Orny's Cycling Journal

No shit, there I was… lying in the hospital, being told I’d had a stroke, two weeks before this year’s Livestrong Challenge ride.

That was about six weeks ago. For my initial reactions, read this post and this followup in my general blog.

Here, in this post, I’ll talk specifically about the stroke’s implications for my cycling, as well as how it’s gone on the bike over the past month. Then I’ll circle back to my unexpectedly limited participation in Team Kermit’s Livestrong weekend.

Cycling Post-Stroke

When I came home three days after my stroke, I had the following concerns with respect to my cycling career:

• How much numbness would I have in my left hand, and would there be any loss of control?
• I’d been warned by the doctors to expect my stamina to be reduced. By how much? Would that affect both my strength and endurance?
• How monomanically would I have to monitor my blood sugar and hydration, which are critical for both cyclists and stroke survivors?
• Would I ever regain enough fitness to return to group rides?
• Would I ever be able to get back to doing long rides? Metric centuries? Imperial centuries?

2024 Tour of Watopia

Having received nothing but encouragement from my medical team, my rehab plan was to start riding on the indoor trainer to learn my new limitations and regain confidence in my health before hopefully returning to the road.

So five days after leaving the hospital and eight days after my stroke, I updated my months-idle Zwift setup and did my first indoor trainer ride. It was a slow 45-minute, 20km effort where I gently ramped my heart rate up from 90 to 150 BPM and back. I wasn’t strong, but the ride was successful.

By chance, my resumption of indoor training coincided with the beginning Zwift’s popular six-week Tour of Watopia event, so I made regular use of those rides to rebuild a little lost fitness and a whole lot of lost confidence. Aside from some concerns about cardiac palpitations, it’s been mostly clear sailing since then, with rides up to 54 KM proving eminently feasible.

Despite doing a bunch of indoor riding, it took a while before I felt comfortable cycling alone, outdoor, away from the safety of home. Between that and my focus on Zwift, I’ve only done one short outdoor ride so far, but that went fine. At this point there’s really nothing stopping me from riding outdoors… up to a certain distance and intensity.

So a month later, do I have answers to my questions?

• I’ve had zero numbness or loss of control. All’s well there.
• My endurance actually seems all right. My raw sprint power is off a bit, but that might just be detraining while I was recovering, and I’d rather not push my heart until I’ve talked with my cardiologist.
• I’m making major changes to my diet, but can still be more relaxed about high-glycemic foods on days that I ride. I really do need to master hydration. There’ll be a post on my experience with a nutritionist at some point in the future.
• Even before my stroke, I was already off the back on competitive-paced group rides, so I may have to step away from them, or at least temper my expectations. Hopefully I can find some less pacey rides, although that’s been a challenge in Austin.
• Although I haven’t tested myself, I think I’m still good for a metric century. But imperial centuries were already a big ask for a 60 year old, and they’re only getting harder, especially in the Texas heat! I just don’t know how many centuries I’ve got left in me… if any.

Some of my questions just won’t be answered until next spring, when I’ll have more information and hope to ramp my outdoor training back up again. I still have several upcoming diagnostic tests and followup appointments that could change my plans completely.

As for that event I had planned…

Livestrong Weekend

I registered for October’s 100-mile Livestrong Challenge back in May, not knowing that I’d have a stroke just two weeks before the event. Although I had just started riding my indoor trainer on Zwift, I had not attempted a single outdoor ride before the event. So there was no way I could do the ride.

As usual, my Boston-based PMC and Team Kermit buddies came to town. The Thursday before the event, I drove over to Jewboy Burgers to meet up with Steven, Christophe, and David as they refueled in the middle of their post-arrival shakedown ride.

On Friday I drove in to Mellow Johnny’s bike shop to pick up my ride registration packet, tee shirt, and rider swag. As a member of Team Kermit, I’d been given VIP tag #32, four places down from last year’s #28.

After leaving the shop, I synced up with Paulie and the riders at the start of the regular Friday Truancy group ride. We chatted before they set off, and I learned that local rider Clint is a longtime stroke survivor, which was both a new connection and an encouraging data point at a time when I needed them. After they rolled out to begin their ride, I went home and jumped on Zwift for an hour.

Sunday was Livestrong’s event day. While Team Kermit were out on the course, I started my day with an indoor ride. It was my token “Livestrong Challenge”, although at 32 KM it was the same distance as the event’s shortest route! After a shower and lunch, I drove into town to meet Team Kermit’s full contingent at the finish line. It was a delightful afternoon chatting with familiar PMC buddies as we waited for our two 100-mile riders to reach the finish.

