I was lucky enough to ride my fussie mountain bike in some really amazing places. Namely Tokul outside of Seattle and the Front Range in Colorado. I had a great time but I realized that winching up fire roads and plummeting down single and double black diamond mountain bike trails with gap jumps and steep chutes really just isn’t for me anymore.
Respect to those who wanna go for it, but once I decided to just stick to the blue trails I realized A) I was going downhill for a longer period of time because it was less steep; B) I could hit the turns faster and harder which was more fun; C) I was having more fun on the little stump jumps and side hits.
On that note, I spent a lot of time on rigid bikes this year, and more or less neglected my fussie outside of a few big mountain bike specific trips. My Stooge MK4 became my go to trail bike (especially after getting the cockpit dialed in and adding Cushcore).
I’ve been thinking about this post on Riv’s website about their hillibikes being “Trailish”: “we don’t make bikes for racing or stunt riders; we make them for travelers. Your trip can last a half-hour or a year, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that when you travel on a bicycle you approach terrain the way a runner does; you slow down and are more careful when it’s really rough, slippery, or steep. You cruise casually when it’s the trail allows it, and dismount and walk up the steepest, rockiest, or slipperiest descents and climbs.” That resonated a lot.
I went to Nutmeg Nor’easter for the first time and DJ’d the party; both were ridiculously fun. I thought I’d try to keep my music life separate from bike life, but bringing them together has been a lot of fun.
My buddy and I started planning our first public facing ATB ramble scramble extravaganza up in the Manistee National Forest. We’re inspired by Hodag and Nutmeg and decided we may as well share one of our favorite places on earth with people, so we picked a date next summer and booked some group sites at a campground. More on that to come.
I rode 200km to go camping and didn’t feel like shit when I got to camp.
I actually sold some bike gear.
I could go on and on but that’s what my blog is for. But it was a great year.
My strava seems a bit whack on the kms. Over here in prison island currently. The heat is crazy. Went out for a ride with the kids, on 3 ex bikes of mine that I have managed to get over here for them. Still got about 10 at home : p Had a nap after xmas lunch already today.
My milage for this year is a hopeless estimate, because I was foolishly using ridewithgps and they hopelessly fucked up the UI on their app sometime in the middle of the year; I eventually gave up on logging altogether and have been estimating distances.
Anyway, it’s approximately 2500 freedom units this year (ugh) and unlikely to go up more than another 50 before the calendar flips over and heads right for the bottom of the trashcan.
The triple threat of being out of shape, being an old, and E has done horrible horrible things to my riding speed (and, arguably, endurance) but what am I going to do about it? Nothing, except keep riding until my cold dead body is pried off the bike.
Here’s my stats for 2024 as of 10:11am on 12/26:
I logged more miles than I expected considering that I went on like five rides in excess of 11 miles all year. Probably 95% of my miles were on the cargo bike. I can’t remember the last time I rode a normal bike. My 2025 bike resolution is to get my Kogswell back in working order and ride it more. I love that bike.
Bikepacking trips were much less frequent. I built a new fat bike and took it on an overnighter in February that went well, and then a more regular two night trip in March that got some suprise snow. But after that the schedule was empty until fall.
I had signed up for the Ruby Roubaix 120 mile loop in the summer so I decided to focus on that, building a new gravel bike frame and trying to get the smallest headwind drag I could hold for a long period of time. That ride ended up going great until it got too hot near the end and I had to limp in to avoid heatstroke.
I hadn’t soured on short cranks yet so I built a new trail bike. I was waiting for the high country to melt out so I could really test it so in the meantime I tried a bunch of different setups on it, but it never really clicked. Too slack.
Then in August I caught COVID on a business trip so there went any chance of big trail loops. I still haven’t recovered.
I did take a friend’s kid bikepacking in the fall on a short trip to a ghost town and we had a good time. Then one last short trip last weekend.
I’m not sure if/when my fitness will come back so I’m looking at building some bikes next year that are more on the “old man wanders the backroads” end of the spectrum. I don’t think I need to do any big organized gravel rides any more, if I’m going to smash out miles I want to be going somewhere interesting.
Got way into my head about riding and comparing myself to others and quit riding from May until last weekend, even though I still tinkered and changed builds up. Finally got back to just having bikes be fun and not anything more. Hoping to be more consistent in 2025 and mix in more social riding, touring, and working on skills. My only real goal is that 2025 is the year I really learn to bunnyhop.
was aiming for 4,000 miles but didn’t quite make it. I had a moment in late october where I figured I could hit my goal if i did ~60 miles a week, which felt attainable. but then we bought a house in early November and I had no time to ride. now I feel like I’m struggling to get back into riding.
highlights include:
scouting out a route in western colorado that my friend mapped out
I kinda fell off on bike commuting this year after we switched offices in the beginning of summer. But I joined some local urban group ride type things and I was participating in those pretty well for summer. Seems like a good group of folks.
Did Horse Cycles Gravy Days for the first time and felt out of shape in the Catskills mountains. I brought my steel Soma to that because I thought it was a cool guy ride, but it wasn’t- lots of dudes on carbon. Rode more and did Nutmeg Nor’easter for the first time in fall- rode the carbon bike but it turned out that was a cool guy ride where I should have brought a steel bike.
Decent amount of shortish slowish mountain bike rides with the 11yo. Otherwise mostly solo on mountain bikes, no solid crew.
Anyway, here’s my Strava, probably missing a bunch of 6 mile round trip commutes from Spring that weren’t worth Strava-ing.
I think you can jump off the bridge if you’re feeling frisky. I did not because I was on my bike and relatively far from medical attention. probably best when the water is higher in the early summer
