Bicycling, Five Years Later

In 2020, I took up bicycling as a hobby and primary cardio routine. Shadowfax (my gravel bike) and I have traveled many miles at this point, in both Germany and America. This post looks at some trends, five years in.

My annual bicycling goal is 1000 miles. See chart above: I met that mark in 2020, 2022, and 2024. I missed it for good reasons in 2021 (we moved mid-year, and I was without my bikes for ~100 days in the riding months) and 2023 (we spent the summer finishing our basement, leaving little time/energy for cycling). Given all the other responsibilities in life, I think 1K is an achievable goal for this season, and that remains moving forward.

My number of rides per year varies (see above chart); ignoring 2021 due to the aforementioned move, 60 rides is the floor and 80-90 is the ceiling in a given year. 

One big change this year is the increased use of an exercise bike. Though my miles per ride on such bikes stayed about the same (orange line in above chart), the number of rides increased significantly (up to 44 in 2024, just over half of my overall rides). I have learned to use the exercise bike for speed training; I try to average 20mph on it, for 6-7 miles. That, in turn, has improved my road rides (both distance and speed); you can see the increase in distance in the blue line on the above chart. When I started biking, 15-16 miles was an average distance for me. Now, I am routinely over 20; I did 24 rides of 22 miles or more this year.

I set one personal record this year: in June, I biked 50.5 miles in one ride. That was a great (if tiring) experience and one I will seek to exceed next year. But otherwise, I plan to keep the road rides at 22-25 miles, and exercise bike at 6-7, due to competing obligations.

I am very thankful for this hobby; it took a pandemic and personal injury to lead me to bicycling, but it has been a wonderful 4635 miles so far. To more in 2025!