I was, of course, disappointed that I had to cancel doing my own planned 100-mile Livestrong ride – which would have been my 111th imperial century – but this was one of those times when circumstances dictate that you just take the loss gracefully.

Looking Forward

The plan from here is pretty straightforward and definitely gradual.

Despite almost year-round cycling weather here in Austin, I’ll be concentrating mostly on Zwift until spring. First, it’s just safer for me to stay at home, especially as I gradually test myself on increasingly longer “distances”. Plus Zwift’s Tour of Watopia runs through November 19th, and that sweet double XP beckons. And they’ve added a couple dozen new routes for me to knock off. On top of all that, I will be hanging out with my PMC buddies on the weekly Pan-Mass Challenge Zwift group rides, which have also resumed. And I hope Zwift’s usual monthly gran fondo series will run again this winter, as well. So there’s lots of incentives to ride the indoor trainer for a while.

Outdoor rides will be a distant second priority. I’ll need to regain my comfort riding solo, then my confidence in riding longer distances. Whether I return to group rides or longer events won’t be answered until sometime in the spring. But with lingering health questions and cooler weather in the coming months, I’m happy to take my time building back up to that level of fitness. After all, if I were back in Boston – or even Pittsburgh – I wouldn’t be riding outdoors through the winter anyways!

Next spring I’ll have a much better handle on where I’m at both mentally and physically as I recover from an extremely harrowing brush with death. Things seem pretty good at the moment… Though, as I’ve learned, it can all change in any instant.

At this time last year, I summarized my first winter using a smart trainer and Zwift to maintain fitness. Now this year's spring blogpost is due, even though the Corona virus and shelter-in-place orders will extend the indoor riding season into April, and May, and June, and...

But let’s start with the good news and winter happenings before turning to the more unpleasant, ominous future.

The Harrogate UCI World Champs course

Epic KoM

Scenic ride through Titans Grove

Not a bad day, for December!

My Xmas gift: the Tron bike

New Year's in the Italian village

Combo Jersey

Halloween dinosaur on a mountain bike

The Herd kit

In the six months from October through March I rode 2,830 miles, 99 percent of them on the indoor trainer. I did one-third more riding than the previous winter, mostly because I didn’t get my trainer until December of that year.

In that time, Zwift has given us a lot of changes and additions. The most noteworthy were the addition of the undulating Titans Grove route, the Yorkshire UCI World Championship course, the short Crit City expansion, and a much needed redo of the half-baked Richmond (Virginia) UCI course. Zwift introduced mountain bikes and even tested steering in a short off-road path. And they debuted individual and team time trials, although I haven’t tried those as of yet.

And one has to mention how well Zwift have handled the dramatic and unexpected growth in usership resulting from the Corona virus lockdowns. A year ago, it was noteworthy if there were 10,000 to 15,000 people Zwifting simultaneously. Recently we’ve been topping out around 35,000: three times last year’s peak.

The biggest farce of the year has to be the Fence, a tool that community organizers have long begged for, to help keep group rides together. I found it inconvenient and fiddly. And ride leaders only transitioned their whining about fly-away riders to complaining about people merely riding close to the Fence. Plus Zwift botched the implementation so horribly that they had to withdraw the feature after a short time.

Meanwhile I made a few improvements to my own Zwifting setup. The biggest win was buying a smart outlet, which allowed me to turn on my cooling fan using my smartphone, without getting off the bike. I also wrote a background program called zwift-pic-monitor that automatically displays any screen shots I take while riding (normally Zwift saves each photo but doesn't show it). And I added a new IRL cycling jersey to my already large collection when The Herd—the club I ride with on Zwift—completed its long-awaited design.

On the negative side, I’ve been plagued by chain drops and slippage, particularly during high-power sprinting efforts. I’ve already installed a new chain, so I suspect my outer chainring is worn; however, I can’t verify or fix that at the bike shop until the current Corona virus lockdown is lifted.

That brings us to this winter's achievements; it’s quite a list.

In December I completed my first year on Zwift. Disappointingly, I never got the anniversary email they usually send out.

I finished the December 100-mile mission, the April 250k mission, the Italy and Everest challenges, the 5-stage Tour of London, the 7-stage Tour de Zwift, the 3-stage fondo series, and the 3-stage Haute Route Watopia. I rode 16 stages of the (nominally 5-stage) Tour of Watopia because they were doling out double experience points; but I only did one out of 3 stages of the Tour of Innsbruck. I earned the Zwift mountain bike & tires, acquired the Zipp 808/Super9 disc wheelset, and was awarded the much-coveted Meilenstein Lightweight wheels upon completing my 10th ascent of the formidable Alpe du Zwift.

