10th year in a row, was all on to do it with 80k to do tomorrow but feeling pretty rough with fever and vomiting today. See how I feel tomorrow and if I can finish it up. All outdoors as per every previous year and wholly on my gravel bike with big fat tyres!
Road Cycling
- Thread starter FrenchTart
- Start date
Yep. For me it is mostly sit on the indoor trainer and watch a film every morning and get the volume up. I do it on Trainerroad to get a more reasonable average speed, 514km over 19hr 16 mins, I did have a few local bike journeys instead of jumping in the car too.
The years stats are in:
| Activities | 373 |
| Distance | 5,126.0 mi |
| Elev Gain | 79,419 ft |
| Time | 300h 11m |
Caporegime
I considered it and then I realised I would need to somehow find 2-3 hours a day between christmas and new years and there wasn't a chance of that happening. I have managed about 40km in that period ....
Soldato
There's a chance I'll have a short indoor ride after work, but otherwise, my year's cycling stats are -
264 days with a ride is quite a surprise, then I realised it will count my 12 minute warm-ups on a bike at the gym. If I include walks and runs, my active days streak is 128, which might be a hard one for me to beat next year!
Rather disappointed my 100km rides dropped. I'll do my best to get them up next year. (I don't think I did any since November for example
)
264 days with a ride is quite a surprise, then I realised it will count my 12 minute warm-ups on a bike at the gym. If I include walks and runs, my active days streak is 128, which might be a hard one for me to beat next year!
Rather disappointed my 100km rides dropped. I'll do my best to get them up next year. (I don't think I did any since November for example
)
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Associate
- Joined
- 21 Jun 2004
- Posts
- 1,668
Lasts years data and targets:
——-
2023
Cycling - 4030 km with 56km of climbing, 133 hrs
Weight 78kg
FTP 285
2024 targets
Cycling - 5000 km, 55km climbing
Complete 2000km of this on my road bike rather than indoor. I only got the bike late in season and want to do more outdoor riding.
Weight - keep the same roughly
FTP - get over 300 - appreciate that power meter differ, but always good to show improvment
Complete my first imperial century
Ride in a sportive
———-
Actual 2024
Distance 6871 km, 63.5km climbing, 213 hours
Only 1000km outdoors though, weather and work commitments make indoor much easier. Hopefully try to do 2 outdoor rides a week from Spring next year.
First 100 mile ride done as first sportive.
FTP (from trainer road) - 328 @ 82kg
Happy with my progress overall. Trainer road does seem to give me some good progress at the end of the year. Weight has crept up but I don’t think I’m carrying any extra fat so not going to worry about it.
Targets for 2025
-Complete the imperial ride again (same event) with an aim to up my pace
-7500km 60km climbing
-Be able to sustain 4w/kg for an hour or complete the alpe du Zwift in under 50 minutes.
——-
2023
Cycling - 4030 km with 56km of climbing, 133 hrs
Weight 78kg
FTP 285
2024 targets
Cycling - 5000 km, 55km climbing
Complete 2000km of this on my road bike rather than indoor. I only got the bike late in season and want to do more outdoor riding.
Weight - keep the same roughly
FTP - get over 300 - appreciate that power meter differ, but always good to show improvment
Complete my first imperial century
Ride in a sportive
———-
Actual 2024
Distance 6871 km, 63.5km climbing, 213 hours
Only 1000km outdoors though, weather and work commitments make indoor much easier. Hopefully try to do 2 outdoor rides a week from Spring next year.
First 100 mile ride done as first sportive.
FTP (from trainer road) - 328 @ 82kg
Happy with my progress overall. Trainer road does seem to give me some good progress at the end of the year. Weight has crept up but I don’t think I’m carrying any extra fat so not going to worry about it.
Targets for 2025
-Complete the imperial ride again (same event) with an aim to up my pace
-7500km 60km climbing
-Be able to sustain 4w/kg for an hour or complete the alpe du Zwift in under 50 minutes.
