This year I tried to space out the rides more evenly, and tried to get about 15 miles in during the day, and another 15-20 each night on top of at least the regular 8 from commuting. A few days in I realized that I could chop down the night riding if I spent some more time commuting, but found that hard to do in reality. I slowly chipped away 10-15 miles at a time to the 310 mile goal which wasn’t the most efficient way either, but it worked for this year.

What I might change if I were to try this again in 2012:

1. Keep the bike maintained every day. A simple chain cleaning a few times felt much better, and cleaning off the rims a few times more would help with the scary descents on dirt roads.
2. More riding during daylight, and making those rides more interesting than just sticking to the easy miles on state routes. I found I was riding mostly at night when it was cold, and harder to go long distances so some nights I made two 15 mile loops rather than one long one.
3. Use the race bike when I can. While the new bike is very efficient for a 28lb steel commuter, I know that using the race bike during the day would have made putting on longer miles a bit easier. Which leads to…
4. Find the right pace for the conditions. I was too often pushing hard trying to keep up a reasonable pace I was used to. With 35mm cross tires, that just wasn’t appropriate to do 17mph rides. Although it was fun to try the time trial route again even if 18mph killed me.

I’m glad I tried the challenge again, and thrilled that I was able to finish. About 800 people logged their finishes on Strava as well, though looking through the list nearly all of them are from places that are currently very warm!

The new Soma Double Cross bike that took me 500km this week

On Updike Rd, ready for a big descent on dirt!

Only 6 miles to go at this point - exploring another dirt road

Big thanks to everyone that supported me and cheered me on. And thanks to my brother and Pete Mohan for the new headlight and taillight to keep me safely rolling through all the miles at night.

With only 31 miles to go, I put together this route while it rained in the morning, and set out when the clouds had mostly passed. This was more my kind of ride with a decent amount of hills, some dirt road exploring, great views, and still reasonable weather for a late December day.

Another extended commute for 10.1 miles. It’s a big climb up to the west, mostly flat heading south, and a wonderful hill going east into town.

28.4 miles on a relatively warm day in the 40s – After many miles of just trying to pick the flattest or most efficient routes for putting on miles, it was getting monotonous. So this ride was my attempt to add some excitement with the dirt roads in the south. The climbs were very tough, and the descents on wet dirt roads were scary, but I survived without any mechanical issues.

Commute – 9.1 miles home via Rt 89.

I originally planned to do another ride at night, but with few miles to go and a reasonable forecast for New Years Eve, I decided to leave the last 31 miles for a longer ride in the daylight rather than another loop at night.

Commute – 4.0 miles

17.7 miles midday to Brooktondale – A relatively flat and efficient loop to get in some more miles using the recway trails.

Commute 4.0 miles
Two rides at night in the cold, 14.9 and 17.4 miles each. At this point I was trying to get in some rides with few turns, so I could just pedal steadily ahead without much thought. Anything to get more miles in!

Commute – 4.7 miles

22.3 miles to Brooktondale – I went east to the Brooktondale time trial course like I had at this time last year. My time last year was 44:30, and this year even with the 20mph winds, I completed it in 40:21! I think the big difference was that last year I was so tired by this point in the challenge, where this year I was starting to feel stronger at this point.

Commute – 4.0 miles

Two more rides at night while it was very cold out – 7.2 and 8.5 miles.

I picked out a longer commute to work at 9.4 miles. The first climb is tough, but is followed by the long eastward stretch of quick downhill coasting.

Commute – 4.0 miles

30.7 miles at night, in light rain to Covert. I didn’t have a chance to ride midday, so I set out at night in the light rain heading farther up Rt 96 and weaving my way around the back roads coming home once the rain stopped.

Commute – 4.0 miles

15.2 mile midday ride around Ithaca through Forest Home and Cayuga Heights. For fun I threw in a trail down Renwick Slope I had eyed out before. I stopped at Armin’s downtown to drop in to his Boxing Day party before heading back to the office.

Commute home – 4.0 miles

18.2 miles at night from home. Just a quick ride along Dubois Rd and further up the hill. Still around 30F out, so I’m wearing the race shoes with neoprene/fleece booties, cycling tights, 2 jerseys, a jacket, hat and mitts.

16.9 miles at night in Enfield – I went back out at night for another ride, and seeked out Fish Rd., which is a dirt road I haven’t been to yet. After a few miles of dirt though, I had my second flat tire of the day, caused from grit in the rim from the previous flat. I changed it out and cut the route short since I was out of spares and patches. Then about 1.5 miles from home I got a flat on my last tube from a thorn and walked the rest home. I almost never get flat tires, so 3 in a day was really disappointing and not so reassuring for this challenge.

