke my Di2 junction box.

I spent $70 to re-stock my supply of powdered Gatorade mix, only to discover they’d changed the formula into an unusable dust that won’t mix with water and tastes just like burnt plastic.

And Strava completely ruined the training charts I relied on, which I’ll speak more of below.

I wasn’t in any shape—or mood—to ride this year’s Dirty Dozen hill climb, but that gave me the opportunity to play event photographer, which might have been more fun than actually riding! (blogpost)

The year’s biggest highlight happened in December, long after the riding season was done: my long-awaited purchase of an indoor smart trainer and membership on the Zwift multiplayer online cycling platform (blogpost). In addition to my first FTP test, I rode as “far” on the trainer in December as I did on the road in any other month in 2018! While it had no impact on the 2018 season, it has helped me get over my season-long malaise and should improve my form next spring.

The Charthouse

As mentioned earlier, Strava changed the math behind their “Fitness & Freshness” chart that I relied on for training and event tapering, and which I incorporated into my annual summaries as a graphical overview of the year.

Their “improved” metrics are completely worthless, but thankfully I’ve been able to recreate the TRIMP charts I relied on them for. Updated versions follow:

This first chart shows my fitness level over the past twelve months, with centuries highlighted.

What you’ll note is an overall saw-tooth pattern, with sudden gains from intense training followed by immediate backslides; i.e. a complete lack of sustained improvement.

You can see the dips during my travel dates: Southeast Asia in the latter half of March, a mini-dip in May during my week in Tuscany, and my meditation retreat in late June.

But even when I was home, each time I gained fitness, it declined again, rather than moving progressively higher. Every upward impulse is followed by a dip back down; I just couldn’t sustain a consistent string of training.

One easily-overlooked but hopeful sign is the upward trend throughout December. That’s the result of my new indoor trainer and Zwift membership. With any luck, I have already begun my positive fitness trend for the start of the 2019 season!

The second chart shows how 2018 compares to previous years. Even though I began the year at a high level, over the summer I never attained the peak fitness of my previous six years. And that pretty neatly summarizes my year.

Goals for 2019

A year ago, I reluctantly set some vague goals for 2018; I’d done all the new rides I wanted to do, and didn’t see any specific challenges to undertake in the new year. In that respect, I’m in the same situation this year.

However, my lackluster 2018 was not a direct consequence of my lack of clearly-identified goals. I blame it all on horrible weather, lots of poorly-timed travel, and the fatigue and demoralization left over from a very demanding 2017.

Fortunately, I’m entering 2019 much fresher, and with no major travel plans. So long as we don’t set any new rainfall records, 2019 is bound to be better than 2018 was.

My primary goal for next year is simply this: to finally get beyond the malaise of 2018, to ride more, and get back to peak fitness this summer.

That’ll be aided by my secondary goal for 2019: spending the winter riding Zwift on the trainer, allowing me to enter the road season at a high level of fitness, and monitoring that by performing regular FTP tests throughout the year.

I needed a major change to shake me out of the funk that lingered over me all year, and Zwift is certainly different. I find myself actually looking forward to riding the indoor trainer and learning how to train more effectively by using its built-in power meter. I’m hopeful it’ll be the key that unlocks both my attitude and my fitness level for the 2019 season.

If I can achieve those two simple goals, I’ll be happy, and it will make possible any specific challenges I target as the year progresses. And so far it looks promising!

We’re halfway through August, and 2018 persistently continues to be a lackluster year. Even this “catch up on miscellaneous topics” post consists almost entirely of disappointments.

In one of my least exciting accomplishments, I’ve reached 16,800 miles on my 2013 Specialized Roubaix, surpassing the miles I put on my first bike, a steel 2000 Devinci hybrid. Still need 6,000 more to eclipse the Plastic Bullet, my 2006 Roubaix.

Another less than earth-shattering development: I bought this Kool Stop tire bead jack. Why? Well, I guess it does prevent me from pinching and puncturing the inner tube when installing a tire. But that’s about as positive as anything that’s happened this year.

Another unnecessary purchase yielded a worse result. By installing this funky combination headset spacer and Di2 junction box mount, I could clean up my cockpit by getting rid of an ugly rubber band around my handlebar stem. Except it broke one of the junction box’s tiny plastic mounting pins, leaving the whole assembly dangling from my handlebars. Now I have to either spend $90 on a whole new junction box or permanently glue the junction box onto the mount with epoxy. Sigh.

