Friday 28 December 2012

End of a cycling year

Having previously clocked up the target of 2012 miles I felt it was important to add the extra miles to my Garmin 105 GPS watch, so that the target  shows up on the PC when you look at it - a tad unnecessary I know but thats the way I am.
What it means in real terms is that the final year total is 2032 miles - which includes the extra miles completed using the cycle computer rather than the Garmin.
When I log on to the software and click on the tab foe 2012 this is what I see:

This shows 2,016 miles, 133h 49m 28s of riding time at an average of 15.1 mph. A maximum speed of 37.6 mph (60.5 kph - the sort of speed that the professional peleton races at for long periods on the flat  - I was going down a steep hill for a matter of seconds !).

Targets for next year ? I'm not setting any - I have decided that I am going to cycle for the enjoyment of doing it next year rather than trying to reach a target - riding with my head down all the time, watching the clock rather than enjoying the fact that I'm out in the open air surrounded (mostly) by the Derbyshire countryside.

Apart from the cycling year coming to an end - the Christmas period is also coming to an end - just New Year to get past and we're officially into 2013.

Had a good Christmas - added a nice iPad 2 to my collection, a cracking piece of kit which will get lots of use I'm sure.







Friday 7 December 2012

Thats That Then

December 7th 2012 - the day I reached my target. A 23 mile ride today took me past the 2,012 miles I set as my aim for this year. The screenshot of the spreadsheet below shows the breakdown of how I achieved it
As you can see the first two months of the year saw me clock up just over 100 miles - March was a good month thanks to a spell of good weather when I was out cycling on consecutive Thursdays in 20+ degrees. April saw me back down to just over 100 miles, then May through September averaged over 200 (although March remained the highest total mileage at 222.88 - and also the longest single ride at 40 miles).

With three weeks left and a total standing at 2013.02 it remains to be seen what the final number will be although a forecast of snow for next week may mean that not too many more miles will be added in the next three weeks.

In the meantime I have a very dirty bike that needs a clean - looks like a job for tomorrow morning before the match against Brigg in the afternoon (weather permitting).

Monday 3 December 2012

Four weeks today

Thats right four weeks today will be the 31st December 2012. That means there are just 28 days to reach the cycling target of 2012 miles. 

We have been off work of the past week - but it's back to the grind tomorrow :-(

As we didn't have anything planned due to the floods all over the country (we did think about going to York for the day until we saw the main streets under 3-4 feet of water earlier int he week). we had lots of time to drink coffee, do some Christmas shopping and get in a few miles on the bike.

Last week I did a couple of 21 mile rides and today I added another 16 to the total. As things stand I have a total of 1,989.71 - ok so do the maths and you get 22.3 remaining miles. I can knock that off in one ride of about 90 minutes although the cold temperatures of late mean it'll probably be completed over a couple of easy hour rides.
As I arrived back from todays ride (partly wet and mostly windy) I saw a Rainbow across the fields towards Crich.
I took a snap with the camera phone - not a great quality photo but I'm sure you get the idea.