Machka 

Tell us all about your cycling and other sports this month!!

Riding solo
Riding with groups
Walking
Hiking
Cross-Country Skiing
Etc!!

delbiker1 

I hit my 20 20 goal of 7320 miles on Nov.29th. So far in the month of December, I have had 2 days off the bikes and 3 days riding with a total of 80 miles. I am now 600 short of 8000. While it would be nice to hit 8000, I am not obsessing or putting stress on myself to get there. I have house/yard things to do, bikes to do maintenance work on, and other things to keep me occupied. If I just feel like relaxing with reading or watching videos, I will do that. However, it looks like my job is on hold again until after the holidays due to CV-19 spike, I drive a school bus. Ergo, I will still a considerable amount of free time. Now the biggest factor is the weather.

bikecrate

Saturday I rode out to Upper Tampa Bay trail. Nice 40 mile ride. The only notable item was I had to pass a couple of Covid testing sites. They were quite busy. Sunday I got my poor steel bike ready to ride again. I got a flat about 1/3 of the way into the ride. This bike hates me. Not wanting to tempt fate again, I headed straight for home. 27 miles total.

Seattle Forrest

It's been fun so far!

Kabuki12

I did my first Sunday of December ride on my new to me 1975 Colnago Super. I bought it here on BF and it is even more than I hoped it would be . Twenty six miles of euphoria. Smooth and quick yet comfy. Temps in the low seventies f. and only a mild breeze. In other words cycling weather!

downtube42

I got my December 200k out of the way the first weekend, so it's all fun and games from here.

noimagination

Sunday 12/06, tandem ride with wife, 2:15 (a little over 40 mi). Cool, temp. around freezing. Auto traffic is down notably, whether due to the season or COVID I'm not sure, though going under the feeder road to the mall there were no cars on the overpass, usually I'd expect to see 2 solid lines of traffic stopped waiting for the light 1/2 mile ahead. Seemed like every other car had a Xmas tree on top, so that was a major reason for people to be out, it seemed.

Nice ride, one advantage (among many) to riding in the winter is that you can see more with all of the leaves down, so many hidden houses, marshes, the wildlife that's still awake, etc. are more visible. My wife spotted a bald eagle (3rd one within the last couple of weeks).

Funny how different we are. My wife had on 4 layers of clothing: ss wool t-shirt; ls wool long underwear; ls cycling jersey; lined rain/wind jacket. I had on two layers: ss wool t-shirt and ls cycling jersey (kind of a soft shell jacket, with wind proofing on front facing surfaces but not on sides/back). We were both very comfortable.

I have Friday off, plan to do a hike, it is not forecast to rain, for a change. My last 2 hikes have been 11.5 mi in rain/drizzle, and 14 mi in heavy downpour with high winds (glad I wore my contacts, I wouldn't have been able to see anything with misted/rain spotted glasses). The 11.5 mi hike (Catskills, Devil's Path over Indian, Twin and Sugarloaf "mountains" and back) was a ball-buster. The downhills in particular were hairy, lots of slick rocks. No rest for my downhill muscles (normally you can get little micro rests with each step as you shift your weight to allow your skeleton to bear your weight instead of your muscles), so even though it was a fairly short hike my legs were screaming by the end. I'm getting old, so it took me a good 4 days to fully get rid of the muscle pain.

mercator

It's been so mild here I can't really believe it is actually December.
In celebration I've been getting a ride in on the road bike every day this month so far.
We are expecting snow tonight though, so I can finally have a rest day.

Kabuki12

I did my Sunday ride on my new to me Colnago. It was great except the last 15 miles was a 10-15mph headwind! I used every drop of water I had in my bottle. Thirty two miles of sunny cool weather. Our winds here in Southern California labeled Santa Ana are very dry and can gust unpredictably so I was lucky to be able to complete the ride without my bail out call to my wife! We have had nice weather here but no rain and we certainly need the rain , but I am making the most of all the nice days to ride, ride , ride.

Nachoman

65 miles two Saturdays in a row, which is good for me.
I've been in a 35-45 max mileage phase for quite some time.

Deal4Fuji

A big temperature difference between this Saturday and last. The usual suspects back on country roads, back in Freemont last week and somewhere in Greene County yesterday stopping at the neat Tinman folk art at a business that fabricates this galvanized metal.
I’m not the photographer

Kabuki12

Another great Sunday ride! Did 22 miles on my Colnago . Cut short for late Christmas shopping.

ericcox

Today was just a gorgeous day in North Texas. We did 63 miles around Lake Weatherford. (I'm in the red jersey)

jaxgtr

Miserable day in North Florida, very cool when I started out and then I got caught in the rain. Nothing says suck like 55 deg rain. Took me all day to warm up, but I still got in 35 miles.