Associate
With regard to the **** 500 i think I've done it for the last 6 or 7 years. Started out when strava only counted outdoor rides as part of it.
I'm done with it now, It got easier when indoor rides counted but I find it so anti social over the Christmas period. Maybe I'm just getting old and the fact I've had such a weird year of cycling. I finished on about 6700 km which is down about 3000 km on last year.
Daft thing is I've done some of my best cycling and a IM 70.3. I think i'll do a long entry in the 2023/4 review thread about the year I've had.
Anyways hope you all have a great new years.
I'm done with it now, It got easier when indoor rides counted but I find it so anti social over the Christmas period. Maybe I'm just getting old and the fact I've had such a weird year of cycling. I finished on about 6700 km which is down about 3000 km on last year.
Daft thing is I've done some of my best cycling and a IM 70.3. I think i'll do a long entry in the 2023/4 review thread about the year I've had.
Anyways hope you all have a great new years.
Soldato
Managed to knock it over on the trainer yesterday. 501.9km in 14:20 with only 200 of it outdoors. Feels like the indoors bit is cheating a bit as with the pace partner rides on flat courses it averages out at 38kmh which is incredibly difficult to achieve outside. Much more efficient use of time though.
Soldato
Kind of where I got to this year. In my 20s I could do it comfortably, have a few beers and enjoy the break. The last couple of years my recovery is starting to get slower and dragging myself out for 3 hours every day becomes less and less appealing. I’m also like a zombie after.
I came down with a cold before NYE and knocked it on the head. I have no goals at all for this year so figuring I’ll just get back on when I start to miss it which is a huge shift.
Riding is just falling down the list of priorities these days but it’s been a good run.
Soldato
That active streak is impressive. I think mine was 13 days!
Caporegime
Soldato
Thats still good. I reckon mine is perhaps 3
Well mine includes walks and gym stuff too. Unsure what my cycling only stat would be. Think it's weird Garmin haven't jumped on the yearly stat band wagon.
Soldato
Bizarre day out. Felt a bit weak/light headed, but wanted to get out for an outside ride. Felt great on the ride, then felt shaky as soon as i got off the bike again. Ended up smashing my regular lunchtime route time which is a little unexpected and very rare i average over 27kph
Also remembered that the ASSOS bib shorts are still sat in their box completely unopened!
Also remembered that the ASSOS bib shorts are still sat in their box completely unopened!
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Soldato
I'm guessing Veloviewer is going to end up in the bin with the recent Strava changes?
EDIT - Just reading on it. Seems there'll be a requirement to regularly make your account data public every 7 days, so still usable in it's current guise. Wonder if other platforms will follow.
EDIT - Just reading on it. Seems there'll be a requirement to regularly make your account data public every 7 days, so still usable in it's current guise. Wonder if other platforms will follow.
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Nice find!
To be fair, if you're not riding winter shoes or that thick socks they could be a good addition, but I would struggle to fit the extra bulk into mine with already using shoe inserts...!
Pretty much the same - so much of it is the air temperature. Certainly once you're into the realms of dedicated winter kit, windproofs and thermals you're set for most conditions. Then just tailor the layers to suit the ambient/windchill.
Even 10 degrees can feel cold! An old guy from my work told me something quite early on which I've stuck to... Any temperatures below 15 degrees protect your joints. So arm+knee warmers, full fingered gloves etc. Even if warm you can peel them, but if it drops lower you'll need them.
My <10 mins commute is a bane this time of year... It's not long enough to really warm up, so I dress to 'keep the heat in'. I'm always overdressed.
-4 this morning. Wore everything!
Yeah but you're daarn saaaarf. It's not rest of UK cold down there!
Bike is looking great mate! Not sure I like the brown bar tape but with the sidewalls looks great. Bit of a shocker it came as a fairly slack build quality, glad you caught it before it caused any damage/injury!
