Now that it's 2024: Your commuting 2023 year in review?
 

Congrats on another lap 'round the daystar! Check your entries in the mileage thread and think back on your year. How did you do? If you set goals (for mileage or budget or fitness), did you meet them? Did you learn, were you happy? What does 2024 look like?

Previous iterations.
Assess yourself for 2022! - Bike Forums
Commuting - Assess yourself for 2021!
You can forgive me I'm sure forgetting 2020, we all had a lot on our minds
Assess yourself for 2019!
Assess yourself for 2018!
Assess yourself for 2017!
Assess yourself for 2016!
Assess yourself for 2015
Assess yourself for 2014

2330 miles. This represents a strong majority of my commuting miles. More than I've ever done, despite not starting until April (winter/spring riding was on hold due to moving house) and going through a traumatic bike crash in May. Coached the wife & 3 kids (8yo,6yo,4yo) through their wreck recovery and got all of them onto a day of RAGBRAI in July. Took the 8yo with me for the whole week-long ride.

Did I set goals? No. Much of this summer seemed like a struggle for survival and recovery. But I'm still happy at the end of the year. More miles, more rides, finally got back to RAGBRAI after several years away, and brought the family along for many of those rides. My dad got back on a bike this year after a 20-year hiatus (due to crash injuries). It's brought our family together and left my car idly rusting away in the driveway. I bought another 1980s touring bike for nostalgia's sake, and wound up using it for more than 1000 of those miles. I've grown to like it. Also rediscovered gravel riding after years of living in an area that doesn't offer that type of riding. And the kids seem to like MTB trails.

What does 2024 look like? More rides. More miles. Maybe even a bike from this millennium? Maybe.

But, most of all, it looks like more family time. Riding. Together. Down any path that suits our fancy.

Even if that path sometimes takes me to work. :roflmao2::roflmao2:

But it's funner when the path looks like this:

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...38aef87a06.jpg

My 2023 commuting year was a dumpster fire on the back half but it's hard to be bitter about it. It's not out of my laziness or anyone else's deliberate interference. The causes were legit. In mid summer my older boy got kicked out of his summer school, which put me in a work-from-home mode. We barely got established in the 23-24 school year when we left for a huge vacation in September to Europe for our 10th wedding anniversary - during which my younger boy had mysterious declining health. We brought him home to a diagnosis of B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. He's strong and has tolerated every treatment with health and cheer, which keeps me optimistic. But he spent most of October in the hospital. Now he's the one who is home all the time, and he has frequent trips to the chemo clinic. He's in a lighter phase right now but it will have its second crescendo in February. I might get a few laps in, but it's not a priority.


@campfire Safety bicycles are much less than 200 years old so I declare any bike is from this millennium (of bikes). It's funny how "before the turn of the century" is changing in value. I hear tales from teacher friends about little kids asking what it was like in the "late nineteen hundreds."

Bwahahaha!

Now I feel old(er).

:roflmao2:

Sorry to hear this. On the other hand, working from home is a good reason to not be commuting. So it's not ALL bad news... ;)

I set a goal every year to commute a minimum of 3,000 miles. For 2023 I logged 3,101 miles total. So I hit that goal.

I did not hit my weight loss goal. In fact, I did the opposite in a bigly way. I proved that you can't outride a bad diet.

There were lots of (non biking) challenges in 2023, but overall it was a better year than the prior five years (2018 - 2022), which were, to borrow Darth Lefty's description, "a dumpster fire." I'm hopeful that 2024 will be the best year I've had since 2017.

@Tundra_Man, I don't know how overweight you are, but I'm going to guess your strength (which you obviously have) is more significant than your weight. Keep doing what you do.

Commuting by bike is hard for me lately because it's long (13 miles each way), it takes longer than my main method (subway), there is a tricky hill, and there are some spots with horribly scary traffic. I do it occasionally, but that's all. Still, I'd like to figure out how to ride more often.

This past summer, my work was in a different location, 10 miles each way, and not as challenging a ride. Also, the weather was better, of course, and wearing shorts at that job was acceptable. I rode to work nearly every day, and it contributed to my health and happiness.

In 2023 I completed my second year of exclusively bike commuting, and I didn't take that many work from home days due to weather. I'm lucky enough to live a very doable distance from work (4-5 miles depending on if I take the a short way or a nice way), my dress code is very lax, and I have good indoor bike parking.

I got a new commuter bike built up, and it's pretty great. I'm still tweaking it a bit, but I'm really enjoying it. Dynamo lighting is awesome!

I feel like I've fallen short of my cycling expectations every year since 2019. I've been working from home since March 2020 until fairly recently, and when I'm not bike-commuting, I tend to get off-track with club riding and brevets as well. My weight has reflected this.

Now that I'm expected to be back in the office, I'm trying to get myself back on the daily-ish bike-commuting track again.

I had an incredible 2023. Lost all my excess weight. Commuted every day to my job as a teacher. Actually started looking for cheap calories to fuel my bike riding. Built up my fitness to do 32 miles/day more easily. Wore through a lot of bike parts. Got faster and better on hills. Got better in traffic. Got better in the different kinds of weather. Perfected my routes. Learned what to carry. Learned how to fix a lot of things. Found all the cool places to stop along the way. Did about 6,000 miles for the year.

I commute for all the usual reasons and also because I work in a very large educational complex without suitable car parking. I also have a large first floor office to myself where I can very comfortably keep the bike and the related clothes/equipment.

My 2023 Bike Commuting Year in Review
 

My commute is not long, but it clears my mind before and after work.

I'm not car free but car light. I drove my truck to work an average of 1 time per month and do a bulk of my grocery gettin' and beer runnin' on the bike.

Looking forward to a great 2024!

Marc