2018: A Year in Bicycles

Bikes
21

That’s how I felt. I killed a furious fred and a rocket ron hitting rocks that pinch flatted the tire and tore the casing at the bead. Destroyed a resolute hitting a hidden square edge steel bridge insert that did the same thing.

This was my first year tubeless and it didn’t go very well for off-road bikes.

22

Good:
-Rode almost every day
-Did a road ride almost every weekend
-Got to go ride in California and do the biggest climbs of my life
-Watched the sun rise over the lake most mornings
-I will have accomplished my yearly mileage goal by the end of this week

Bad:
-Barely any mountain biking because it seemed to rain (or now melt) every friday making the trails unridable all weekend
-Argued with my wife about how much time I spend on the bike on the weekends

???:
-Sold my fat bike on a whim

1 Like
23

Good

  • Day/Ruiner finally arrived and built and ridden and enjoyed
  • Only bought one new bike (compared to three in '17)
  • Somewhat cleaned up the parts bin and donated a bunch of bike stuff
  • Did multiple 20+ mile rides without stretchy clothes or bike diapers or clippy shoes and survived

Bad

  • WAY less commuting days this year, <40% so far compared to 89.5% in '17
  • Fitness is pretty bad right now
  • Didn’t sell any of too many damn bikes
  • Didn’t do a single mtb ride all year
1 Like
24

good:

  • end of my cx season came around with some results
  • switched up cockpit dimensions and am able to hop shit on the geared cx bike again
  • top end power is pretty good
  • bikes are pretty much where I want them
  • was able to help teammates get results AKA I didn’t have to race road alone all year

bad:

  • didn’t ride as much in previous years
  • not as motivated to go out and kill myself
  • ballooned a bit
  • ftp isn’t really lower, but extra weight has me more sluggish than I want
  • haven’t commuted nearly at all this year
  • haven’t sold bikes that I’ve been meaning to
  • nothing but problems with tires this cx season. TOO MANY FLATS. NOT ENOUGH AIRS.
1 Like
25

curious to know the details on this

26

shortened stem 1cm and rotated bars/levers up slightly. effectively shortens distance and puts the levers in a more wrist-neutral position for pulling up towards the body. when I retape/cable, I’ll probably rotate the bars down some and just move the levers up.

the sscx bike was already setup like this.

1 Like
27

Oh I totally almost lied. I rode my mtb once last year on the river trail near the house after we got a bunch of snow. But not a single upy-downy dirt ride.

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28

HY:

  • Adequate bike times
  • Much it off-road, improving skills
  • Made new friends on group rides
  • Got back to touring, short and long trips, solo and with friends
  • Increased mtb & cx racing experiences

Meh:

  • Did almost no rando, but did flèche
  • Felt like I was past my peak fitness for fall races/burned-out at times.
  • Spent so much $ on bikes
  • Broke ribs mtbing on two occasions, May and July
  • Need to focus on advancing work life, but I only care about my play life
29

good:

rode almost every day this year
rode mtb most weekends
bought 1 new bike (mtb)
gettin’ faster and hitting stuff i probably would not have 1 year ago on mtb

bad:

most of my road KMs were boring MUP riding after work (~6000km)
couple of mtb stacks, no breaks just gravel rash and bruises
didn’t build the endpoint
bought a truing stand but still haven’t built a proper wheel

1 Like
30

bad:

  • rode less than half as much as i did in recent years (mileage wise)
  • super unmotivated to do any sort of road riding

good:

  • really stoked on mtbing
  • got a sweet full squish trail bike
  • built a sweet basket cruiser for sup which included building my first set of wheels in 7 years
  • bikes now have their own garage space
  • no major accidents
1 Like
31

Good:

  • I have a bike I like again

Bad:

  • Everything else
1 Like
32

Bike events have been few and far between

  • Eroica Montalcino
  • Tour de Gravel gravel stage race
  • Organised a Grinduro
  • Did Le Petit Brevet
  • Did more LBS rides and via immersion was forced to get over my fear of riding with MTB-Ebikes, now thinking about one for wife
  • Organised car-less days and Road less travelled initiatives at work

Bad

  • Most of my riding is ugly commuting unless I take a diversion.
  • Didnt do any CX this year for the first time in 9 years.

Goals

  • Thinking about more suspension up front for my Tallboy
  • Trying to be more planet friendly
  • Want to divest myself of some bikes
1 Like
33

2018, no judgements attached:

  • rode less
  • didn’t do any long gravel events
  • did a mountain bike race on a whim
  • had the best mountain bike ride in years
  • convinced myself to buy a new mountain bike
  • have ridden it twice since
  • plan to move to ride it more
  • gave up on bike shorts (Airism + board shorts)
  • pretty much abandoned jerseys too
  • bought a tandem
  • got the tandem pretty dialed
  • have been riding said tandem
  • didn’t build any frames
  • got a 3d printer
  • have been productive on 3d printer widget designs
  • got a good commuter set up
  • also built up a dumb yolo mtb for mindful klunking
  • had some good bike co-op scores
2 Likes