What are your greatest achievements since you started cycling, excluding local rides?

[C R]

My first 50km ride. When I started cycling again in 2016 five miles felt like an enormous distance. I increased the length of my rides gradually, and in July 2018 I got my first 50km in the bag.

I've done longer rides, longest 120km, but that 50km still feels special.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

and at 1400m, it was the longest and best tour I ever did.

Wow, 1400 metres is a long tour

 

[Vantage]

Greatest achievement was my dad and I spending a week with each other and not killing each other during our wotr tour.
2nd greatest is getting back on the bike after a stroke. Couldn't even stand up without falling over the first week home.

 

[Jameshow]

Greatest achievement was my dad and I spending a week with each other and not killing each other during our wotr tour.
2nd greatest is getting back on the bike after a stroke. Couldn't even stand up without falling over the first week home.

I didn't know you'd had a stroke!
Bravo to you.

Is that the electric bike running ok?

 

[oldwheels]

Hmmm .... OK, how about this one:
https://www.google.com/maps/@55.912...pitch=0&thumbfov=100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

Google wants me to sign in so cannot see it.

 

[C R]

I forgot to credit @ColinJ, who suggested I try for the 50km a month challenge, which was the push I needed to get into longer distances.

 

[ColinJ]

I forgot to credit @ColinJ, who suggested I try for the 50km a month challenge, which was the push I needed to get into longer distances.

Funnily enough, I need the push myself these days! A couple of years of lockdowns and a couple of doses of Covid had me lose my cycling mojo. I am slowly getting it back by doing 3 challenges and organising forum rides.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Greatest achievement was my dad and I spending a week with each other and not killing each other during our wotr tour.
2nd greatest is getting back on the bike after a stroke. Couldn't even stand up without falling over the first week home.

Wotr?

 

[numbnuts]

My greatest achievement – over on YACF we had a monthly challenge who could ride the most miles I did 800 in 25 days, but the winner did over a 1000, but used all the 31 days to do it.
Me, I was knacked and I couldn't ride for days afterwards.

 

[UphillSlowly]

I have only been cycling for about 4 years. Back then my wife took me for a ride to a reservoir to the south of Birmingham. To get there, there is a 0.89km, 3% hill. I thought I was going to die!
We did a lap of the reservoir and came home - I refused to go any further.
4 years later Strava tells me I have cycled up that hill 113 times.

I'm quite geeky with lists and numbers and going up hills became my favourite thing to do. When lock down came along I joined Wahoo RGT and recreated all 100 of the Greatest Cycling Climbs of Britain, according to Simon Warren, and did them all (virtually) over the space of 6 months. So I guess that's a thing.

I've also been trying to tick the real life ones off as well, as well as the regional variations in the full book collection. Not sure which is my greatest achievement so far. Quite possibly The Cowlyd, pictured below (gets 11/10 difficulty rating), or maybe just sticking with it after my first ride. Hoping my greatest achievements are in front of me...

 

[Grant Fondo]

Poole to Stonehenge and back in a day when I was 17.

 

[ColinJ]

Wotr?

Way Of The Roses.

 

[Regular.Cyclist]

For me it was managing a 105 mile sportif 2 days after getting the all clear from the physio that I could get back on the bike following three fractures in my upper femur.I had joined some friends who were Ironman training and managed to hang on to them throughout.

 

[DogmaStu]

I was 8th at Nationals, 2nd at Provincials and Club Champion in my youth and did a 1000km Charity Tour over 4 days through a mountainous region of South Africa.

Didn't cycle from 2002 - 2018. Knee issues, work, just became a sedate couch potato.

Post 50 years old, I've won some MTB XC races (1st in age group that is, top 10 overall/400+) and my longest unplanned solo ride last year was 225km, 2000m, under 8hrs.

I've averaged over 20 000km and 215 000m+ elevation per year over the last 3 years.

Other than that, just a load of Strava KOM's over the last 3 years

 

[Andy in Germany]

In terms of cycling, my biggest achievement is my first (and so far only) Imperial Century which is worryingly four years ago; I really need to get on with repeating that, looks like a ride on Thursday is called for.

My biggest cycle related achievement is going from being very incompetent and unconfident with anything mechanical, to fixing my bike regularly, to this project with Elder Son...

... to taking over the management of a bike repair workshop and repairing and selling bikes every day.

Mind you, there's still a long way to go yet; I spent this afternoon taking Magura hydraulic brakes apart and finding all the wrong ways to put them back together again...