I started the now-poorly-titled “off-season” at Level 26, and am currently at Level 38. But after two winters I’m only 56 percent of the way to the current max level (50) because it takes lots more XP to level-up at higher levels.

And then we get into the really noteworthy stuff...

After ascending 5.7 times the height of Mt. Everest, I earned Zwift’s Tron “Concept” bike. Everyone covets it because it takes a long time to get and has ostentatious glowing tires. Although noteworthy, it’s tacky and doesn’t perform any better than several “real” in-game bicycles, so it’s of little interest to me.

I earned the Masochist badge for completing 25 ascents of the Alpe du Zwift. That’s hard and also takes time to complete. A nice, respectable achievement. Tho I’ve just about given up on breaking the 60 minute ascent barrier.

I’ve already written about completing Zwift’s challenge for completing each of the in-game routes: first an initial 25 routes, then the full 67 routes. The second set was my most memorable and noteworthy achievement of the year, because it included several of Zwift’s hardest courses.

The longest of those routes was 107 miles, and I also extended the second-longest one to 100 miles. As you know, 100+ mile rides are how I judge my year. The following week I notched a third one by repeating the 33-mile Stage 1 of the Watopia Tour three times in one day.

With my usual real-world events being cancelled due to the Corona virus, I’m hoping to do rides on Zwift that match the distance and climbing of the outdoor centuries I’ll miss. The first of those was a challenging 200k (125 miles) with 8,400 feet of climbing that I completed yesterday, but that deserves its own separate blogpost. However, that means I’ve already completed four “Zentury” rides so far this year.

Mimicking my first IRL event is a segue to where my training stands now. In a normal year, I’d use this space to summarize my level of fitness and preparedness for the transition to upcoming spring events. Although outdoor riding is going to be severely curtailed, there’s still good reason to review where my fitness stands.

My Chronic Training Load (CTL) bottomed out around 50 at the end of October, as I recovered from a strained achilles, but the aforementioned route challenge motivated me to train hard through November, December, and January. By New Year's, my CTL had risen to 80, which exceeds my usual summertime peak. After those two Zenturies to complete the route challenge, my CTL maxed out at 98, setting a new and unexpected all-time fitness record—in January! Since then, I’ve let it subside back down to 75, which is still above my summertime peak form.

While recovering from last fall’s injury, I produced a disappointing 197W back in my November Functional Threshold Power (FTP) test; but in February I bounced back up to 215W, and a subsequent Alpe run bumped it up to 227W, which are both closer to what I would expect when I’m in form. I’ll see where I stand again in May.

Based on my CTL and FTP, I’m in great shape for whatever riding I'll do, indoors or out. But thanks to the Corona virus, it’ll be more of the former than the latter. All my group rides and major events in April, May, and most of June have been cancelled, and I expect that will also be the case through July at least.

It might make sense, then, to revisit the goals I set for this year. Ironically, four months ago, I wrote the following:

I don’t really expect to surpass my 2019 season, due to this year's confluence of circumstances. Will 2020 also feature great weather, limited travel, no job commitment, and an understanding partner who will loan me her car to get to distant rides? And can I continue to evade the growing concerns of age and health?

While I couldn’t foresee cancellation of the entire cycling calendar along with all other public gatherings, I was skeptical that 2020 would be as good as 2019. That was eerily prescient, huh? Barely two weeks into spring we knew that unless the trajectory of the pandemic suddenly changed, there would be no outdoor centuries for me this summer. We’re left now to do what we can with what we’ve got.

That’s why I can’t tell you how glad I am that I bought my smart trainer and started Zwifting in 2018, so that my indoor setup was up and running a year before we were ordered to shelter in place. I hesitate to imagine how stir-crazy I’d be now if I wasn’t set up for indoor riding!

But I’m not looking forward to spending one of my remaining summers inside. I already miss being warmed by the sun, fresh air, being out in nature, exploring new places, and making lasting memories. But putting miles down on the turbo is infinitely better than not riding at all… or being deceased.

Stay tuned, and stay indoors!

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!

With my recent purchase of a thermal jacket and awesome thermal bib tights from Craft, I’ve become a lot more comfortable riding in colder temperatures. Matched with a balaclava and either thermal gloves or lobster mitts, I’m able to ride comfortably for hours at 20-40°.

