What makes a real difference to your cycling life this year?

[weisan]

These are the things I did that made a real difference to my cycling life this year.

1) meaningful weight loss
I used the word "meaningful" because I wasn't looking to do anything drastic and I am not grossly over weight to begin with. I set up to lose some weight to see how it might impact my overall health and my performance on the bike. I am 5'8" and I stay around 170 pounds the whole year round. In October, I decided to try cutting back on my daily food intake and consume according to my activity levels for the day. I applied a few very simple principles. If I am sitting down all day long in the office, then I should eat less. Also, I tried to eat bigger meals during the day and taper off the amount past 4-5 pm. Basically, have a much lighter meal towards the end of the day, sometimes even forgo it all together if I don't feel hungry. I realized that I have been over eating even when I was putting in a lot of miles riding. My excuse in the past had been I ride to eat....that's not a good practice and that's why I was not losing weight.
Now I weigh 158 pounds. I no longer have the occasional back pain while riding because I got rid of the gut in the middle. I have never felt better and stronger on the bike than I do now in 30 years of riding. In short, my riding has been transformed, I am a totally different rider now than I was a month or two ago. And I love it!

2) PSA galore!
Because of this helpful community posting PSA, I was able to make some very important bike acquisitions the year at an affordable price. By keeping an open mind, I expanded my palette to include other genres of bikes and that has been an eye opener and has greatly extended my enjoyment in cycling and kept my enthusiasm and motivation high throughout the year. In short, diversity is good.
Just to mention a few of these acquisitions :

- rivendell road standard - gives me a taste of what old school classic European style steel bike rides like and I can tell you, it's phenomenal. You are missing out on something if you don't give yourself the opportunity to try it.

- merlin cyclocross ti - the very essence of a versatile, go anywhere, do anything bike with the extra bonus of the unique spring-iness of titanium.

- Eddy Merckx Corsa Extra - this bike came in at an amazing condition and it allows me to go deeper and be able to relate to the past history of cycling. That's important to me.

3) 650b conversions
I converted a number of my bikes over to 650b wheel size and it has been a very positive experience. It allows me to use a really nice tire like Compass SwitchBack Hills. But overall, just the bigger volume, lower center of gravity - transforms the way the bike rides. I am more confident riding my 650b bikes on gravel roads than I am on the regular 700cc bikes. It's more fun and versatile.

(4) - a very fruitful relationship with my local bike co-op
Yellow Bike Project.
Because of this relationship, I was able to have access to a huge amount of bicycle parts, they are mostly used and older models but they worked and saved me thousands...yes, thousands of dollars. Because of them, I was able to feed my passion for cycling and also practice wheel building, which brings me to the last bullet point.

(5) getting into wheel building
This is a very satisfying experience, to learn how to build my own wheels. It enriches my overall cycling experience and saves me money.

Alright, those are my "life-changing" cycling experience this year, what's yours? Thanks for sharing.

[Lewis Moon]

Time In The Saddle (you do the acronym)
No matter what type of training plan I do, I always see better maintenance and improvement from just riding more. I go hard when I feel like hurting and I spin when it's appropriate.
It's also mentally better for me.
...and the 'cross bike. Ya gotta love 'cross bikes.

[R3awak3n]

I lost a decent amount of weight, that was awesome. Ridding 15lbs lighter is amazing, its like not having a weight weenie bike under you. You are just floating lol. In all seriousness, it really is great and I need to keep it up.

[Nooch]

Went and spectated at the New Haven Grand Prix, and suddenly the fire to get into racing shape again was lit. I've covered 1095 miles since that day, 1836 ytd, after a 263 mile 2016, a 422 mile 2015, and a 1278 mile 2014. So i'm like 100 miles out from beating my combined last three years worth of mileage.

I also lost upwards of 70 lbs, so while my power was zapped from the three years of non-riding, I'm faster than I was previously. Helps with the psyche, if nothing else. Now to get the power back up and I'll be very happy.