Next, the rider’s—and the bike mechanic’s—worst nightmare: mysterious clicking and creaking noises. First we replaced the bottom bracket. Didn’t fix shit, but the cranks spin a little smoother, and I was pleasantly surprised that a new BB only costs about $30!

After more tinkering, figured out that the noises were because the stem and headset cap bolts weren’t tight enough. Unsurprisingly, those were the exact bolts I’d loosened to fit the aforementioned headset spacer / junction box mount… The ones every mechanic goes to great lengths to tell you *not* to over-tighten. Well that’s annoying. Locked those puppies down, and so far so good.

And then there’s the Gatorade saga. For almost 20 years, my go-to sports drink has been orange Gatorade powder, the most effective and palatable thing I’ve found. And they made me a loyal customer after a lucrative customer service escapade I blogged about.

In May I ordered another three canisters of powdered drink mix, but what they contained was nothing like Gatorade. The powder didn’t mix in water, had neither flavor nor color, and tasted like a moldy bag of burnt plastic. Yup, in the interest of “progress”, instead of just adding some electrolytes to their tried-and-true formula, Gatorade had some evil scientists completely redesign their product, and the resulting “new formula” is simply unusable. And now I’ve got $70 worth of it sitting in the back of a cupboard.

Speaking of companies fucking up something that already works well, Strava recently took the reliable TRIMP-based Suffer Score training tool that I have blogged about and replaced it with an updated metric called “relative effort”. The major difference is intentionally removing exercise duration from their calculation of exercise intensity, so that a tough 10-minute ride has the same training effect as a tough 10-hour ride.

The result? Ludicrous values that make Relative Effort completely worthless as a training tool. Using actual examples from my own riding: if a 9-hour 127-mile ride scores a relative effort of 230, why would a 3-hour 34-mile ride rack up 568 points? A 3-hour ride should have a much lower training effect than a 9-hour ride, but Strava says it was two and a half times the workout?!?! Bullshit! And this doesn’t just go for new activities; they fucked up all my historical trend charts. Way to ruin your product, Strava! And don’t get me started on their unctuous labels for varying levels of effort: tough, massive, and historic.

So yeah, I’m kinda discouraged by all of this. I’ve been hoping this year’s malaise would pass, but it hasn’t yet. But that’s a bigger story which will receive its own blogpost in the near future.

The only thing that’s motivated me to hop on the bike is the Tag-o-Rama game. I’ve claimed 19 tags this year, and with just three more I’ll become one of the top ten players (out of 124 people).

Three months ago, I replaced my aging Garmin Edge 800 GPS cycling computer with the new Garmin Edge 820. After 52 rides and 1,400 miles, it’s time for an in-depth review.

I’m a data weenie. I was logging my weekly miles all the way back in 2000, and saving GPS tracks of significant rides using a handheld GPS long before GPS tracking was integrated into bike computers. So I’m sensitive to the features, usability, and reliability of my bike computer.

I was really happy with the Edge 800, which I bought when they first came out in 2011. Over the years, Garmin introduced the newer Edge 810 and the larger Edge 1000, plus the smaller Edge 500 and 510, but the 800 was so good that I never felt the need to upgrade.

However, after six years, my Edge 800’s battery had begun to flag, and I was tempted by all the improved features and functions of the new units. Last July, when Garmin released a new unit in the 800 series, I read the reviews like a hawk, and finally picked up my unit in February, after I returned from my five-month stay up in Maine.

I’ll divide this review up into four sections: basic features and things I’m neutral about; features I don’t know much about because I didn’t test them; features I like and am excited about; and the things that disappoint me about the unit. Then the executive summary is at the end.

The Neutral

My biggest problem with my aging Edge 800 was battery life. I need a device that will record GPS data and provide navigational cues through at least a 9-hour 200k ride. I recently completed a 7-hour century ride, and had over 40 percent charge left, which means the Edge 820 can be expected to live up to its spec of 12-hour battery life.

I was a little concerned that the 820 has a smaller screen than the 800. On the other hand, it has better resolution. So far, reading the screen has not been a problem at all.

At a minimum, I need to be able to import GPX-formatted route data from the computer to the unit. No problem with the 820.

