Often I have only an hour to hour and a half to ride, so I ride variations of the same 20-30 mile route on the west side of Fort Worth, along the west loop 820 and out toward Aledo and Willow Park. It's a popular area with many of us. Decent roads, not too much traffic, challenging roller coasters. Even on a weeknight I'll often pass another cyclist, or come within Strava fly-by range. On weekend days there may be a dozen or more folks riding out there. On event rides, upward of 100.

Total elevation gain is usually around 1300-1600 feet over that 20-30 mile route. Not a lot but the best we can do in this area.

But that west-east segment along Old Weatherford Road may not be optimal much longer. A large new housing development will bring in more traffic. Already that north-south segment is showing signs of changing traffic habits. It's built like a wide boulevard and while it's intended to be a residential neighborhood, wide boulevards mislead drivers into behaving like they're on a freeway. I've seen it on Bryant Irvin in south Fort Worth, a boulevard that tempts drivers into 65 mph speeds combined with reckless swerving passes through a residential and shopping district. It's an unfortunate reality that drivers need to be psychologically nudged into driving safely through cleverly designed manipulative infrastructure, because they won't do it on their own. Within five years that loop west of town won't be safe for cyclists, so I'm enjoying it now while it lasts.

The route southwest toward Granbury is also popular. It's on my list of places to ride this spring.

The alternate route, toward Fort Worth, is all downhill and even with the return trip it's unusual for a 40-60 mile ride to top even 1,000 feet of climbing. With careful planning it's mostly flat, for folks who dislike hills. I got into the lazy habit of riding that flatter route almost exclusively in early 2016 and my fitness declined pretty badly. I was riding around 400-500 miles a month, but it was pretty easy stuff. So I returned to tackling the more challenging route about once a week.

Climbing is my weakness so about once a week I'll tackle some climbing loops two or three times. Fortunately they're spaced almost ideally for interval training, so hard workout days are a double whammy.

I've moved up from rock bottom of the pack on Strava climbing segments to right around the middle of the pack. That's about as good as it'll get for me. A lighter bike and fancier components might nudge me up a bit but I'm not that worried about it.

My main goal has been to be able to keep up with local club rides on 30-60 mile rides, and to ride solo metric and full centuries within 12 hours without being completely exhausted. I'm still the slug on the local fast club's B-group, but I'm making a little progress.