I’ve been thinking about doing an epic bicycle trip for a long time. It’s a lot easier to dream about something like this than actually put in motion everything you need to do.
The first thing I realized I needed was a lot more time on my bike. The original mileage looked to be 1300 miles. That by itself is a lot, but the real challenge is to get on the bike day after day and ride for 6 hours. My only real experience like this was the MS 150. That was a 2 day ride to raise money for Muscular Sclerosis and each day was about 75 miles. My legs were fried at the finish. That was also about 30 years ago. This trip was going to be like that for 4 weeks. I had to know if this was even feasible at this point in my life.
I have ridden a lot over the years, but honestly, the last several years it’s been a pretty lackluster effort. So on November 19, 2021, I told myself I had to get serious if I was truly thinking of a Spring 2022 event.
I was fortunate that my son Eric introduced me to a motivational speaker named James Clear. I listened to one of his presentations and noted this take-away on goal setting: when you set a goal, and whether that goal is every Monday or every day, don’t get more than two X’s in a row. The X is when you don’t meet your goal. I set my goal to ride every day.
Here’s a picture of my Harry Potter mileage calendar.
I only missed 5 days of riding in March and NEVER two X’s in a row. Total mileage was 508 miles and since I started logging, my overall total was just over 2000. I made it outside two times in March. The rest was on a trainer made by Wahoo called the Kickr. The best part of this trainer is the Zwift software that allows you to create your avatar that you control with your pedaling. It’s like a video game with different routes in different cities with real time riders from all over the world. It’s pretty typical to see 15,000 riders in Zwift at any time. It’s by far the best trainer setup I’ve ever had.
I had to show the March calendar instead of April. My work project is heating up as we approach the finish line and I’ve missed 10 days overall; due to work and a mini-vacation early in the month. I’ve still managed to log another 350 miles this month, including 50 on Saturday and another 30 on Sunday (today).
I will continue to ride for the next 4 weeks before it’s go time. I think I’ve done enough. I feel pretty good about the mileage, the number of consecutive days on the bike, and the improvement in my overall fitness since November. I can’t wait to get this going!!!
