My Big Year but not that kind of Big Year

The Poseidon X

At some point in 2021 I decided to do a Big Year in 2022. But not that kind of Big Year. Not the one associated with birds, anyway. This Big Year had all to do with riding my bicycle, an act that increasingly brings me joy, health, perspective, and stamina. Not just the kind of stamina you need to be able to ride 100 miles in a day, or whatever your goal is, but the kind of stamina needed to endure an increasingly divided country, community, and family.

My goal entering 2022 was to ride 100 miles per week through the whole year. To do this with travel and vacations where I couldn’t take my bike, I’d need to pad a few months early, and luckily January 22 was pretty decent. I hit 500 miles in a few different months through spring and managed to find 602 miles in August, my biggest month of the year. All of this without ever managing to squeeze a Century ride in.

No, these were commuting miles, for the most part. Nasty, grit-filling-my teeth-miles along my hometown’s worst commuting route, albeit the safest one with wide bike lanes.

My riding partners and I hit the trails whenever we could on weekends but still couldn’t put as much time in the saddle together as we did in 21. So, there were a lot of solo miles for me, which helped me get through 30 audiobooks. This is where that whole perspective piece comes together.

One thing I did in 22 was bring my bike on every in-state work trip I went on. This meant a lot of new miles for me in some really beautiful parts of the state.

Cycling is one of those rare times where I’m able to really dial in my focus to one thing. That thing is usually responsiveness to the road and everything happening around me. It’s not driving in a car, but I can hit speeds of 47 mph on some downhill sections of my weekly rides, which requires the brain to provide me with enough visual and sensory information to be able to react quickly.

The other thing I’m able to focus on is the voice in my head, which is usually a dialogue wherein I debate myself about various issues going on in my life. Left without any alternative, I’m usually in the going fast zone and paying attention to the Gollum and Smeagol in my head.

When I discovered audiobooks were a good way to quiet the Shakespeare-hungry part of my brain, I began a subscription to Audible and eventually upped it to two titles a month. With that many hours in the saddle, you blow through books pretty fast, even when you’re doing books that are in the 20-hour range.

Something I didn’t understand early on that affected me throughout the year was pushing high mileage in the coldest months. Trying to ride 10-miles to work and then 10-miles home again on days where the thermometer didn’t break the 30-degree mark was more damaging than helpful to my goal.

I ended up with painful joints and super-tight hamstrings by February, so much so that I had to dial back my riding to just barely make the 400 miles I needed that month. I had planned to rent a bike during a conference I had to attend in Dallas, Texas, but Texas got hit by a freak ice storm, and my travel partner and I were not only stranded in Dallas, but the ice was also so bad you couldn’t go outside.

I had to return to Texas for a week in March, and I couldn’t get any riding in that week either due to lack of a bike to ride. I vowed to hit the roads harder when I got home, and I did, rain or shine. I rode through more nasty conditions this year than I ever have before. I’ve been soaked completely through expensive raingear and had frozen fingers more times than I can count on those fingers.

But the benefits have always outweighed the negatives.

I climbed 258,975 feet this year, which is hard to explain, even to myself, without the understanding that I live at the top of a hill in one of the most-elevated parts of the town I live in. My 10-mile ride in takes about 39 minutes on a nice, summer day with no wind. My 10-mile ride home takes about 55 minutes on a good day.

All in all, I rode 5,587 miles this year riding two different bikes in order to keep going mechanically. What nobody tells you is that the more miles you put on a bike, the more things wear out and break down. It’s worse than a car in some ways. I’ve had flat tires that seem to come in packages of three. Those are mind breakers, capable of derailing your desire to ride altogether. I’ve had mechanical failures of things like bottom brackets, broken spokes and even putting a screw all the way through the new, $1,000 custom rims I bought for my gravel bike.

It's tough to justify that you’re saving money by cycling to work when you’re replacing chains and cassettes so often you’re on a first-name basis with the local bike shop.

By December, I gave my accumulated mileage out to a friend of mine who is good at math and asked him what I would need to average a week in order to achieve my goal of riding 400 miles a month in 2022.

He replied: “If you want to average 400 miles a month this year, you’re already done. If you want to have enough miles to have ridden 400 miles in each month of 22, you’ll need 90 miles a week for the next three weeks.

I’m stubborn, of course, so I tried riding through some of the worst weather of the year, including an ice storm where I wrecked my bike riding out my driveway. Over the holidays I realized that I had already achieved my goal with the caveats of travel I’d built into my plan. I slowly let the obsession of getting 400-miles a month for the whole year give way to the satisfaction of having averaged 400 miles a month over the course of 2022.

What did I learn through all of this? I learned that it’s fun to set up a goal and try to stick to it while analyzing the things that are working against you, including your own self. There were many dark nights in December I wanted to call my partner and ask her to pick me up so I wouldn’t have to ride home in the cold, dark drizzle of those long nights and short days. I learned that pushing myself isn’t always healthy, especially when you end up damaging your joints and muscles. I learned that it’s hard to give up the momentum you establish with a year like this. For the first couple of weeks of January 2023, I decided to lower my goal to 50 miles a week, but I’m averaging 80.

And most importantly, I learned that a bicycle is not a means in itself. I can’t treat it as a tool to accomplish what I want to do in terms of physical goals. A bicycle is a means to better mental health, better perspective on the world, more joy in my life, better friendships, adventure, and so much more. When you treat a bike as a means in itself, the tool becomes capable of failure, which can derail the very joy you get from riding it. I will treat my bike more like a good friend this year and less like a tool for my own obsession.