However, there’s always been one glaring problem with cold-weather rides: full-fingered gloves make it impossible to operate my new bike computer. Its capacitive touch-screen requires contact with skin to complete an electrical circuit to determine where the touch took place.

Although not a critical issue, it was most pressing (pun intended) when relying on the computer for navigational cues. But the computer just won’t respond to fingers insulated (in both thermal and electrical senses) within full-fingered gloves.

This difficulty first came up on the 3-2-1 Ride, a chilly century along the Great Allegheny Passage. Fortunately, being mostly on a bike path, the route didn’t require much navigational work. I easily made do by just bending down low over the handlebars and operating the touchscreen… with my nose!

In later months I’d also work it by removing the computer from its handlebar mount, bringing it up to my face, and rubbing it against my nose. But after a few swipes, it became apparent that a nose just isn’t a particularly good stylus, and a smear of nose grease really detracts from a screen’s legibility.

I considered buying some newfangled gloves with capacitive finger pads, but that seemed unnecessarily expensive, since both my sets of gloves are fairly new and otherwise work great. I looked into capacitive gel and dots that you could apply to the fingers, but those had pretty poor reviews.

Finally, I decided to spend ten bucks on a bobbin of conductive stainless steel thread, sewing it through the fingertip of my full-fingered gloves, lobster mitts, and my non-cycling winter gloves.

While it isn’t perfect, the conductive thread doesn’t work too badly, doing the trick more often than not. And that’s good enough, when the alternative is stopping and taking off one’s gloves in 17° weather!

I’d generally recommend the thread. It’s not too heavy gauge, so it’s plenty flexible and easy to work with. And, of course, it works just as well with capacitive cell phone screens as it does with bike computers.

However, there are a couple things to be aware of.

There’s no need to be cheap here, so buy reputable thread. There are plenty of people out there selling fakes.

Secondly, remember that the thread works by conducting the electrical charge from your body to the screen. Thus, you can’t just sew the outside surface of the glove; you have to go all the way through the material to the inside, ensuring that there’s a good contact with the flesh of your finger inside the glove as well as the screen. When the thread doesn’t work, it’s most likely because it’s not in solid contact with your finger.

And although it’s pretty easy to work with, trying to manipulate a sewing needle in the tiny, narrow inside of a glove’s finger can be difficult. It doesn’t have to be the cleanest sewing job, but you want it to be both effective and at least a little durable, so take your time.

Do that, and you can keep your gloves on and your fingers warm, and keep the nose-grease off your bike computer!

I’ve been logging my weight every week since 2011, and the primitive data always left me with the impression that I put a little weight on in the off-season, then trimmed down to “race weight” during the summer. But I wasn’t really sure…

So I did what any OCPD data junkie would do and made a pivot table to average those six years worth of body weight data and charted the result. Here’s what my average year looks like:

Not wanting to humiliate anyone, rather than disclosing my weight, I’ve labeled my seasonal weight change as pounds above and below my long-term average weight.

Now, what did I learn?

First, it sorta confirmed my hypothesis of seasonally-correlated weight gain and loss. I do gain a little weight in the winter, and lose it in the summer.

However, as the flatness of the curve shows, the range of variance is surprisingly narrow. Leaving aside specious outliers, we’re basically talking about a range of plus-or-minus two pounds from average. So that big seasonal swing usually amounts to a total of just four pounds.

But the thing that most surprised me was that the timing was off.

I expected my weight loss to begin in February, when I typically commit to my training diet, and to start gaining it back in August, after all my major events are done and I take full advantage of being free of those dietary restrictions.

But in reality the transitions occur a couple months later than expected. Even though I start dieting in February, I keep gaining weight until May; and although I end my training diet in August, I keep losing weight until mid-November!

The poor correspondence between dieting and weight confused me for a minute, until I realized that there’s something else that has a better correlation with this data: my cycling.

Due to the weather, I don’t start riding in February; the overwhelming bulk of my riding takes place between late April and the beginning of December. Taking that into account, my seasonal weight change is far more closely correlated with my activity level during the cycling season than with my self-imposed training diet.

Obviously correlation doesn’t imply causation, and I don’t know if the same result would hold for anyone else, but I found that really interesting.

I toatally forgot to mention an important development in my 2016 season summary post! The evolution of my annual rides list!

Every winter, when there’s lots of desire to ride but little-to-no riding happening, one of the things that helps me cope is planning—or is it fantasizing?—about the season ahead: where I’ll ride, how far I’ll ride, and—most importantly—which major events I’ll participate in.

