This one is not like the other one

I was thinking a while back about how this year compares to previous years as far as cycling is concerned. Obviously, the coronavirus has played havoc with my travel plans as both domestic and international travel shut down and events I was signed up for were canceled. Also, I had a fairly significant injury in the Spring which hampered my riding during our winter sojourn in Texas.

Here's a comparison. By the end of May in 2019, I'd:

• Ridden 5,517 miles
• Done a Flèche in Australia - the Flèche Opperman
• Done a 1000K in Australia - the Geelong Flyer
• Done a 1000K in Texas - the HCR BNBB 1000K
• Done 3 200K's and a 300K
• Done the Florida Sunshine 1200K

Thus far in 2020 I've ridden 2,544 miles and my longest ride has been 81 miles. Not a single brevet of any distance.

I have to admit that apart from the injury, this is fairly close to normal for me without a brevet to target. My rides are typically in the 30-40 mile range with the occasional 100K. I rarely ride 200K or more just for the heck of it.

But I guess that needs to change. It's not likely longer brevets are going to happen for the foreseeable future. I've been focusing on the Everest Challenge and that's done a good job of giving me a target to shoot for but I realized that doing e.g., even an Everest Basecamp (14,514 feet) would require me to ride nearly 75 miles and somehow climbing 14K feet as one of my longest rides of the year seems unwise and a full Everest would require riding nearly 150 miles.

So I guess it's time to ramp up the distance a bit. I've never been a believer that mega-distance rides are required in order to be able to do mega-distance rides but one thing I've learned is that gradual adaptation is important for my back, especially with the stress of climbing.

I'm thinking of perhaps doing another climbing session this coming Saturday on Bunker Hill or maybe going over to Denzer Hill to check it out some time this week. I might also do a Basecamp on the trainer.

Stay tuned!