I also download all my raw GPS data (Garmin .FIT files) to my computer for archival. Thankfully, the 820 still supports this type of access.

Rather than coming with an SD card slot, this device has a fixed memory capacity of 8 GB. So far that hasn’t been an issue, and I can only see it becoming so if you were to load multiple continents’ worth of map data. Activity .FIT files don’t take up very much space at all.

Sometimes, if you were following a course and deviated from the path, my 800 would simply give up trying to navigate for you. The 820 hasn’t been bad, in that it tries to get you back onto the course.

Some folks have complained about the altimeter being off, or drifting during rides. I haven’t noticed a problem, given the understanding that barometric altimeters have limited accuracy by definition.

One new feature on the 820 is real-time weather alerts. This would be a cool feature, except it only receives major alerts like flash floods. Useful, but only rarely. Given that the device has a live Internet connection through a Bluetooth link to your cellphone, I’d rather see live local radar and notices of impending rain. There’s an app for that in Garmin’s ConnectIQ Store, but I haven’t tried it out yet.

Another new feature is the display of “recovery time” at the end of each ride. Basically, it’s a gratuitous, dumb feature. Recovery varies from person to person, and even a novice rider can sense how long they’ll take to recover from any given effort. I’ve turned that feature off.

One undocumented feature on the Edge 800 was the ability to set the boot screen text that displays when the unit powers up. I had set that to an inspirational message—“Always lead, never follow”—plus my phone number in case the unit was lost. I was happy to learn that the feature still works on the 820.

One evening, I learned that the Edge 820 automatically switches to an inverted-color display at night for better visibility. I’d love to say that’s an improvement, but it’s a feature that was also available on the 800; I had merely turned it off at some point!

The Unknowns

The Edge 820 comes with a power saving mode that comes on when the battery reserves start getting low. I haven’t tested it yet.

It also introduces an “incident detection” feature, where it’ll alert a contact if it thinks you’ve crashed. So many other users reported false positives that I have never turned the feature on.

Presumably you can load your own maps onto the unit. That’s a feature that existed on the Edge 800, but I’ve never felt any desire to mess with the maps that it came with. Though it might be a handy thing if you traveled or moved to a different continent…

Although Garmin did away with the idea of bike profiles, you can still set odometer values based on the sensors that are on each bike. Seems like a lot of work, and I don’t need total odometer readings while riding. I can just get that from the laptop.

The most exciting and useful feature that I haven’t had the opportunity to test is the Edge 820’s FE-C indoor trainer integration, which should allow the computer to set the trainer’s resistance level. In addition to using the Zwift social training app, theoretically you can follow a real-world course that you rode, and the unit will alter resistance to simulate the terrain. I’m looking forward to that, but that’ll require a very expensive trainer purchase, which I’ve been delaying.

The Positives

Let’s start with the obvious. Coming from a seven year old model, the Edge 820 has updated maps, and lots of software updates, both built-in as well as regular firmware updates going forward. It’s nice to be back on a supported platform!

In addition to GPS satellites, the new unit also has the ability to receive signal from the Russian GLONASS constellation, making GPS locks faster, more accurate, and stable. I suspect this is also the reason why the regular signal stops/dropouts/starts I used to have near heavy infrastructure (e.g. bridges, railways) on the Edge 800 are almost completely gone.

With a Bluetooth connection to my phone, the Edge 820 will display incoming SMS messages, and notifications for incoming calls. It works well, and has been a nice convenience, given how many hours I’m on the bike.

For ultra distance rides, you can plug the Edge 820 into a portable battery pack and it’ll charge itself, while continuing to record ride data. To be honest, I think my Edge 800 could do this, but I never bothered to test it. However, I tested the 820 for this review, and it worked well.

With my Edge 800, after a ride I had to connect the device to my laptop and manually kick off a synchronization job to upload my data to Garmin Connect, then manually upload to Strava, as well. The 820 will use Bluetooth or Wifi to automatically upload ride data to both sites without a wired connection. Very convenient, especially when you’re away from home at a multi-day event.

Garmin has created an open API called ConnectIQ for developers to add their own apps and custom data fields to the unit. A favorite is the Strava Live Suffer Score data field, which displays how hard your ride is. I’ve got a great idea for my own custom data field, but setting up the required Windows dev environment is a huge bother.

