January Mileage

Pedaled all 31 days this month.
755 miles
Gotta love SW Florida in the Winter.

Annual Birthday Ride

Since age 50 I have been riding my age annually in the month of my birthday, January. This year I finally got the opportunity to do it in warm sunny Florida. We are now "Snowbirding" in Ft Myers and thankfully there are many cycling routes available. With the help of the local bike club, Caloosa Riders, I was able to obtain cue sheets for a 40 mile ride onto which I was easily able to add another 25 miles. It was a perfect sunny day with temps in the upper 70's and winds under 10 mph. Wind is the issue in Florida. You would thing that pedaling flat Florida would be easy but it is not. You must constantly pedal without any relief from coasting downhill. With that, there is still little to complain as Florida invests in it's parks and biking/walking paths.

Being on the road made it difficult to store multiple bikes, so all are gone except for my Xootr Swift folder which I have become quite fond of. My daily rides have not been more than 28 miles and I was a bit concerned about 65 miles. In the past few years my high mileage day has been my birthday ride.

Be that as it may, I managed to do the ride and with an additional 3 unplanned miles. I am happy to accomplish this milestone at Medicare eligibility. I suspect this will be my last time. I have accomplished more personal cycling goals than I could have imagined. I will continue to go about pedaling and enjoy everyday I get to ride.

                           

2016 Stats and Year in Review

It has been an interesting and exceptional year. My total mileage was 6493 with 254 riding days. Surprisingly my rides have been for the most part, evenly divided between my Fuji, Xootr Swift and my ICE T. My wife and I decided to live our dream of living on the road and sold our house of more than 26 years.  October 4 we loaded up our then RV and headed south for the Winter. Living in a 240 sf box has it limitations and one sacrifice I had to make was to downsize my bike collection. I decided my must haves would be my forever trike, my ICE T and my newly purchased folding Xootr Swift. After 2 months I found myself riding the Swift and the trike was taking up precious cargo room in the back of my Honda CRV. After careful consideration, I decided to simplify things and sold my trike. I thought it would be a difficult breakup but as it turns out I am really enjoying the Swift and don't at present miss my trike. We have since bought a new larger RV with large basement storage so it is possible to stow a folding trike.
My goal for the road was to average 100 miles/wk and I am pleased to say in the last 3 months I have accomplished that. We are currently Wintering Snowbirds in Ft Myers, Fl and surprising it is a great cycling area. It seems Florida invests in it's parks and bike paths. Almost every major road is accompanied by a bike lane, bike path or cycling friendly sidewalk. You can pretty much cycle anywhere in SW Florida. Florida is flat and you would think it is easy pedaling but you actually never have the ability to coast. Also it is made up of right angles and lots of wind making for some monotonous rides. I do miss the rolling, winding, back roads of Jersey. All in all we are blessed to start this next chapter in our lives and I look forward to exploring new roads.

Don't miss the snow

Grandson first big ride

New RV