The route is ~53 miles from Brookton’s Market, which is 63 miles from East Hill Plaza or 73 miles from my apartment. Chris Rusin joined in from EHP on his beautiful new steel frame road bike, but with narrow tires and time commitments, he branched off after a Shindagin. Jason must have seen us roll slowly past the market and hopped out quick enough catch us there. The climb up Bald Hill Rd was just as hard as usual, and I only realized at the top that Jason was on a single speed bike! We made our way through Shindagin, and ran into Jeremy Gardener who didn’t meet us in time for the start but instead waited at the base of Level Green Rd. It was nice to see Goodrich and Blackman Hill roads on the side this time, and not have to climb up those monsters, though we had plenty of climbing on this route otherwise.

Jason took 79 back to Brooktondale, and Jeremy and I would continue on through Robinson Hollow and some gnarly descents. The Jim Schug trail in Dryden had a few other people on bikes or walking, and only one ipod zombie. Then came the best parts of the ride. Beam Hill proved too much to climb from this side, so we hiked up to the top. I was on this road early this year and came down the unpaved side when there was still about a foot of snow, and the only reliable path to take was through the small stream on the side. While there was some snow high up in the forests, we at least had fairly solid ground to walk on this time. Possibly this northern half of the route would overall be more rideable in the other direction next time.

Through Hammond Hill were plenty of ponds in the road, but it appears that many others have biked/hiked/skied here and created trails that veer off to avoid that. This was some fun cross riding through here, where sometimes the best line is just to go through the mud with a little speed, otherwise you just get stuck and have to put a foot down in soaking slop. Fortunately I was able to keep my feet dry through here, since it had never really warmed up much above 40F. Another speedy descent into Shindagin and back up, and then we were headed back to the start. My knee started to feel sore by this point, and only got worse from here, leading to taking a day off the bike and riding the bus to work today.

My ride was 74 miles, with 6150ft climbing. Ride data is at: http://ridewithgps.com/trips/435016 and http://app.strava.com/rides/2158765.

Originally scheduled earlier in the season, the annual Tour de Shunk ride was postponed due to several roads and bridges still out from flooding this year. This was only my second supported ride, since I usually like to stay local and just ride from home rather than drive to a ride. Chris Rusin talked me into it though, and along with Dany Floss, we carpooled to the bike shop at the start of the ride. As we pulled up, we saw Bill F and Blaine from the Big Horn Velo club. As we grabbed food and put our bikes together, we also saw Mary Ann and Kyra leaving maybe 20 minutes before we did. Of the slightly more than 100 riders, Ithaca and Elmira seemed well represented on this ride.

The route is mostly one very large loop around the Loyalstock State Forest, with an out and back section from the start/finish. The ride starts with several rollers, but early in the ride they seemed even if they were more uphill than down. After a turn, the real climbing starts, and about 4 miles later we had climbed 1,000ft. With a speedy decent on decently paved roads, we made our way to the first checkpoint after Shunk, PA. Each station would have homemade cookies, bananas, bags of various chocolates, and gatorade. Dany had climbed quickly, and was leaving the stop by the time Chris, Bill, Blaine, and I approached it, and we caught up to Mary Ann and Kyra at this point too.

The next big climb was on a road after Hillsgrove – with ~650ft climbing in 1.8 miles. For most of my cycling experience, I had been using 39/53 cranks with an 11-23 cassette, but a few months back when I switched my parts over to a newer Fuji frame, I put on a 11-28 cassette. I miss a few of those gears in the middle, but having 39×28 certainly helps my knees on the hills. I still try to climb no slower than ~6-7mph, but now I can actually keep my legs spinning rather than cranking on it and having to always stand while climbing big hills.

Between Proctor and Barbours, this spur to the checkpoint showed a lot of the flood damage. Some roads were down to one lane, the other now occupied by a 20ft drop to the new route of a river. A few landslide from steep banks, and lots of large debris well above the current water level showed how much force this flooding brought.

I particularly liked Upper Bodines which parallels SR14 to Marsh Hill. It’s only about one lane wide, and we only passed a few cars on this 2 miles stretch of narrow road – unlike when we then continued on the state route with cars and trucks passing frequently. Interestingly, Chesapeak Energy (one of the rides sponsors and a natural gas drilling company) kept their trucks off the route on this day. I was glad to not have to contend with the reality of fracking traffic, but I hope they don’t expect applause from cyclists either, since the other 364 days of the year they will likely be on the roads and passing cyclists.

Chris and I finished about 7.5 hours after we started, with 102 miles on the GPS with 6250 feet of climbing.

Ride data is at http://ridewithgps.com/trips/423719 and http://app.strava.com/rides/2001731.

Just a few photos: http://abg.smugmug.com/Other/Tour-de-Shunk