The Edge 820 also will store your favorite Strava road segments and display a countdown and timer when you are on them, allowing you to measure your effort against your PR or the KoM holder in real time. It’s a cool feature, except for the discouraging Sad Trombone sound it makes when the record-holding time finishes before you do…

With an extra bit of hardware, the Edge 820 will communicate with your Shimano Di2 electronic shifting groupset. That allows me to display which chainring and cog I’m in (both numerically and graphically), as well as the system’s current battery level. It’ll beep when you’re at your absolute highest and lowest gears, and give you a text alert if the Di2 battery goes below 25 percent charge. On top of all that, all your shifting data gets added to your ride logs, which you can analyze later through sites like di2stats.com.

The Negatives

The touch screen is really poor… nearly unusable. Every interaction with the unit must be very deliberate, and often repeated. My unit is barely tolerable, but many people have simply given up and returned theirs for a refund. It’s terrible.

Scrolling and zooming the map are incredibly slow. Like, almost unusably slow. If there’s one thing a mapping GPS should get right…

Loading and calculating routes is even worse! If I have a stored GPS breadcrumb track, it shouldn’t take upwards of five minutes for the unit to begin offering navigation cues. Why would it take even longer than the Edge 800?

When I first started using the unit, it spontaneously turned itself off several times. Fortunately, after a little while, that stopped happening.

Along with SMS and incoming call notifications, it would be nice if the unit offered incoming email notifications, as well. Missed opportunity.

I had a lot of trouble setting my Max Heart Rate. By default, the unit will override any number you specify with whatever it gets from a heart rate sensor. But since HRM straps are notorious for occasionally giving ludicrously high readings (e.g. above 220 BPM), it kept resetting itself until I shut off the auto setting and entered a fixed HR max.

Presumably, the Edge 820 supports Live Track, where you can send a URL to a friend, and they can visit a site that shows where you are in real time. In my experience, the data connection to the phone is too fragile, and I’ve never gotten Live Track to work… not even once. Both Google Maps’ Location Sharing feature and the Glympse app work far better.

Then there’s Group Track, where you and your riding buddies can presumably “Live Track” each other, with the head unit displaying the locations of your other riding buddies in real time. Even if I had other riding buddies with compatible head units (not very likely), the fact that it depends entirely on the utterly non-functional Live Track feature means I can’t use it anyways.

That cool Shimano Di2 integration I talked about above took *way* more time, effort, and money than it should have. First, to get the Di2 to talk to the Garmin, I knew I had to order and add a tiny wireless transmitter and a cable to my Di2 system, plus the special tool to connect the cable. When that didn’t work, I learned that I also had to order and replace my old battery mount. Tiring of the runaround when that didn’t work, I brought it in to the bike shop, where they individually updated the firmware on every piece of my Di2 setup. That didn’t work, either, so I ordered a new front junction box, plus two more new cables. When those came in, we installed them and did two more whole rounds of firmware updates during several phone calls with Shimano support. Then we finally had to pair the Di2 transmitter with the Garmin, and iron out a few minor bugs in the system (not reading battery level, thinking it had 11 sprockets rather than 10). In the end, it took a couple months, three trips to the LBS, a few calls to Shimano support, seven new parts from four separate orders, and an extra $450 in parts and labor to set up, just for my head unit to display what gear I’m in. Had I known that at the beginning, I never would have bothered.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, the unit mostly works, and is generally okay. It’s a good step up from my aging Edge 800. I like the auto-upload, custom data fields, Di2 integration, phone and text message notifications, and Strava Live Segments. And I’m hoping that the FE-C trainer integration works well. But none of those are must-haves, so I wouldn’t say I’m blown away by the new features.

On the other hand, a lot of people really hate the unit, and I can understand why. The touch interface is terrible, basic functions such as loading routes and map data are ridiculously slow, and key features like Live Track, Group Track, and incident detection simply don’t work.

While Garmin enjoyed a market-leadership position in GPS cycling computers for several years, riders who are frustrated with Garmin’s lack of responsiveness are turning to other vendors, now that quality alternatives are available like the Wahoo Element Bolt.

By all measures, the Edge 820 should have continued Garmin’s domination of the GPS cyclocomputer market. I really hope they have learned the drawbacks of releasing such a flawed product and do a better job next time. In the meantime, hopefully they’ll keep issuing firmware updates that fix the Edge 820’s broken features and provide more compelling functionality.