Kabuki12

Was planning a ride with my wife , she got a new e bike , but it is blowing a gale down here. It has been howling all night.

oujeep1

Yesterday was day one of the Rapha festive 500, goal is to ride 500 K from Christmas eve to New Years Eve. Indoors counts, yesterday in Edmond, OK was predicted cold and NW wind, so my plan was trainer. But I went outside with the dog about 9 am, thought you know this isn't so bad, so suited up with my coldest weather gear, tights, heavy wool base layer, etc. Headed out into a 7-10 mph WNW wind, temp was 38. it was cold but just kept going, after 20 min I'm good. Once I got to the NW corner of my planned ride, coming back was lots of fun. Ended up right at 30 m. Today, Christmas Day(Merry Christmas to all) predicted to be warmer. Having grown children, and especially in the Covid year, gives me liberty to do a long ride on Christmas. Stay safe, and get vaccinated when you can!

bikecrate

It has been a spotty bike riding month. A couple of weekends ago I was back in the Ocala Nat Forest. It was damp, cool and foggy. I opted for some long walks in the woods instead. I have done a few after work Davis Is. 27 mile rides this past week. Sunday I rode my S. Tampa route for 40 miles. Monday and Tuesday did Davis Is again for 27 miles each. Thursday did S. Tampa again with a bit extra in the downtown for 41 miles. For the most part the weather has been ideal. However, it is turning cold for this weekend, so with Christmas and cold not sure how much more riding will get done. On the good side my steel bike is back on the road.

Machka 

December has been busy!!

Sun, 6/12/2020 - We held the annual ASH Dash Audax cycling event. It's 200 km with a lot of climbing! ASH stands for All Seven Hills and there might actually be eight. So we spent the weekend before that checking the route and the week doing the last minute organising, making sure the volunteers had what they needed and knew where to be, and so on. We had 22 riders and all of them finished.

The next weekend ... we had a significant medical appointment for Rowan on the Friday which required quite a bit of prep on my part. Getting all the documentation together. After the previous weekend's adventures and then this medical appointment, I didn't feel like doing much but we did get out for a short ride.

Sat, 12/12/2020 ..... Margate Meandering: ............................... 39:16 ..... 10.20 km ..... 39 m

The next weekend, on the Friday, I had my graduation! I have graduated with the Master's degree I've been working on for the past 6 years. WooHoo!! At last!

Finally this weekend we were able to relax and get out for a couple rides.

Fri, 25/12/2020 ..... Margate Meander on Christmas Day: ......... 50:25 ..... 13.61 km ..... 49 m
Sat, 26/12/2020 ..... Margate Meander Boxing Day: ............... 1:04:12 ..... 16.82 km ..... 108 m

atwl77

I did the Rapha Festive 500 in a single ride this weekend (Dec 26-27). Total elapsed time 27h 34m. It was a rainy Saturday, and then the weather changed and Sunday morning was hot. Riding at night was the toughest part of the ride, with sleepiness forcing me to stop for power naps several times.

Kabuki12

Did a three and a half mile trial ride with my wife on her new e bike on Christmas. Today I did my Sunday ride to Ventura and back. 53 degrees f. And nice except for headwind on the way home. I rode the ItalVega , it is my patina bike in case it rained. I really like the bike and it can’t be harmed by fowl weather. My Rusty Resurection , joesvintageroadbikes.wordpress

85% chance of rain but none happened

Machka 

December 28
Nice ride today but a little challenging in places because both of us have lost some fitness. However, I am very thankful that Rowan and I are able to cycle together.




December 29


Regained a little in the rank on Black Lane! Just about threw up in the attempt! I'm now 7th/11 among the women who have ridden the road. Pretty sure I had dropped to 11th place.

It wasn't a brilliant attempt but not bad considering how out of shape I feel.


December 30
Beautiful day today ... drove up to the north coast of the island and did a lovely little bicycle ride there.




December 31


On this last day of December and last day of 2020, Rowan and I decided to cycle at least 50 km. Actually, he wanted to cycle 53 km to reach a total of 1200 km for the year.

I planned out a route and off we went.
We knew that we'd be into the wind at first, but it was stronger than expected - 35 km/h gusting to 50 km/h!
We also knew that we'd be climbing for the first 10 km, but there's a lot of subtle climbing on apparently flat routes.



So it was rather challenging in places ... and easy in other places ... and generally more challenging as we went along because we're not in as good shape as we could be.

But we made it!

And our annual total is just over 1200 km.

canklecat

I cut way back on bike rides around October to give my neck and back a rest. My cycling peaked around September-October, but I suddenly hit a wall and felt tired, sore and sluggish every ride. My average speed dropped from 16-18 mph on my usual 20-40 mile routes (varies depending on climbing), to 14 mph. Just couldn't seem to get out of that rut.

So I changed up my workout, cut cycling 25-50% and did more walking, then jogging and, by December, a little running for 100-400 yards at a time. It's been 40+ years since I did any running so it's coming back very slowly. My leg are cycling-strong but running-weak. The first day I tried full leg extension running a week or so ago and tried to lift my legs to leap across a small pothole in the grass, my leg collapsed on the landing and I splatted on the soft ground. No harm done, but a reminder how much more work I need to regain running fitness.

I was doing 500-600 miles a month but in October switched to walking, then walking/jogging, then more jogging by December, around 5 miles per session, 3-5 days a week. Same hours or more, from around 40 hours a month to 50+, fewer miles. Took awhile for the hips and lower back to adapt, but long walks and jogging are more comfortable now.

I can't figure out how to extract some data from Strava, but my best guess is 300 miles cycling in December, and 25 miles a week walking/jogging. In terms of hours spent, December was my busiest, with 55 hours between cycling, walking, jogging and more full-body physical therapy, which I had neglected for a few months.

Ogsarg

I finished December with 485 miles. All outdoors so not bad for December. Mornings are cold and days are short.

bikecrate

Did the last ride of the year to Davis Is. for 27 miles.