Ogsarg

There has been a lot of discussion about Covid impacting riding time/miles; both positively and negatively. I thought it would be interesting to have a poll to see what the overall impact was. If your riding was impacted a lot, let us know why.

mstateglfr 

My riding was affected a lot. Was for why- due to social distancing recommendations.

Still got about the same miles as usual, but the frequency was higher while avg distance was lower. Rode more with my kids too.

DrIsotope

I would say that the big mass of red (most ridden) stays the same year after year. In 2020 I certainly repeated routes a lot more, and rode about 1,500 fewer miles, but only due to burnout, not anything unique
to the pandemic. I was on pace for another 10k mile year until around October, when I kinda decided I didn't feel like it anymore. My annual goal from the beginning of the year was just 7,320, and I blew that
out of the water by August (after a 1,000 mile July.) Taking a chunk of days off the bike in the fall felt absolutely fantastic, honestly. I did walk/run almost 400 miles in 2020, a best for me by a long shot.

I did miss out on riding out to have lunch with my wife at her workplace (50-60 miles roundtrip) because she went on WFH before March. That also cut down on the motivation for those 3+ hour rides.

My plan is to ride even less and walk even more in 2021. It's easier on the wallet to be sure (I've never gotten a flat tire while out walking or running,) and I had obsessively turned cycling into some kind of chore,
where I went out and rode, day after day, regardless of how I felt. I'm hoping this year will be one where I ride when I want, and just take it easy.

downtube42

Little change in mileage, massive change in the nature of those miles.

Negatives:
-2000 commute miles
-2000 randonneuring miles
-1000 after-work rides with friends

Positives
+4500 solo miles
+100k feet climbing

Looking forward to doing stupidly long rides with friends, but it's going to be a while.

Tycho Brahe 

Where is the nothing option?

BritishV8

2000+... but a bigger difference was that I climbed much more this year.

HTupolev

It impacted my riding a lot, but not in terms of total mileage. The year just had a lack of group riding.

alo

Covid had very little impact on my riding. But I am not in America.

I have actually lost weight and gained fitness, and cycle much further. But this has nothing to do with covid.

rubiksoval

I rode a ton more. Raced none, much fewer group rides, much more steady miles (with no races or group rides that usually increase the amount of coasting and soft-pedaling), but also way more KOM attempts. Got almost 90 since May.

Machka 

Covid didn't affect my riding ... but university did!

bampilot06

Just missed several months of group rides, but this didn’t change my miles.

gregf83 

Overall riding time was significantly lower in 2020. I had consistently ridden 500+ hrs/yr for the past 12 yrs. COVID canceled a cycling trip to Italy, eliminated group rides, eliminated 2hrs/day of commuting miles. Took a while for me to get back into a routine for riding while WFH. Back to riding every day now, mostly indoors, motivation is back so 2021 should be better. Not sure travel will be an option though.

Reflector Guy

Lots more free time this year so I did a lot more riding. My mother is in a nursing home and I had been visiting there every day after work; when visits were curtailed starting in March I gained all that free time every day.

Zaskar

Had covid - kept me off the bike for a bit
Fewer group rides meant fewer long rides (yeah, I know)
So, lowest total mileage in years

MoAlpha

Less work, sailing races canceled, more anxiety to treat, less traffic, group rides converted to Strava TTs, power meter, and suddenly I’m a total geek again at age Medicare-1!

Wildwood 

Sure made my miles far more car-free!

bluezurich

Weirdest thing, I had exactly 1,000 miles more in 2020 than in 2019. True, I had an operation in 9/19 that kept me off the bike until 4/20. But the early days of the pandemic in Utah created open roads and more opportunities. Stay safe, it's raging worse than ever....Here's to even more miles and keeping the rubber side down in 2021! Cheers

Velo Vol 

No impact, other than (for a time) less traffic, as noted above.

mdarnton

The effect on my riding was infinite percent. I have ridden on and off for the last 50+ years, and had stopped around 2015. After being stuck home for a few weeks in March/April, I started to get antsy, brought out my bike, and started riding every day. My miles and condition have increased, weight decreased, and I bought a new bike a couple of weeks ago. Put on studs yesterday, and don't intend to let winter stop me. Physically, I'm in better shape than I've been in years.

sdmc530

My riding increased by 2K because other stuff was all canceled. most group stuff was cancelled but I did a lot of solo riding, 2x more than I normally did.

WhyFi

About mid-way though the summer, I realized that, with the work from home schedule, I could squeeze in a daily 1-hour ride before the wife or kids woke up for work/school, and do so without waking at an ungodly hour. That change had my average weekly mileage jump from ~120 to 200+ and I logged more than 1k miles more than in 2019.

I hope to keep up the morning rides, and I expect that my wife will continue to work from home the vast majority of the time, even after *knock on wood* all of the restrictions pass, but I'll have to see what happens when the kids start going back to school in person. My son's school starts really early, and has him at the bus stop a little before 7am - that could throw a wrench in the morning rides.

_ForceD_

A little more than 1500 miles more for me.

Dan

TiHabanero

The bike shop was nuts this summer and had no time to ride. Finally got the Vid a week or so ago, but being in snow country it doesn't impact my riding time! Still riding the rollers, though, so indoor riding time has increased due to quarantine.

Sojodave

With all the events scheduled, I found it hard to motivate myself to hurt myself in training. I was down 1,000 miles from the year before. I love riding by myself, but I really missed group rides.

Koyote

I only work PT during the school year...But this year, my school basically paid me to do nothing from about mid-March through mid-May, which helped my mileage a lot. Then I was off in the summer, and in the autumn I cut back my hours because...well, because work sucks. So yeah, a good year for riding.

8300+ miles and 450k ft of climbing for the year. Not bad, considering I turned 58 today.