It’s still a good unit, but it’s definitely not the category-redefining product that I had hoped it would be.

As you would expect, my first year riding in Pittsburgh was eventful and full of new experiences. Judging by the size of this 2016 year-in-review post, I consider it a pretty successful year overall.

Here I’ll review my original goals for the year, plow through a list of other noteworthy developments, show you a few informative charts, and then close by looking forward to 2017. All accompanied by a handful of related photos.

Original 2016 Goals

When I moved to Pittsburgh at the end of last year, I set four explicit goals for myself, plus two implicit ones. How did we do?

First goal was to buy a new indoor trainer. It didn’t happen because nice weather allowed me to ride outdoors throughout last winter, and I wanted to conserve cash. Although I never got that new trainer, I can’t call saving hundreds of dollars a failure! And there’s always next year…

Second goal was to do more century rides than the feeble four I had done in 2015. I bagged seven, one of which was a 200k. Great success! To enumerate them: Pittsburgh Randonneurs’ McConnell’s Mill 200k (a new all-time record for most climbing in one ride), Escape to the Lake MS ride, a solo century to Brush Creek, the Pittsburgh Tour de Cure Gran Fondo, the Western PA Wheelmen’s 3-State Century, the Mon Valley Century, and the Pedal the Lakes Century.

Third goal was to check out Pittsburgh’s outdoor cycling track. Definitely did that, and set my first personal hour record there (20.77 miles). But I didn’t participate or even spectate at any of the races held there… Yet!

Final goal was to ride the Dirty Dozen. Sadly, family obligations brought my season to a screeching halt just after I started training for the Thanksgiving-weekend ride. This one has to wait for next year.

My two implicit goals were to ride more than I did in 2015, and to learn and become familiar with the roads and routes used by Pittsburgh cyclists. I covered both of those without question.

Overall, I did a reasonable—but not perfect—job of meeting my original goals for the year.

Innumerable Highlights

But the story of a season isn’t made up solely of chasing predicted goals. It’s also a collection of serendipitous moments and unexpected developments. And 2016 was a very eventful year.

How come? Here’s a quick run-down:

• I opted to take the summer off from work, giving me lots of free time to ride.
• I rode more miles in 2016 than I did in any my past six years except for 2014.
• Overall, my average distance per ride is down, but my climbing per ride is way up, and I rode much more frequently this year.
• I rode my first brevet in ten years, my first-ever gran fondo, and my first personal hour record on the track.
• I rode to a town called McMurray in memory of my mentor Bobby Mac, did the PedalPGH and Every Neighborhood rides, rode from home into West Virginia and Ohio, around Saratoga New York on vacation, through a cheeseball spill, and to a town called Bagdad over two closed roads that were broken up and collapsing down the hillside!
• I rode in regular group rides with Team Decaf and the East Liberty Performance Bicycle shop guys.
• But I lost out on the Dirty Dozen, its training rides, and the 321 cancer charity ride I’d planned on doing.
• I met a lot of cool riders, including Stef Burch, Monica VanDieren, Jim Logan, Eric Collazo, Kai, Colleen Spiegler, Ryan Popple, and many, many others.
• I had one nontrivial crash due to debris in the road, resulting in some road rash and a quick trip to the walk-in clinic.
• Rode in two processional rides in memory of local riders who had been killed by motorists.
• Michelin replaced my standard Pro4 line of tires with a new model called Power Endurance. When I was accidentally sent 25mm tires rather than my preferred 23s, I opted to stick with them. They’re more comfortable, and wider tires are a new trend with many riders.
• Also bought a Continental 4-Season rear tire for wintertime traction.
• I destroyed another rear wheel, but replaced it with a new Ksyrium with an all-black Exalith brake track that whines evilly whenever I’m slowing down. My bike shop forced me to impersonate a shop employee in order to get my warrantee registered.
• I bought a couple Ass Savers, a hub-level video camera mount, several new jerseys, caps, and a really nice new insulated winter cycling jacket.
• I started playing in the BikePGH forums’ Tag-o-Rama photo-finding game, finding and setting four sets of tags. Also bought a cycling card game called Attack the Pack.
• Bought a new set of Oakley Half Jacket sunglasses, with ear socks and lenses to match my bike’s red and white color scheme. Also attached plastic stick-on reading lenses to those sunglasses, making it much easier to read my GPS bike computer, especially when navigating unfamiliar areas (like all of Pittsburgh!) by map.
• Although I haven’t bought the new Garmin Edge 820 GPS cyclo-computer, I did buy some electronic widgets that will allow my future head unit to talk to my Di2 electronic gear shifters. More on that in the future!
• Lost my only Strava KOM up in northern Vermont, but gained a new one located behind Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh.
• Was shocked to hear that Dirty Dozen founder and Pittsburgh cycling legend Danny Chew had been paralyzed in a crash.
• Surpassed 10,000 miles on the “new” bike (R2-Di2), and broke 50,000 miles overall since 2000.
• Ordered a fistful of Camelbak Jetvalve water bottle tops, because those things grow mold like crazy and are difficult to clean. They’re rarely sold separate from the bottles.
• Added searchable tags to my cycling blog, so that you can now navigate my posts by topic.
• Finally paid for a Strava Pro membership. Between Strava and the Stravistics add-on, I got all kinds of new features, including:
• Started automatically posting ride photos to my Strava page via my Instagram feed.
• Access to my Strava “trophy case”. On top of old challenges from years past, this year I earned eight monthly gran fondo badges, four monthly climbing challenge badges, and one special challenge badge.
• I used the Flyby feature (example) to identify similar riders in my new neighborhood and learn the routes they favored. And I used Strava’s Global Heatmap to see overall popular routes in Pittsburgh.
• One of the coolest things I did this year came about because I wanted something no other website provides: a way to directly compare the slopes and lengths of hills against one another. Being a techie and data vis geek, I started hitting the Strava API and created my very own Slope Comparison Tool. It’s really awesome and I’m really proud of it.
• And then there were some new data plots that I discovered: my personal riding heatmap, my yearly elevation gain chart, and my training/fitness chart.