[Black Dog]

This year I dialled back the intensity and focused more on just enjoyment. Fun before fitness. Just as many miles just not as many hard rides for building fitness. I must say that, even though, fun is always 1st for me, I have found that taking a break from worrying about being really fit has been a great mental break. After 30 years of riding it felt sooo good. Still fast and fit enough to do the types of rides I like. Lacking a bit of punch has been a great trade off for the low pressure mental space it has given me.

[Seramount]

no longer having a job has made a distinct difference in my riding.

being retired gives me the luxury of riding when and as far as I like...no longer have the time constraints of having to squeeze rides in after work.

really like being able to pick the best part of the day to venture out...can choose the temp, wind speed, traffic density...the flexibility in scheduling is sweet...in the worst of the summer heat, some days I did both morning and late afternoon rides with a swim session in between.

as a result, my annual mileage has increased pretty dramatically...it's up from 6K and edging towards 9K...

[BobO]

Lack of pain thanks to Dr. Norton.

The surgical repair of my neck solved a number of issues for me which enormously improved my enjoyment of riding. Combine that with my son starting to ride with me and it's been a great year.

[Tony]

Friends. I hooked up with a meetup group in Auburn and been all over CA riding awesome trails this year. Several are very skillful technical downhillers that are always sharing and schooling me, have improved much in this area this year. Also, a couple strong riders in this group motivated me to step up my training on the road.

Tires. Mainly a E Thirteen TRS+ up front. Really boosted my confidence in the loose stuff, great tire!

This Forum. Awesome place, with a wealth of information and motivation.

[FlashUNC]

Bonts.

Ridiculously comfortable shoes.

[bocobiking]

Since 2006 I have tracked and recorded my average speed on every ride. Of course with my getting older, it has slowly gone down. I've recently realized that average speed has become an albatross on my rides, reducing my riding experience to a number. So I've stopped even looking at my average speed at the end of rides, most of the time even forgetting about it. I'm amazed at the difference in what rides feel like.

[notsew]

Group rides.

I've mostly ridden alone since I started riding, and with little kids taking up social time I was feeling pretty detached from any sort of community. I started making the time to get out on group rides, and its been great. Made a ton of acquaintances that are fun to chat with, made some friends, joined a team. All in all, it really brought me into the cycling fold and gave me more of a sense of the community I was missing. Plus, stronger, faster, etc.

Turns our riding with people is fun! Who knew.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by bocobiking

Since 2006 I have tracked and recorded my average speed on every ride. Of course with my getting older, it has slowly gone down. I've recently realized that average speed has become an albatross on my rides, reducing my riding experience to a number. So I've stopped even looking at my average speed at the end of rides, most of the time even forgetting about it. I'm amazed at the difference in what rides feel like.

I kept meticulous records of average speeds for a couple of years and ended up feeling exactly the same way. Albatross. I ended up burning out/overtraining because I was trying to beat my average speed on every single ride.

Which is stupid, and not how you're supposed to train anyway. Especially when you're a middle-aged guy trying to ride for exercise and enjoyment. I don't even race.

Nowadays I just keep track of distance. I look at my average speed as I get back into town, and sometimes I'm pleased with it, but it goes down with all the stops and slower riding characteristic of being in an urban area anyway, so I'm Zen about it.

As to the topic at hand, what's made a difference for me, as fall gradually turns to winter, has been really fine-tuning my cold-weather kit to the point where I'm perfectly happy to ride down to a few degrees below zero. My normal cut-off point is about -3, but it will be interesting to see in January and February whether the gear I'm wearing will take me down to -5 or even colder on those evenings where the mercury drops that low.

[wasfast]

Average speed, while a simple calculation, rarely tells the story of the ride. You can have portions that are flat out and others that are soft pedaling yet get the same "average speed" as a simple steady state effort.

After quite a while, all the numbers are just that and are not a reflection of our merit or capabilities in any real sense.

[Jeff N.]

Laying off beer.

[Likes2ridefar]

Moving from the east coast to AZ. I can commute to work every day and no longer be concerned about rain, and today I took a ride at 10am and it was in the low 70s!