2011 Cycling Report

My favorite ride of the 2011 – Levi’s GranFondo

Cycling is a great sport for numbers geeks.  We ride with computers that track speed, distance, cadence, power, heart rate and more.  Then we upload all of that information to Strava, which is sort of like facebook for athletes.  Sometimes reviewing the numbers after a ride and talking trash with other riders is more fun than the riding itself.  It’s also fun to look at your totals at the end of each year.

Compared to 2010, I spent a third less time on the bike.  There are a few reasons for this.  The biggest one is the weather.   We had the hottest summer on record this year and since I don’t do well in extreme heat I hardly rode at all.  Also, I did far fewer organized events (a.k.a. “t-shirt rides”) which are great for piling up miles.  Finally, I was generally less motivated this year to get on the bike.

So here are my final stats for 2011:

Total Rides:  98 (down 38% – less than 2 rides/week!)

Total Miles:  3330 (down 33% – only 64 miles/week)

Time on Bike:  277 hours (down 34%)

This is not a recipe for becoming a stronger cyclist.  Most of the guys I ride with log two or three (or even four) times as many miles.  But cycling is their primary sport whereas my first love is climbing.  However, somehow I did become a little stronger in 2011.  My times on routes I do regularly are faster, although I have far less endurance for longer rides (60+ miles).

Hopefully I’ll be able to do more riding in 2012.  As they say, I’m not getting any younger…

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