Let’s go into those charts in a little more detail, since they are extremely pertinent to any discussion of my 2016 season.

Teh Plotz

I told you that one of my implicit goals was to learn Pittsburgh’s roads. My 2016 mileage total was 3,260, which is greater than four of the previous five years, so I definitely covered a lot of territory.

But it’s easier to show you that on a heatmap than it is to talk about it. Here’s a static image of my 2016 riding, which shows a lot of riding around the city core and numerous expeditions further afield.

However, you can get a much better understanding by clicking through to the actual interactive map to pan and zoom around.

Custom personal heatmaps are one of the awesome features that came with my paid Strava membership. I have another map depicting all my riding (since 2010), both before and after my move from Boston to Pittsburgh.

Next comes a truly amazing chart, which shows something my blogposts have belabored: how hilly Pittsburgh is in comparison to Boston.

The chart depicts how much elevation gain (i.e. climbing) I did each year. From 2010 through 2015, while living in Boston I climbed anywhere from 87,000 to 120,000 feet (16 to 23 vertical miles) per year.

Now look at the pink line for 2016. At the end of September, I had 190,000 feet of climbing: nearly twice my previous record for that point in the year! If I had ridden at the same pace for the last three months of 2016 I would have broken a quarter million feet (48 vertical miles) this year. But I didn’t, so I had to settle for a mere 36 vertical miles…

That chart is from the Stravistix add-on for Strava, which adds all kinds of useful information above and beyond what you get from Strava itself.

Finally, I’ve got two versions of this year’s TRIMP chart, which I described in detail in this blogpost. The first one tracks this year’s fitness, and the second lets you compare 2016 to previous years.

Here’s what you’ll see below:

This past season began with a great build-up from mid February through the end of March. The next month and a half were plagued by mechanical troubles, travel, and bad weather, except for that mid-April brevet I rode: my longest ride of the year. There followed three and a half months of enjoying long summertime rides and steadily-increasing fitness, culminating with the Pedal the Lakes Century on September 4.

After that, I kicked off my Dirty Dozen training rides. Although I was building up leg strength, my fitness chart started trending downward because I wasn’t riding as often or as far; I was just banging out the steepest hills, then taking time off the bike to fully recover.

Dirty Dozen training went well enough until my mother got sick and I left for Maine, which abruptly terminated my season. The chart clearly shows the resulting precipitous decline in fitness from its late-August peak. See?

As with almost all images I post, you can click through for the full-sized version.

