So it’s that time when we look back at the year that was and consider where we’ve been, what we’ve done in regard to our goals, and consider where you’d like to go from there. And here at Applied Life it’s now an annual tradition. You know, cuz I did it once before, last year.
We’ll set aside the fact that there’s nothing actually special about the end of the month of December, and further set aside the fact that a more reasonably designed calendar would end the year either on the winter solstice or the vernal equinox. But that’s what you get when you have a calendar designed by committee, so, you know, I won’t even bring that up here.
As always, it is always important to remember to compare oneself to oneself, not to others. I periodically have to remind myself of this, particularly when undertaking something like this. With that in mind, what follows is a look at _my_ year in cycling.
Distance
My goal for this past year was to get to 1500 miles. This seemed a reasonable, achievable increase from my ultimate 2018 total of 1372 miles (well, technically 1372.14, but who’s counting...).
That won’t seem like a huge increase - 1372 to 1500 - for some people, I realize. In the cycling groups I follow there are people who literally have tens of thousands of miles per year. But keeping in mind that adage of comparing oneself to oneself, it seemed reasonable at the time.
I may have undersold myself. I met the goal this year, and then sailed past it a bit, to hit a year end mark of 1722.34 miles.
In terms of the how and why, according to Cyclemeter I rode both more often, and for longer distances per ride on average. Last year I managed 106 rides, with an average distance of 12.94 miles. For 2019 I came in at 121 rides, with an average distance of 14.23 miles.
That may seem pretty elementary, and in some ways it is. But rides and distance both take up time, and it can be challenging to squeeze additional riding into my schedule. But I did make a conscious effort to increase the length of my Sunday rides, which seems to have had an effect. I’ve also tried to do a better job of taking riding opportunities where they present - for example, riding to my mailbox on days when I am working from home (it’s a 16-mile round trip to a PO Box - I’m not just riding to the end of the driveway).
It also helps sometimes when you have a new toy, which brings us to...
Machines
I know that a lot of cyclists are N+1 types (as in the right number of bikes to own is the number I have now - _N_ - plus one more). I am not. I think new bikes are cool and all - they sure do look pretty sitting there on the showroom floor. But I’m really much more the sort of person who establishes a long-term relationship with a machine. I rode my 1987 Cannondale for at least a decade before getting the Catrike Pocket, and I was set to ride off into the sunset with the little blue machine.
But I didn’t.
At the end of July I took possession of an Atomic Orange Catrike Expedition.
To be clear, was absolutely nothing wrong with the Pocket, and I’d been happy riding it for the past two years or so. But I’d purchased the Pocket as my entry into the world of recumbent trikes, a chance to see whether or not I liked it. My selection of it as a particular model was one of convenience - it came up as available on eBay, was in my price range, and was only an hour away.
It’s worked out well for all of that, but when I felt like I was finally in a position to consider getting something different, I decided to take a more considered look at what I thought would work for me and my cycling goals, and the Expedition seemed to fill the bill. I’m liking it a lot, as anyone looking back across the posts this year can see. And I suspect this will be a long-term fling.
And this doesn’t hang the Pocket out to dry. I resized it for MLW so she can have her own triking adventures.
Trips
This year, as usual, most of my rides started and ended at my driveway. But between opportunities offered by work travel, and some additional general adventurousness, I did get out to a few new trails, as well as revisited some more. Those included:
- The month of May offered an opportunity to drive down to the pointy end of the state, so I took a ride on the Tunnel Hill Trail, riding from Vienna to Karnak.
- In June I made the trip over to Sterling to tackle the Hennepin Feeder Canal trail. I managed to get very wet. Incidentally, the feeder canal provides the water supply for the Hennepin Canal. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because it’s Illinois gateway trail for the Rails to Trails coast to coast path project.
- In July I returned to the I&M Canal trail and learned a thing or two about what the rainy season can do to a trike. And then I returned again to go hunting for my lost flag (ugh).
- In August the opportunity to ride the Des Plaines River Trail presented itself.
- I rode in the Farmondo again in September.
- On Black Friday this year I decided to give the Expedition a shot at the Military Ridge Trail in southwestern Wisconsin. I did not distinguish myself in terms of either speed or distance, but I did learn a thing or two about the rolling resistance provided by wet sand, and got quite a workout in the process.
There were a couple of others that I returned to or tried but didn’t find the muse to put them down here, including two return trips to Rend Lake (one on the Pocket, one on the Expedition), and a late day adventure riding north to the titular Tunnel on the Tunnel Hill Trail (that one may still get its own post). One of my goals for last year was to explore more trails and, all in all I think I managed to get there.
Miscellaneous
I had a couple of other areas of more technical exploration in 2019:
- When I ordered the Expedition I also ordered up a pair of Shimano Spd sandals and decided to give being clipped in a try. That experiment was not successful, but I did learn some things along the way; and
- My desire (okay - need) to sometimes have coffee along for the ride led me to add a Terracycle Adjustomatic Bottle Mount to my Expedition. Besides having a product name that is just delightful, it also works very well; and
- The addition of a second trike required me to rethink the storage setup in our comparatively tiny garage. And finally
- Serendipity brought along the opportunity to get a new mobile trike garage in the form of a Subaru Outback. That experiment is more successful than the spd shoes thus far...
Next Year?
The end of the year is also the time to set goals for the new one coming.
In terms of mileage, last year I set my goal at 1500 miles. In retrospect, that seems like it may have been too safe a number, but I also find myself mentally wanting to make excuses about how I’m not sure where or how I would fit much more riding into my schedule. I’m sure I’m not the only person that struggles with that issue - as I said before, distance equals time. Still, I think I need to at least shoot for a 2000 mile goal.
There - I said it. Now we’ll see if I can actually _do_ it...
Last year I said I wanted to explore more trails. I’d like to do a little more of that for 2020 - I think there are a handful of routes in areas I visit that I haven’t yet taken advantage of. But I’d really like to manage a couple of options that I didn’t achieve from last year:
- I would really like to finally make it from LaSalle to Ottawa along the I&M Canal Trail. I tried this year, but was stymied by mud and... well... just so much mud. And I didn’t make it back later in the season, when the rain finally had tapered off.
- Similarly, I didn’t make that trip further down the Hennepin Canal Trail. I did, as noted above, take a ride along the feeder canal, but I didn’t make it back down for the main event. Portions of the Hennepin Canal trail were closed during the rainiest parts of this spring (this is something that, hopefully, Rails to Trails has a plan for sorting out), but again, didn’t take the opportunity to return to it later in the season.
And along these lines, I’d like to see if I can’t find a way to fit the occasional stop in at restaurants or taverns along those routes. This is a thing that I’ve often considered, but with one exception - the Lodi Tap in Utica, following my struggles with the mud along the I&M canal trail (did I mention the mud?) - I usually just keep going (I’m a fairly solitary soul by nature). But I think that would add to the variety along the way.
And finally, I need to finish my trailer project. I’ll be honest here and admit that part of the issue is that working on the trailer directly competes with riding - both are spare time activities, and faced with doing one or the other, I’ve generally chosen to ride. I may need to bring it inside and do some work when the winter snowstorms rise up.
So: that’s it for 2019. Come on 2020 and show us what you’ve got!