I consider myself an overshoe expert! What's your hardcore overshoe? Can confirm toe covers under overshoes works, but they do 'feel big' even though realistically it's not much extra weight/size and just how much your shoes/toes flex in an overshoe enough to feel a difference... Weird!
But definitely increase the warmth, just watch for any sweating if things not as cold expected... Pure winter almost have to expect it from sweat, the best thing I've found is actually to wear a thinner sock for some breathing/evaporation providing you don't get cold... Longer (or wet) rides carry some dry socks to swap to if it gets unbearable or if you're stopping anyway. Certainly in my Spatz Roadman I can have fairly damp feet and be unaware until I stop!
JUST DO IT! Joking aside, it sounds easy, but make it a non-issue, it doesn't have to be one. Just ride for other reasons, some none distance/time/speed goal if you need one.
As Merkx said "Ride as much or as little, or as long or as short as you feel. But ride." or Sarah Bentley "You are one ride away from a good mood".
See the speed they went past in full team TTT mode? There's a cool article somewhere about some Dutch junior rider, out with mates. Had gone there riding to see if they could bump into Tadej then he came past them, the junior managed to jump on his wheel for ~1km and got congratulated by the team. I found his ride on Strava as there's a cool video too - https://www.strava.com/activities/13154911292Yeah, I thought that was quite funny timing. I'm wondering if any teams will still be out there when I get there on the 6th Jan. If I can get a photo of me on Tadej's wheel, I post it there!
Barsteward. Just about to kit up for the commute home... Almost 5pm and the light just leaving the sky, 0 degrees with a windchill of -4!Christ, and there's me complaining about 16c, blue skies and some wind
Admittedly my Garmin did flash up with a marine weather warning!
Electrical tape over the vents. Has been my go-to in commuting shoes over winter for many years... But I do also live in overshoes September->May.
A 'few years back' = probably a decade ago! Think it was before I even ended up here...
I hope not, there was a good article from intervals where they'd had discussions with Strava on how things would continue, it was actually pretty positive. Would think Veloviewer where in the same boat...
Soldato
To be fair, today was sketchy.. not so much the cold as it felt warmer than yesterday but the amount of ice on the backroads was insane, at one point I was holding on riding straight downhill through a 2" slush of ice/snow. Maybe these deep backroads are not ideal at this time of year but the blue sky and sun were to tempting so I got out for a quick one.
that tape I liked but it was a bit too thin for my liking, gone for basic thick sram tape for now in black as it's thicker and comfier. I am surprised by sigmasport too, over-all they're quite good but this was a bit dissapointing.
I just had to look it up.. you're not wrong, it was 2015 May! insane how time flies.
lol at my GPS data too, my garmin 800 I remember froze completely but kept logging was just "on" with a screen stuck to it and wouldn't turn off/on until later on when it randomly came back to life, it logged the distance somehow but not the gps track/speed etc.
Caporegime
I consider myself an overshoe expert! What's your hardcore overshoe? Can confirm toe covers under overshoes works, but they do 'feel big' even though realistically it's not much extra weight/size and just how much your shoes/toes flex in an overshoe enough to feel a difference... Weird!
But definitely increase the warmth, just watch for any sweating if things not as cold expected... Pure winter almost have to expect it from sweat, the best thing I've found is actually to wear a thinner sock for some breathing/evaporation providing you don't get cold... Longer (or wet) rides carry some dry socks to swap to if it gets unbearable or if you're stopping anyway. Certainly in my Spatz Roadman I can have fairly damp feet and be unaware until I stop!
I've got the spatz roadman I think. I don't really go out in weather to justify them though so I was just after some windproof and perhaps warmish toe chappies. I had some in the past but they got ruined really quickly because they were really tight/inelastic and getting them over the jagged edges of the spd-sl cleats seemed to damage them.
Soldato
This seems common to me. My current overshoes are split from the two points the clear would catch them as I pull them on.