Machka 

What are your cycling highlights of 2014? Did you reach a goal? Were you able to cycle somewhere you've always wanted to ride? Did you ride with someone special?


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A reminder of last year's highlights:
https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycli...ts-2013-a.html

And the highlights in 2012:
https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycli...ts-2012-a.html

2011 Highlights:
https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycli...de-2011-a.html
https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycli...ge-thread.html

2010 Highlights:
https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycli...ge-thread.html

And in 2009:
https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycli...gs-2009-a.html

Latif

I reached two of my goals this year. The first, my first century,the Tour of the Unknown Coast in NorCal in May with 9300' climbing much of it in the last 20 miles. It started in a cold steady rain took me 11&1/2 hrs with generous rest stops. I could actually ride my bike the next day.
Second was a four day supported ride starting near Portland, out to the coast and down to the CA border, 350m total. Rode for the first time with a dear friend whose wife joined mine to set our camps and meet us for coffee and lunch daily. Great friends and an amazingly beautiful journey.I've got another more ambitious one, Haleakala on Maui and did find myself doing a short "test run" in Oct., about 4000 of the 10,000'. It's going to take a lot more conditioning if I ever am to realize that goal. Still at 64 and been riding for 2&1/2 years I'm very satisfied with what I've accomplished. Would like to do some shorter unsupported tours sometime.

BillClinton

I bought my first road bike road bike in September and did my first 50 mile ride last week very proud, can't wait for spring.

Ghazmh

4054 miles, all while balancing a demanding job and an understanding wife.

alexaschwanden

I had my road bike (entry level) have a cassette failure and with other problems so i sold it, that made more time to ride my carbon Felt Z5 road bike.

merlinextraligh

Highs: Florida State Champions, tandem time trial; 5th (on the podium) Masters Nationals tandem time trial

Lows: DNF Leadville 100 MTB race; DNF Masters Nationals Tandem Road Race.

rick458

I bought my first Road bike, 2013 Trek Domane 4.0c.
Now I have to put miles on it.
I bought a Park PCS-10 and got all the bike we own tuned up well.

BoSoxYacht

Low: getting hit by a truck, spending a few days in an induced coma, 13 broken bones, 3 surgeries to repair my intestines, and spending almost 5 weeks in the hospital recovering.

Highs: experiencing a full recovery from that wreck, and nearly riding a sub 5 hour solo century just 4 months later. Riding a little over 10k miles this year despite that wreck is also pretty cool.

kbarch

Favorite accomplishment was climbing Bear Mountain for the first time, on a solo Century, with snow!

There were actually patches of snow on the roadway a few yards around the next bend.

A Mixed ride, high and low, was the full New York City Century: a pleasant group, well-supported, and a nice day, but I got some terrible news when I returned a call at the last rest stop. Although I was proud of the accomplishment, I will not remember that ride with happiness.

goenrdoug

-rolled my first road bike out of the garage (a rebuilt Craigslist junker that I built up myself (having never built a bike before)) for the first time on Jan 1, 2014
-put 3700+ miles on it in my first year riding on the road
-road my first metric century (Solvang, CA) in march
-road my first full century (Levi's Granfondo, Santa Rosa, CA) -- The hardest thing I've ever done, physically. It took about 11 hours total time (with the rest stops, etc.) My right leg IT band is only just now recovering (2.5 months later)
-turned a pretty flabby ~245 lb frame (originally down from 290 in 2012 or so) into a much leaner ~220 lb frame with monster legs

mrv 

Two BIKE TRIPS with my son, and one canoeing trip with him. Good kid. I'm blessed.

telebianchi

A double-metric (130 miles) on the C&O Canal Towpath. The picture is coming out of the east end of the Paw Paw Tunnel.



A triple-metric (192 miles) from Sheep Mountain to Valdez at the Great Alaska Double Century (which is half of Fireweed 400). This picture is riding south on the Richardson Highway heading towards Worthington Glacier at about the 158 mile point starting the climb to Thompson Pass.

Heathpack 

First century, then rode 9 more, including three with 10,000 ft climbing
First double century
Rode >7000 miles, 400,000 ft climbing in my first full year of cycling

Bought two "real" bikes, a BMC GF01 and a Trek Madone
Did my first ever group ride, eventually joined and now ride regularly with 3 clubs
Went from 1 cycling friend to way more than I can count
Found a great fitter, a great LBS, and as of this week, a great coach

This time last year, my longest ever ride was 60 miles. I had never ridden in a group. I had rarely ridden on the road, I rode almost exclusively bike paths. That all blows my mind, how I've gone from totally clueless to only semi-clueless.

Leinster

The Pyrenees. Aspin, Ancizan, Aubisque, Tourmalet, Peyresourde and the highlight of the lot, Lac de Cap de Long.

BigC_82

I reached my goal of 1,000 miles ridden on my mtb. I rewarded myself with buying my new 2015 Raliegh RX 2.0. I also found the local cycling club. My farthest I ridden to date was doing 67 miles on Tour de Shawnee. I also worked on hills a lot more to point I like climbing.

