diphthong

it's that time again! what ride in 2018 reaffirmed your love (or made you fall in love) the most? maybe you dusted off the ole bike and rode it for the first time in a while.
maybe you finally recovered from a significant health issue. maybe you just took up the sport. maybe you finally upgraded from the "b" team to the "a" team or chucked
the crazy "a's" for the chill "b's." maybe you finally rode somewhere you'd been wanting to. maybe you surprised yourself with your impromptu route-finding and improvisational
efforts. whatever reason for your favorite ride of 2018-post it! would love to hear about it.

my favorite ride of the year found me not riding too far but completing a really scenic ride i started a few years ago (turned back due to dangerous crosswinds) and it took me 5 years
to get back to finish it. the bison were out in the usual spot and added an element of danger which (fortunately) didn't materialize. the north rim of the grand canyon is really something special.

https://www.strava.com/activities/1608962117

what was your favorite ride of 2018 and why?

avole

Suvarnabhumi airport circuit. Great track surface, dead flat; drinks stops every 5 km, aircraft blasting off and landing all around you, and a whole bunch of food stalls serving Thai food and Singha beer at the end. Doesn't get much better than that

DrIsotope

June 9. Rode from home, met up with the gentlemen from Bicycle Club Irvine at the Thurman Flats picnic area, and proceeded mostly vertically up Hwy.38 to Onyx Summit. Then instead of doing the usual out-and-back, rode down into Big Bear City and met with the wife at the Grizzly Manor Cafe, where I ordered a thing called the Fat Pat, which was possibly the best thing I ate all year. 60.2 miles with 8,832ft. And I don't much care for climbing, so that's saying something.

Probable 2nd place (though still ~2 weeks to unseat it) would be the categorical opposite of 1st place, my ride of July 20 where I rode from home to the Pacific Ocean, 73.8 miles, with what I think might be the absolute minimum amount of elevation, a whopping 877ft. I hit an absolutely brutal, way-too-early-in-the-day headwind with 15 miles to go, but the rest of the ride was just excellent. Absolutely flying along, even being on the big steel CX bike.

Zaskar

The next one

joesch

Tour de Gruene which is along River Road, between Austin and San Antonio was my fav since the post ride was many hours of Bavarian entertainment at Wurstfest!
Home | Tour de Gruene

Also really enjoyed my rides at the Carmel / Monterey area.

~

TimothyH

2:00 AM rides to the adoration chapel to pray.


-Tim-

mstateglfr 

The day my oldest(11yo) went riding with me on her new to her 650c road bike. It was fun to watch her get comfortable with the cockpit and settle into the drops as her primary position.

Second would be the last day of RAGBRAI. The teens I rode with that day had wanted to ride in one of the pacelines all week and were told no over and again by mentors for all thr obvious reasons.
it was a high mileage day but not too hilly and i agreed to let them stay on the end of a couple pacelines during quieter parts of the day's ride.
it was a blast to watch the kids keep pace and focus in on what was happening all around them to anticipate safety issues.

Nachoman

In early June 2019 a few friends and I pedaled Drum Canyon in the Santa Ynez valley.
I liked it so much, I returned four months later and did it again but this time with my wife on a tandem, and much slower.

TheRef

BikingTech

What a wonderful day! Happy belated birthday.

BikingTech

Amen brother! Amen!

SkepticalOne

Vermont Granfondo, 2018...

MattTheHat 

Two rides are tied for favorite of the year for me...

I doubt I'd ever ridden a bicycle further than 15 miles in my whole life, and even then, not for over 30 years until I got a bicycle again this past May. One of my favorite rides was an 80 mile solo ride about 6 weeks ago. Only averaged just over 15 MPH, but I'm pretty happy with that. I got a KOM on that ride and I think 13 PRs (which obviously mean nothing to anyone but me). It was a fun ride. All the Strava segments kept me from falling asleep.

My ride

Tied for favorite ride of the year was almost exactly a month earlier, right after my wife had me take her to get her first bike. My first ride with her was only 6 miles, but it was a blast!

-Matt

Dan333SP

Awesome. Flew in there last year and saw that bike path from the plane, looked like it'd be an interesting ride for someone that loves watching big jets take off/land and loves thai food.

Dan333SP

For me, I didn't really have as many adventurous rides this year as I would have liked. The highlight was probably getting a rental bike in Palm Springs while on a super-relaxing long weekend trip in May. Rode up the tramway access road, which is a long, straight, steady climb with great views. Ended the ride looping around through the city and exploring the roads towards Indian Canyons, plus checking out a giant wind farm. Wasn't super long or super hard, but it was a new place on a new bike and those types of rides are always highlights.



Going down


Going up

TrojanHorse

I've come to the conclusion that I like riding TO somewhere rather than laps around my house. I usually ride TO my son's water polo games and hitch a ride back with the family, so the further away they are, the happier I am about it. LA to La Jolla is the furthest, so far.

This year, we dropped our daughter off at college in September and I rode home: 283 miles from San Luis Obispo, CA to Whittier with a friend. We took 4 days and we had some unfortunate detours but overall it was a blast.

TrojanHorse

That tramway is a bear - oddly enough, the first couple miles LOOK flat because the entire earth around you tilts up about 10 degrees. Oddly disconcerting.

Bob Ross

Not sure if any of these qualify as my "favorite" because there were parts of all of them that flat-out sucked ...but there were enough good memories that I'll think back on them in a few years and know why I bothered mentioning them in this thread:

Triple Bypass (Keystone to Avon, CO) in July
unPAved of the Susquehanna River Valley (Lewisburg, PA) in October
NYCC's The Tunnel (Wingdale, NY) in September
NYCC's NJ Pavement, Dirt, and BBQ (Morristown, NJ) in June
our annual ascent of Mt. Lemmon (Tucson, AZ) in February

One that definitely was not a favorite this year: Gran Fondo New Jersey in September. That ride just sucked, period. Although in fairness, if it hadn't been cold and raining non-stop for the entire day I might have a more charitable opinion of the ride. And I did win first in my age group for the embedded uphill time trial, so there's that. But not a favorite by any stretch.

indyfabz

St. Albans, VT to Philly, with a two-night stop at my 35th high school reunion in Western Mass and one night spent in a restored caboose from 1917.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/27849657

https://www.flickr.com/photos/105349...57695059662912

Dan333SP

It was a total mindf#$%. I kept thinking I should be pushing the big ring based on the view ahead, but I'd find myself spinning in the little/big at like 12mph. Thank god the rental bike had discs for that descent, though.

rumrunn6

modest by many others' standards, but was real happy with my 7th ride with cleated pedals/shoes. just over 36 miles in August on public roads, not protected bike paths

the other big memorable ride for me, was just under 44 miles, in October, on a mountain bike, over a rugged (for me) trail

rumrunn6

Wow! did you post a thread on BF for that ride?

05 fuji

The first one I took after not riding for 12 years!

diphthong

diphthong

someone's in shape. i usually crawl up that climb 5.8-9.0 mph. kinda miffy they blocked off the last half mile of really steep ramps to cyclists with the guard shack a few years ago. also not miffy
as it was pure torture.