Your rides this year: 2014 Review of the year.

[Dogtrousers]

I've just started logging in the 100k a month thread. A quick check over the year shows that I wouldn't have managed the whole year anyway as I missed February. So that's one for next year. I kidded myself during the summer and autumn that the imperial century a month challenge was a possibility, but then it got cold and dark.

I had this nice cup of coffee with a wiggly spoon on a ride at a cafe in France.

Coffee

• Dogtrousers
• 10 Dec 2014

 

[ColinJ]

Next year I AM going to do;
More forum rides.....please bully me into it ColinJ and Potsy.

Tell you what ... I will bully @potsy into it, and he can bully you - ha ha!

 

[Donger]

.

A pretty good year as I have achieved all I set out to but I do feel like I could have done so much more, e.g. imperial century and a lot more events.

I'm aiming to do my first imperial century next year too, and I'll be entering a handful of 100km audax events too. Now that I know you as that guy who's been riding with the Kingsway CC with me for the last few weeks, I'm happy to offer to tag along (or invite you to tag along with me) on any such challenges next year. Onwards and upwards. Donger.

 

[Rooster1]

WIGGLE DRAGON RIDE MEDIO FONDO - Finished, Amazing, hellish day of climbing, possibly the most stunning countryside I have ever seen - The Brecon Beacons. Loved every mile.
PRUDENTIAL RIDE 100 - Disaster, on-top of the back end of Hurricane Bertha, my Saddle Post broke at 40-50 miles, I had to ride several miles with no saddle (got some laughs). I was clocking an excellent time until it all went wrong. Spent hours on the sad bus at Newlands Corner. One of the most unpleasant days of my life. Still managed to raise £500 for Lymphoma Association

 

[Rooster1]

Dragon Ride, Medio Fondo. Yes, I have a big tummy.

 

[Rooster1]

I decided i was going to do a lot more cycling this year. Set a target of 8000 miles for the year, but it was soon apparent I would easily hit that, so I increased it to 10000miles. I went up to the lakes over easter and had a great time. I managed to climb up Honister Pass and a few other of the big hills. I will go back again at some point as it was great cycling up there. I got to July and had commpleted 5200miles when a car pulled out in front of me and I went through the window. I managed to break my neck in the process and so that has pretty much been it for the rest of the year. Next year I hope to get back on a bike and get some fitness back.

Hope you get well soon

 

[Fnaar]

My highlight (in an otherwise under-par year for cycling mileage) was the Carlisle-Newcastle night ride; tremendous fun!!!!!
http://www.cyclechat.net/threads/night-ride-carlisle-newcastle-19-sep-2014.163201/

 

[MikeW-71]

Very remiss of me to miss that one out, it was a great ride and the first time I've ridden through the night

 

[maltloaf]

I'm aiming to do my first imperial century next year too, and I'll be entering a handful of 100km audax events too. Now that I know you as that guy who's been riding with the Kingsway CC with me for the last few weeks, I'm happy to offer to tag along (or invite you to tag along with me) on any such challenges next year. Onwards and upwards. Donger.

Sounds perfect, I'm already looking forward to it.

Cheers,

Kev

 

[ianrauk]

I've had a very good year cycling wise.

No commuting accidents or collisions or nasties.
Only one off on a leisure ride. In February when I hit some ice when leaving my house and went down. Wasn't even 100 yards out of the house. Nothing hurt except my very nice Shutt Jacket which was on it's first outing and now has a nice scuff in the elbow.

I reached my mileage target for 2014 of 10,000 cycling miles on Tuesday's commute. The 6th year in a row I have reached that figure.

So out of the total mileage

6185 are commuting miles.
I am now back up to a 5 day commute week after 4 years of being on a 4 day commuting week now that jnr has started school. So that's an extra 35 mile round trip once a week.
I had 2 punctures. (4 in 2013) Which ain't half bad. I switched back to Spesh Aramdillo's after running Durano Plus' for a year. The Plus' do roll faster but are nowhere near as long lasting as the Spesh's.
45 commutes out of 361 so far have been rainy ones, 2013 saw 44 rainy commutes.