Jarrett2

This year (my second year riding) held a lot of firsts for me:

First "real" road bike (carbon fiber/Roubaix)
First time joining a riding club (a couple actually) and doing regular group rides
First "T-shirt" ride (did several around the state)
First 45+ mile rides (up to 70 miles so far)
First time to ride over 3,000 miles in a year (at 3,139 as of today and still riding)
Got a real bike computer, joined Garmin Connect/Strava and met a few riders that way
Increased my average speed into the 17+ mph range
Participated in the cycling portion of a Sprint Triathlon Relay (averaged 19+mph and came in 4th)

I just got overall more serious about cycling in 2014.

Next year:
Going to put in more miles than this year (maybe 4,000)
Going to do a century (could have done it this year, but waiting for friends to prepare so we can all do it together)
Possible multi-day/Inn to Inn type ride(s)/vacation

Jakedatc

Best feeling and best avg speed century this summer.

getting damn close to 4000mi for the year.. already over my high mark from last year.

Riding with the A group on the shop rides and actually contributing.

finishing first full semester of radiography school (well. almost..after this weeks finals are done)

dralways

Even while taking 6ish months off (various reasons, mainly work, and not all at once) I've got about 15miles left till hitting 4k mi for the year. Working graveyard shifts makes it just about impossible to get in serious mileage yet I did manage to accomplish my highlight, a distance PR of 141mi. Going for 200mi next year.

79pmooney

Highlights: riding Cycle Oregon fixed in beautiful country and avoiding injuries including chronic and returning ones. (Did the steep climb without stopping.) And if I can last two more weeks: I kept to my promise of keeping the shiny side up and bettering my best post racing days annual mileage.

Big scare: Coming home from a 40 mile, 2000' climbing ride with two fun descents with a fork blade about to break at the crown. (With zero force I bent the blade out 8". The frame builder broke it off with no more effort.) This was a series of decisions on both our parts and silence by a contractor that nearly ended very badly. We chose to go Columbus SL for the blades and use a rather minimal (beautiful) investment cast crown. And to nickle plate the fork. The contractor who plated the fork made no mention that being high strength, it required heat treating which cost another $20. The heat treat didn't happen.

And we learned that high strength steel, aluminum or titanium require heat treat to drive hydrogen atoms that are a result of the plating process out of the metal being plated. If the heat treat doesn't happen, those atoms find each other and do what hydrogen atoms do when they meet. They marry and become molecules. But hydrogen molecules fit in high strength metals like baseball sized rocks fit in the mortor of your brick house. They don't. Super crack started. That fork had more than a full circumference of cracks in the two blades. Only 1/4" of blade left on the right. And all this on a fork where the brazing was absolutely perfect. I have now seen both crown brazes from the inside as we cut the other blade off to have a forensic engineer look at it.

I said big scare. Well, I had a fork brake 2 cms from that one years ago and lost 5 days of my life to a coma and seven years to recovery. When I bent that blade, I just turned away, went into the house and thanked my Lord that I was alive. I was shaking.

This was 2 weeks before Cycle Oregon started. 9 days later I was riding a brand new 531 fork with a beautiful old school looking crown with deep scallops painted. We had to paint it with hobby paint. (Beautiful paint job by the builder. Nowhere near enough time to get a pro job done!)

Best part of the year? That bike's a keeper! At the high point of that fated ride, I stopped at the state park to screw on my 13 tooth cog to bomb the descent. Struggled to get the chain tension right like a raw beginner. Finally figured out it was riding up on the lockring. I knew my 12 toth cog required its special lockring but thought the 13 was OK on a normal one. It wasn't. I rode the downhills carefully to not stress the chain which I was going to rely on big time in a couple of weeks or throw it off. Got down, went back to the 17 tooth and rode into town. It was then that the front end started shuddering like I have never felt before every time I braked. 4 miles later, I was home and bending that fork blade.

Good bike! "Ben, you are going to have to take it easy going down these hills. And I'm going to make you!" Thank you, Jessica J. (Her name since she was conceived.)

Ben

Zapdaba

KenshiBiker

Highs for 2014:

Finally got my grail bike - custom Steve Rex with hand cut, polished SS lugs, chainstay and dropouts, and Campy Record EPS.


Used afore-mentioned acquisition to climb Mt. Diablo, Monitor Pass, Spooner Summit and Mt. Tamalpias (sorry, no pics of Mt. Tam), none of which I had even thought about doing beforehand.

happyscientist

Some of you people are making me jealous.
I did a group bike tour of Death Valley, which was awesome. I also did my first major solo tour, the Tetons and Yellowstone, where so many things went horribly wrong, but it was one heck of an experience.

bruce19

Mine is simple. Let me apologize in advance because I know many of you have heard my story before. On 7/24/13 I crashed and broke my neck. Had C1 & C2 fused. By Nov. '13 I was back on the bike. And, this past season I averaged 100 mi. a week and was faster and stronger (not to mention 15 lbs lighter) than I have been for many years. I'm feeling pretty good about my ability to come back and very, very grateful for the second chance.

AbsoluteZ3RO

Highs:
Riding with friends in Colorado
Riding in Florida
More miles this year than the last few

Lows:
Failing to summit Mt. Evans

Darth Steele

Bear is one of my favorite areas to ride/train.. When you make that little right to go on to Perkins drive I get giddy like a little school girl.