Major events like charity rides and centuries are an easy way to set goals for the year, and to structure your training plan.

Knowing which events you’ll commit to also lets you plan the logistics of making them happen. You not only want to set those dates aside on your calendar, but you might need to reserve transportation or a hotel room, or plan your charity fundraising effort.

Naturally, the dead of winter is an ideal time to make a list of the rides you want to do. Back in Boston, I had no problem making my list, because after fifteen years of riding, I already knew all the big organized rides. But when I moved to Pittsburgh, I first had to discover what rides were available to me.

But that wasn’t very easy. I found numerous organizations with ride calendars, but none of them were very useful. Some clubs had blank calendars that they didn’t maintain. Other clubs listed their own rides, but no one else’s. And surprisingly worst of all were the groups who tried to aggregate every ride known to man into one big munge that was both unreadable and hard to navigate!

When I looked at those sites—especially the aggregate calendars—the contrast with my succinct, regular one-page annual summary was stark. The information was out there, but it needed to be presented in a more reader-friendly way. In short, it was time to put on my information design hat.

The first task of an information designer is to understand what information the end-user needs, because everything else follows from that. In this instance, the intended audience is myself, which made it easy to just interview myself to find out what I really wanted!

Ironically, the criteria for including a ride isn’t very quantifiable. I wanted major rides that were “serious” and “nontrivial”. But what does any of that mean?

One way to define “major” is simply by distance. There are a lot of short rides, but you usually don’t plan your year around them. You could pick an arbitrary minimum length, like 50 miles, but that’s not perfect, because you might still make exceptions for some shorter rides.

Another way is repetition. Obviously, if a ride happens every week, it’s probably not a big deal if you miss any particular one. Whereas you might not want to miss a ride that takes place only once a year. But that’s not great either, because Pittsburgh has lots of little social rides which take place annually that you wouldn’t structure your season around.

Another obvious thing to think about is rides that require pre-registration, or which might fill up or sell out if you don’t reserve a spot early. You’d definitely want to note a ride like that in your calendar.

And anything that’s a significant event, where there will be lots of riders or people you want to see or some other significant reason to be there. But what’s “significant”? Again, it’s subjective.

Ultimately, the criteria I use for including a ride on my list is whether it’s something I—or some other serious rider—would want to plan one’s season around, for whatever reason. Still vague and subjective, but it’s what seems to work for me.

In the past, I’ve usually kept my list of events for the season on a single sheet of paper, either in a chronological list or in a compressed year-at-a-glance calendar, like you see at left.

Last year, while composing my first Pittsburgh-area list, I posted a copy to the BikePGH message board in order to get feedback from other local riders. They pointed out several rides I’d missed, but they also suggested I share it by publishing it online.

So after some updates, I announced my creation of the Annual Rides Calendar, hosted on the BikingPGH wiki.

I’m very pleased with the result. The whole regional cycling calendar is distilled down to the absolute essentials, listing no more than six to eight serious rides per month, max, with links directly to the rides’ websites. It’s easy to scan by date in order to see both what’s coming up soon as well as a whole-season overview, without being cluttered to death with every little weekly ride across every neighborhood in Western Pennsylvania.

This new format calendar was useful last year, and the exercise of making it helped me gain familiarity with the big rides that take place here. Some other local cyclists have praised its usefulness, and I’m very pleased with it.

And now that the new year has begun, I’ve updated the Annual Rides Calendar for 2017!

Things have been quiet on the cycling front.

The one item worth noting is that I had hoped to surpass my December monthly mileage record, which stood at 127 miles. My goal was actually 175 or 200 miles.

Thanks to favorable weather, I was already at 111 miles on December 4th. However, I only managed another 40 miles during the rest of the month. So the new record sits at 151. That’s okay; it’ll give me something to shoot for next year.

With that, we swap tires and clamp the bike into the indoor trainer, where it’ll stay until the end of March, most likely.

Although I’ll start using the trainer soon, I don’t plan on actually ramping up my training until March, anyways. I figure I deserve a good break after last year’s 4,000-mile season.

But I’m looking forward to receiving the 2009 Pan-Mass Challenge yearbook, and registering for my tenth PMC ride on Tuesday!

Wednesday night, in antcipation of Boston’s first snowstorm of the year, I put the 700 x 40C tires on my old hybrid. It was still clear when I rode in Thursday morning, but the blizzard came on very quickly while I and my coworkers were out for lunch.