3860 Leisure miles.
I did a lot of really great rides this year. Thanks to my main cycling partner in crime @rb58 , I managed to do my longest ever ride of 220 miles. An over night ride from Doncaster to home.

Out of the leisure rides 30 have been 100+ mile rides, (of those 7 were FNRttC's) and I have a few more planned before the end of the year

It was also another year of the Century a Month Challenge. Which was completed last weekend in the company of rb58 and @Trickedem . For the 3 of us it was the fourth year we completed the challenge, so that's 48 months in a row of a 100+ mile ride. And 2015's challenge is not far away.

Thanks to @jayonabike & @CharlieB I discovered that there some truly fantastic cycling in Beds, Bucks and Herts. As Jay mentioned in his post above, the 200k we did was also one of my favourite rides of the year. Everything seemed to fall into place on the ride. The ride, the roads & the weather. Perfect as perfect can be.

One other boring stat.
I have managed to get my Eddington number up to 103miles, just need 2 more 104+milers to reach 104, 8 105's more to reach 105. The higher the number the harder it will be to raise it but I'm getting there...thanks to @deptfordmarmoset who got me interested in Eddington numbers in the first place.

So in a nutshell.. I think I did ok. I'm still loving my cycling and only bought 1 new bike

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

@ianrauk - There can't be many on here who've clocked up 100 tons. It would be a very small club indeed.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Set my heart on a trip to the Scottish Highlands that got cancelled. Signed up for a ride across the Scottish Islands. That got cancelled.

Most memorable rides: Home to Hastings: a day out in torrential non-stop rain. Various road rides in the Surrey Hills. A dawn mtb ride on Berkshire Downs above Avebury. A 100+ mile fixed gear ride across West Sussex and South West Surrey on which my mate Pete did his first imperial century.

But the two that will live forever in my heart... and I don't mean to be a damper...

The small Sunday morning group ride the day after my dear departed, much missed, friend, Chris, died whilst out on his bike. Stopping where he passed and realising I wasn't the only one crying.
&
riding as part of a cycling Guard of Honour accompanying the hearse and cortège from his house to the Church for his funeral.

 

[ChrisEyles]

Been a great year for me, cycling wise

Moved back to Devon from Berlin after a couple of years in Germany, so have been loving the gorgeous countryside and the hills. Being able to ride to a few nice beaches, or Exmoor, or Dartmoor is fantastic, I am really spoilt for choice at the moment. Because of this, it's also been my highest mileage year - 4,100 miles so far. Did my first metric century a couple of months ago, and gearing up for the imperial next year. Still yet to go on a club ride, which was one of my vague goals for the year, but enjoying solo riding so much I haven't felt the need.

This has also been the year of learning bicycle mechanics - starting pretty much from scratch I've progressed from finally being able to set up my brakes to my satisfaction (January) to an ongoing full strip down and resto of an old roadster.

As others have said joining in on the forum (well, I joined December last year, but it's close enough) has also been great - thanks all!

 

[Rooster1]

I've only clocked up 4277 miles this year, but thats up from 2581 last year.

What I am pleased about is the 145,860 ft of climbing this year.

 

[rb58]

I've enjoyed my cycling this year, as much as any previous year. The numbers are good, but I've put on too much weight and can now feel it on the hills. I'll be back in shape before the season starts again though.

The numbers:
7,200+ miles so far, with just 106 left to reach my target of an average of 20 miles per day for every day of the year. 3,900 of those miles were with gears, 3,200 on fixed. 24 Imperial Century rides (including 4 on fixed gear), brings my overall 100+ mile rides to 115. 2014 will be my fourth year of completing the Century a Month challenge. I will try to squeeze at least one more in this year.

Longest ride was Doncaster to home (as @ianrauk mentions above) at 220 miles.

Highlights. Too many to mention, but DunRun with @redfalo 's CycleChat crew stands out as a great ride.
And Full English breakfasts.
And ditching the GPS in favour of the sights, sounds and smells of a good bike ride. The GPS only comes long if I really need help navigating.
And still being in love with my bike(s)

Lowlight. No new bike purchase this year.

Here's to 2015!