That’s a tactical view of 2016, but how does this season compare with other years? That’s what we see when we zoom out to a TRIMP / fitness chart for the past six years.

What you immediately notice is that the winter dip from 2015 to 2016 isn’t as deep as any previous year. That—and the irregular jagginess of the curve—reflects the fact that I managed to ride outside a lot last winter; whereas indoor trainer work would appear more regular, like what you see through the winter of 2014-15. Riding outside allowed me to start 2016 at a measurably higher fitness level than usual.

You also see some of the things I mentioned above: the early spring build-up, followed by a brief dip, then a very productive summer season, and a complete drop-off for the last four months of the year.

In terms of the absolute peak fitness I achieved, my max has been pretty consistent over the past three years. See?

These two charts are also available as a part of a paid Strava membership. I found them—and especially the underlying form and fatigue data that I haven’t shown here—insightful and very useful in preparing myself for major events this summer without over- or under-training.

2017 Goals

That’s all I want to say about 2016, which leads into the next logical question: what will 2017 look like?

There are a handful of things that I definitely want to accomplish next year, and a couple open questionmarks. Let’s start with the easy ones first.

I plan to purchase and learn how to use a new Garmin Edge 820 GPS cyclo-computer, replacing my reliable six year-old Edge 800. I’m really excited about the many new features it offers, some of which I describe in this post.

I would like to ride both days of next year’s Escape to the Lake MS Ride. This year, I only rode the first day because it was a century and Day 2 was not, and because I could avoid worrying about hotels and overnighting and return transportation. However, Day 2 ends on the shore of Lake Erie, which I have yet to visit, and I think I might enjoy completing the entire event.

I plan to ride next October’s Woiner Cancer Foundation 321 Ride. This year I registered, fundraised, and got the ride jersey, but couldn’t participate due to my mother’s hospitalization.

And it goes without saying that I want to attempt my first Dirty Dozen next year. After several years of anticipation, in 2016 I was all set to take on that challenge, until life intervened. Now having ridden almost all of those hills, I really want to add that ride—and the steepest public street in the world—to my palmares.

Those are my main goals. What about the ones I said were questionable?

One is a 2016 goal that I deferred on: the purchase of a fancy new indoor trainer. That wasn’t necessary last year because Pittsburgh had a very mild winter, and I was trying to save money. The need is still there, but only time will tell whether I need to pull the trigger on it or if it can wait. But I won’t get any indoor or outdoor riding done during this extended stay in Maine.

And then there’s the employment question. Having a job is nice, and it does introduce the possibility of commuting by bike, but it also restricts how much time I can spend in the saddle. Although employment is a non-cycling goal, I’m definitely hoping that I can mesh those two aspects of life together successfully. But that’s also contingent on getting back home again.

That wraps up the end-of-season retrospective. I enjoyed my first year in Pittsburgh, and it was very eventful from a cycling perspective. I learned a lot, got some cool new gear, set benchmarks as well as some new records, met a lot of people, and experienced a whole lot of territory.

Here’s hoping for an equally enjoyable season in 2017!

Much like Bay State Bike Week, Pittsburgh has its own celebration of cycling, known as Bikefest. The 10-day period features an opening party, plus lots of rides and events designed to promote cycling and bring the community together. The week ends with a big citywide populaire ride called PedalPGH which is similar to Boston’s Hub on Wheels tour.

My Bikefest began with the Every Neighborhood Ride, which hits all 90 of Pittsburgh’s recognized neighborhoods. Including riding to and from the start, it wound up being a solid 86 miles over 11 hours in the saddle, and the mile and a quarter of ascent made it the second most climbing I’ve ever done in a single ride.

Needless to say, it was a long, hard day, made longer by waiting for stragglers who were in over their heads, two flats, plus an impromptu water stop that included a tour of the Robotics Center. More than half of the 18-20 riders who started with the fast group wound up falling behind or aborting, leaving a well-matched remainder of six of us to fully complete the course (although additional riders from the slower group would finish behind us). One of our riders made the case that the Every Neighborhood Ride might be more difficult than the Dirty Dozen!

The pace of the fast group was just right for me, the riders were all friendly and outgoing, and the rest stops were well stocked. We rode through several areas and roads which were new to me, including a few bridges I hadn’t dared venture across. It was an excellent ride.