Even as early as 2pm, Boston’s roads were a complete logjam. No one was moving, anywhere in the city. Later, it wouldn’t be uncommon to hear how it took drivers five or six hours to drive as many miles, or that schoolchildren who were let out at 2pm were stuck on busses until 11pm.

By 5pm there was a good six or seven inches of snow on the ground, and although it was light, dry, powdery stuff, that’s the point at which biking in the snow goes from “fun” to “hard work” and “treacherous”. So I let all but 20 pounds of air out of my tires (for better traction) and made my way outside at the height of the storm.

Just getting from the office door to Canal Street was difficult, as no one had cleared the sidewalks. But once out in the street, I was fine. I followed a snowplow toward Causeway Street, moving well and enjoying the packed snow crunching beneath my tires.

Causeway and Nashua Streets were another story. They really hadn’t been plowed, which left half a foot of fluffy powder to wade through. However, they’re main arteries, and passing vehicles had packed some of the snow down in very slippery ruts. The combination is really hard for a bike to navigate through, but I managed to keep upright to Leverett Circle.

At Leverett Circle I hopped onto the Esplanade’s Paul Dudley White bike path, passing a father pulling his son around in a sled. The path was perfect: it had been plowed once at maybe 4pm, but now had maybe two inches of fresh powder that was an absolute pleasure to ride through. At 13 mph, I was making better time than the traffic on Storrow Drive, and the only discomfort I had was some cold snow falling and accumulating inside my balaklava. Even the couple small snowbanks left behind by the plows were easy to burst through at speed.

When I got to the footbridge to cross over Storrow to Dartmouth Street, I hit my only real roadblock. While the DCR had plowed the bike path, they understandably hadn’t cleared the footbridge, and I just couldn’t make it up a ramp clogged with seven inches of new snow, so I walked the bike to the top of the ramp, them rode across and down and over to Beacon Street, smirking at the six lanes of stopped traffic on Storrow.

Beacon Street was more of the same: three lanes of traffic, not moving an inch. Although the road was a bit slick, I managed to navigate between cars and trucks and busses the one block from Dartmouth to Exeter, passing maybe three dozen gridlocked vehicles along the way.

Both Exeter and Comm Ave were fairly well cleared, and easy to ride.

In the end, my two-mile commute, which usually takes 15 minutes, might have taken 20. I had fun, got some exercise, made it home very quickly and without stress, and got out to enjoy the fresh air and one of the most beautiful scenes of the year: the first snowfall.

Yet the people who think it’s preferable to sit trapped in a little metal box spewing carbon monoxide for seven hours on a five-mile commute call me “crazy” for biking home in a snowstorm.

Can I call for a sanity check, please?

After 1,100 hours and 16,000 miles on the bike, you have to figure it was about time for something to happen. Last night I was right hooked by an SUV on the way home.

I was eastbound on Comm Ave, one block from my house when a big, black SUV came around me just in time to make a right turn onto Exeter, right in my path. I slammed into their right front quarter and the bike and I were deflected to the right, throwing me onto my right side.

I rolled and skidded to a stop and took inventory. Fortunately, most of the impact was taken by the bulky winter clothing I had on. My right knee took the brunt of my fall, resulting in a couple good patches of road rash and bruises. My left forearm also seems to have been injured, although I have no idea what from: a side mirror? my handlebars? the road?

The driver, a young black woman, stopped and did a fair job of being apologetic, repeatedly claiming “I didn’t see you!!!”. I checked myself and the bike (the bike seems to have received less injury than I did) and got her name and digits before letting her go and going home to look myself over.

My arm and leg still sting and are quite swollen and very stiff, although there’s nothing to complain of beyond the usual minor crash damage.

I’ve thought back, and I can’t see how I could have done anything different to avoid the accident. I was well-lit, wearing light clothes, in a well-lit area, riding within the travel lane. Maybe I could have ridden more defensively, but I’m already pretty conservative, and to ride more so one would pretty much have to give up any hope of getting anywhere. I guess sometimes your number just comes up, and I do know that mine was overdue.

I guess I’m fortunate to have gotten out of it with nothing worse. And I suppose I can look at it as a relatively inexpensive lesson in defensive riding. But it definitely reinforces my distaste for people who drive SUVs.

Took advantage of a 56-degree day to keep up the riding. Unfortunately, winter probably isn't the best time to undertake a 50-mile ride that includes climbing Summit Ave in Brighton, Prospect Hill in Waltham, and (for the first time) the short but painful Pine Hill in Lincoln, just across from Walden Pond. I think I'll take a nap now...