diphthong

yah...it's been a bleepy year. more time to ride for many tho. so what's your favorite ride from 2020? might be first-time conquering your local everest or something
you specifically trained for. could be a ride where you first met your sweetie. maybe first big ride with the kiddos. possibly first ride back from a significant health issue/injury.
coulda checked off a bucket list ride. new bike, distance, elevation gain, scenery..whatever the reason...chat about it. inspiration takes many forms.

i'll start...36-miler in sequoia national park late october. plenty of elevation gain and a really long day trip but had been wanting to hit it for years. finally just set my mind
to it and did it. maan...that transition from the dry, warm, oak landscape into the misty, damp cathedral of the sequoias...something you never forget and cannot replicate on foot or by automobile.

https://www.strava.com/activities/4252809976

there were bigger rides. harder rides. other scenic rides but this is the one that made me happiest to be a cyclist this year.

GrainBrain

Last February four of us went fat biking around, my buddy and I plus a couple guys he met from the local club. It was the perfect winter day around the low 20s. Cafe stop, trail riding and drinks at the end. I thought then that would be my favorite ride of 2020 and I was right!

I also bought a proper gravel bike early in the year, and it's brought me some great rides. This year has seemed so short but I have a ton of great biking memories from it.

rsbob 

Had to be my first ride on my new Infinito on tubeless. It was such a dramatic change from my ‘if it’s steel, it’s real’ bikes I couldn’t believe it.

pennpaul

I have two. I was supposed to do the GAP and C&O in July with some friends but that didn't happen. What did happen was riding the GAP solo before July 4 and then riding the C&O solo in early October.

mstateglfr 

Century gravel ride in mid-August. RWGPS showed only 2000' of climb(which is why I chose the route), I knew that was wrong but hoped it'd be kinda close to correct, and actual climb was over 2.5x that.
Rode thru a few towns i hadn't been to, hit up some roads I haven't been on, and found some level B I didn't know about.

Long fun day.

jpescatore

Each year Potomac Pedalers (DC/MD/VA area bike club) has a weekend group ride that starts at a the Milkhouse Brewery at Stillpoint Farm in Mt. Airy MD. Group rides were cancelled but I've been doing my favorite ones as solo rides all year long and on a beautiful day in late June I did this 61 mile, 4200 feet of climbing route, starting at a park near the brewery. Country roads with not much traffic and good surfaces, constant views and good choices for a rest stop. Not quite as much fun as when you end up at the brewery and it is filled with cyclists, but in this wacked out year it was awesome.


A short steep one in the first 10 miles

Strava route here.

indyfabz

Pittsburgh to Philly.

wolfchild

Some of my favourite rides of this year were on ice and snow covered trails around January and February.

Thomas15

As of late 2019 I couldn't ride to the end of my street with it's 8% grade and about <100 feet of ascent. Over last winter I worked, worked, worked on my indoor trainer in hope that I might be able to at least do what I call my "short loop", a 4.5 mile loop with 550 feet of ascent. First time out in 2020, I made it with ease.

I had a dream of a more challenging "long" loop, 7miles, 800 feet of climbing. A few weeks into the season I attempted this loop and to my surprise made it and then rode an extra lap. A week later I rode this loop 4 times, 27 miles, 3100 feet of ascent. This ride, which would have impossible even 6 months earlier, has become my favorite. One of the hills, just short of a mile is a Strava segment. I normally don't pay attention to these but I found out that I have the 5th fastest time for this segment, I'm 20 seconds behind the 4th fastest. The 4th is the father of one of my son's friends from HS. This guy has been riding for years. This loop starts and finishes at my house, so convenient.

Hokiedad4

Not the longest, not the fastest, not the most scenic, but my adult children and I did our own Bikes and Beers Philly ride along the Schuylkill Ride trail into Philadelphia, lunch at Yards Brewery and back. The greatest part of COVID was a lot of family rides with my kids.

BobbyG

Just a couple of days ago I rode up to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, here in Colorado Springs. I don't remember pedaling there since the 1990s. It was only a 21-mile round trip for me, but what made it one of my favorite rides of the year was that I realized I am in much better shape and have much better stamina at 58.94 years old than in my 30s. It just didn't seem as steep or as far as I remembered.

At 6714 feet above sea level they bill themselves as the "World's Highest Zoo". Of course, I live at ~6500 feet so it's not that much of a climb, however I did dip below 6000 feet on the way there.

indyfabz

Being a native, I knew that bridge before I read the post description. I live about 4 miles away, a few minutes' walk from the Art Museum.

Koyote

You did your own Crush the Commonwealth!

indyfabz

No. Took my time because I hadn’t been riding much. And I believe CTC goes the other direction.

I had done the same route back in 2013. This time I was able to take the train out to PGH because Amtrak recently added bike service on the Pennsylvanian.

Sadly, I had to cancel my planned June tour in Montana and Idaho because of COVID. On the flip side, had I been able to do it I would have gotten stuck in a blizzard that dumped up to 24” of snow atop some passes I was supposed to ride.

Koyote

I think you're right - it would've gone Philly to pgh this year, but it was cancelled. (Hmm...Can an unsanctioned/unofficial race even be cancelled?)

pennpaul

Curious. After Cumberland, what's your route to get to Philly?

indyfabz

With a few turns aside, I took US 220 up to Bedford then mostly followed PA Bike Route S then picked up the SRT near Phoenixville. I’ll try to post the map later. One deviation I took was to ride the 8.5 mile section of abandoned PA Turnpike. Great ride and saves lots of climbing.

one4smoke

My favorite ride would be my personal best in distance of 133 miles in September. Previous was 127. Also, another highlight was the entire month of September when I again participated in the Great Cycling Challenge. Pledged 600 miles, but got in more than 900.

Most enjoyable is a 30 miler that I routinely do with a riding buddy.

Doug64

One of many good rides this Fall.

Wilmingtech

This year was a strange one. Maybe not the most fun ride for me but certainly the most challenging and memorable ride this year. It was late spring and I had the chance to ride with a group of friends up Mt. St. Helen's. I was out of shape and not ready for it. It was a little bit painful and the guys had to wait a bit for me up at the top. But it did motivate me to work hard through the rest of the year and be ready for this next spring


.

downtube42

Recovery ride February 5th 7.5 km. First ride since breaking my neck in October.

It was shaky, but i was back on a bike. Everything after that is a bonus.

palisader

that's what it's all about

palisader

Long story short I am very jealous of this ride

joesch

2020 was my best year for cycling since the pandemic cut most of my other activities so my health and bikes benefited.

I had lived in Corona for several years but never bike the complete skyline trail https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/c...uit-trail-loop
until 2020. Did it on an old steel pre-shock mtn bike earlier this year so its off my bucket list

This ride is approx 10 miles and 3K' as it winds up the hill, and I was sore for a few days afterward since I mostly road bike.

Wilmingtech

Don't be jealous, get motivated! Come and do the ride!