At the end of the day, I didn’t have the legs for another 15 miles to make it a full century ride, which is fine. I’m glad I rode it, but I was also extremely glad it was over! And I met a handful of welcoming local riders whose paths I hope to cross again in the future.

Three days later I participated in a regular Tuesday night Team Decaf ride, which in this case was a reprise of the “Big 8 With a View” route we’d done a month ago. The legs… I’d like to say that my legs chose not to accompany me on that particular evening, but the reality is that they were very loudly and painfully vocal about the lack of recovery time after Saturday’s demands.

Here’s a link to the GPS log.

This past Saturday the Pittsburgh Major Taylor Cycling Club hosted a Tour de Red Belt metric century. At least, I think they did; when I showed up at the start, there was only only person there, giving out cue sheets. He didn’t seem to be holding people for a group start, so I set out and never saw a single fellow rider for the entire day.

The first half of the ride was (surprise!) a lot of up-and-down, but had nice mid-70s temperatures. The second half was almost all downhill (except, of course, my post-ride climb back up to Squirrel Hill), but also much hotter, as temperatures peaked out above 90. The route covered some roads that were new to me, and many that I’d done before.

The ride had originally been scheduled for the morning after the Neighborhood Ride, but got delayed a week due to weather, which my legs really appreciated. Although my muscles still weren’t fully recovered, they worked well enough to get me home, thanks to some supplemental stretching along the way.

Overall it was an okay ride, but riding all alone didn’t convey much of a BikeFest vibe at all. Kind of a yawner, actually.

The following day was PedalPGH, the local bike ride that is the equivalent of Boston’s Hub on Wheels.

While the 8- and 25-mile routes were “family-friendly”, the metric century was definitely not. It featured over 4,000 feet of very steep climbing, including one of the hills from the Dirty Dozen ride (Rialto).

It welcomed riders on mile two with a gut-punch: the mile-long 7-percent grade 400-foot ascent up Josephine and Arlington. Just as I reached the top, I found a discarded tag of some sort lying in the middle of the street, bearing the words “to be”; way too existential a concept after a 7am hillclimb.

Like HoW, I did my best to get well ahead of the pack of 2,600 other riders. After skipping the first three rest stops and a fourth ad hoc water stop manned by the Neighborhood Ride folks, I finally stopped for a breather at the top of Riverview Park.

By then I was ahead of most of the other riders on the metric century, but after descending down into the city, on Smallman Street we found ourselves merged in toward the back of the huge mass of amateur riders from the shorter routes.

Mixing faster riders in with slower, less skilled riders was both frustrating and dangerous. Twice I was nearly taken out by riders who simply decided to suddenly turn their bike sideways in the middle of the road and stop without warning, directly in front of me. Idiots.

I was happy when we forked off their route at Highland Park, but then after doing an extra loop, we were merged back in with them again, once more behind the hundreds of riders we’d worked so hard to pass before! And then they did it to us again on Dallas Ave, and then a fourth time from Beechwood to Schenley! They were basically torturing us.

I had come into the ride with heavy legs from both the Neighborhood and Red Belt rides. Although my legs complained, they worked well enough, only fading toward the very end of the ride. But the climb back up to Squirrel Hill left me completely spent.

Overall, it was nice to participate in the city’s big cycling event, but at the same time, like the Red Belt ride, it really wasn’t anything special. While it was good riding and conditioning, I don’t count metric centuries as major cycling goals or achievements.

Aside from the Mon Valley Century which I’ve already posted about here, there were a couple other noteworthy items which took place in August.

I started the month with a 10-day riding streak. While that wouldn’t have been worth mentioning back when I was commuting to work by bike, it’s very rare these days.

On one of those days I tackled long-anticipated Negley hill, a quarter mile of steady 15 percent grade. It’s too busy to ride regularly, but I’m glad I can finally say I’ve done it.

I also completed Strava’s August climbing challenge, which is worth mentioning only because at 11,000 meters (6.8 miles) it’s probably the most difficult of the year. But around here, the climbing challenges are easier to fulfill than the distance challenges!

Despite Pittsburgh miles being harder/hillier than Boston miles, by mid-August I’d already ridden further than I did in the full calendar year of 2015. It’s been nice having the free time and the weather conditions to allow me to ride more frequently... even if there are more hills.

2016 has been a great year so far, and there’s still three months left of it! Stay tuned for further developments…