Barrettscv 

For me, It's all about the ride. Do any rides stand out as you look back on 2015?

40mph on a 30 year old bike: Governor Dodge State Park during the Dairyland Dare;

american psycho 

Cino Heroica day 2 hammering up the climb with 42x25. Like Roubaix but uphill.

gomango

A multi day 277 mile ride to our cabin in the BWCA.

90% gravel.

Fwiw Next summer we are using a different route. Almost all gravel.

greg3rd48 

My first century ride (104 miles) in Central NJ in September with a great group of guys courtesy of @rhm.

northbend 

No sense in retelling but if you’d like to view the original posts, here they are:

1: Eroica California and the journey along the way

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...tml?highlight=



2: The Cino in Montana

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...rt-2015-a.html



3: Windy Ridge at Mt. St. Helens

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-vi...=#post17872365

non-fixie 

L'Eroica, no contest. That's mrs non-fixie down there, in the fluorescent rain jacket:

non-fixie 

An honourable mention goes to the RetroRonde. Even more relaxed than L'Eroica, and just as easy to run into a world champion.

philbob57

75-76 km ride on my 71st birthday. It was supposed to be 72 km (age + 1 to grow on, like candles when I was a child), but my 'puter goes stays a sleep sometimes, and it did after my lunch break. I went the extra distance to make sure I hit at least 72 km.

The view of Lake Michigan on a beautiful day that comes out of nowhere about 2 km North of Highland Park on Sheridan Road was breath-taking ... but I kept on riding, even so.

obrentharris 

For me it's been all the tandem rides with my dear stoker. She's really caught the tandem bug this year!



Brent

nesteel 

Cino Heroica.

fender1

Mine was 200k Brevet this past October, with the PA Randonneurs. 126 miles, 11,000+ feet of climbing and I completed with no issues in 11:55.

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iab

Bavaria

Germany 067 by iabisdb, on Flickr

Germany 071 by iabisdb, on Flickr

Germany 199 by iabisdb, on Flickr

Germany 202 by iabisdb, on Flickr

Germany 208 by iabisdb, on Flickr

Germany 209 by iabisdb, on Flickr

Germany 121 by iabisdb, on Flickr

poprad

I had a few good rides, but hands down the best for me was my first ride after healing from 2 herniated discs in my C spine. I was only about 5 miles, and in the swampy DC summer heat, but the feeling of riding after a 3 month layoff was incredible. It really taught me to relish time on the bike when you have it...and to work the upper back!

nlerner

Boston to Provincetown, MA, starting at 5:30 p.m. and ending at 5:30 a.m., 150 miles in all.

gugie 

Seattle to Portland in a roundabout way, 500 miles in 8 days with my buddy Phil. Met @northbend and @scozim along the way, made some new friends, many from the world famous hardmen and women of the Seattle Randonneurs. Found out that Amtrak from Portland to Seattle with a bicycle is convenient, comfy, and quick. It was my first real trip ever into the state of Washington, beautiful country, seriously rideable - Ironhorse Trail, Yakima Canyon, White Pass, SR 26 and all the views, climbs, and descents.

ScottRyder 

wow! I can't compete with the miles or the locations, beautiful places everyone has ridden. My favorite ride was 65 miles on the Cape Cod Rail Trail in August. 90 plus degrees .. way warmer than I like to ride in. But for me, it's not where you go, or how far you go, it's who you ride with. Lauren, looking quite dry after 40 miles. me? Not so dry.





Scott

thinktubes 

The Dairyland for being both fun and difficult.

And the there was the 80-miler in July where I got a bad case of heat exhaustion. I didn't realize what was happening and was having trouble thinking clearly. I stopped a couple times to rest, but eventually I couldn't ride more than 1/2 block. Being 10 miles from home, I called up the wife to bring the broom wagon. Puked a couple of times when I got home and then slept for 12 hours. Scary.

bikemig 

The Dairyland Dare was great. But the ride I knocked out xmas day was a lot of fun. The bike tells the story of the ride:

OldsCOOL

A 38mi ride on one of the hilliest route one could find in northern Michigan. Climbed approx 1500ft on the big loop. Here is one of the infamous hills with our #3 friend grinding out the elevation....

rhm

Sheesh, guys! Don't put me on the spot or anything!

Which of your children do you love the most?

Who do you like better, your mother or your father?

If you had to be stuck on an elevator with one of your siblings, which one would you choose, and why?

What's the best riding bike you own?

What's the most memorable bike ride you've been on this year?

Oh, fine. Here it is, a little before midnight, December 27th, and I can say with confidence the most memorable ride of 2015 will have been on December 29. I'm meeting a man I've never met before at a London Underground station I've never been to before. He's going to lend me a bike I've never ridden before, which will be too big for me, and we're going to ride down into the rural expanse of Kent, do a loop though ancient villages and preserved forests, and back to London, total about 100 miles. I will try to be a good guest (not my strongest suit). It will be my first century in England, and perhaps my first century outside of north America. Perhaps my only one, since I don't intend to get on an airplane again after I get back to New Jersey.

Why pick that one? Because I haven't done it yet. The others (I've done about a dozen centuries, one century-and-a-half, and two doubles this year) were all great, but I can't remember which was which. Wonderful rides, and all equally memorable. But tomorrow's ride (oy! It's it tomorrow already?!?), that will be memorable. I know it. I can feel it.

Velocivixen

That's a beautiful Trek. Is it green? Very nice.

I rode my first ever metric century (turned out to be closer to 67.5) on my newly acquired non-vintage Surly Straggler along with its knobby tires. I've never ridden anywhere close to that distance, just decided to do it and did it. Felt very accomplished.

Then I rode a "harvest century", although did the 45 mile route and this time I had some Compass 650b tires on the Straggler and it was a lot easier. I met a lot of nice people and had fun.

I will practice riding longer distances before I decide to do another long ride.

jyl

Five of us rode a loop of about 80 miles around Mount Hood. We started at Welches on Hwy 26 and headed north into the woods on a gravel road. The next 45 miles were on steep gravel trails and abandoned, potholed paved roads through the forested hillsides, riding a big circular path clockwise around the base of the mountain. We saw two cars, both drivers hopelessly lost. It was incredibly hot, 105F. One of the ladies ripped open her tire casing on the gravel, we patched it with an adhesive boot. My chainring bolts loosened, but I caught it in time to retighten them. We were on road bikes with 25 mm tires. I was on my Vitus which had a triple with a 30x26 low and that granny gear is the only reason I got out of the forest. It was so hot. My buddy took off all his clothes and rode naked for a while. Sometimes we stopped and sat in the dirt and watched our sweat puddle in our laps. We could see ice melt streams but they were always too far down the slopes to reach. I ran out of water 30 miles into the forest and became very dehydrated during the next 15 miles climbing. By the time we reached a general store in the next town, I was on my knees. We rested there, drank gallons of water. Then started another 35 miles of climbing in terrible afternoon heat. We labored from the shade of one roadside tree to the next. Once we found a farmer's field and laid down in the sprinklers. My legs started cramping, I could hardly pedal but kept moving because when I stopped, my muscles started spasming and locking up. Finally we came to Hwy 26, about 15 miles east of Government Camp. The road climbed in that demoralizing way, dead straight pavement rising as far as we could see. There were almost no cars on the road, maybe one every twenty minutes. It was evening, then dusk. The lady's booted tire finally ripped open, terminally. There was no cellphone coverage. The rest of the group decided to ride ahead to Government Camp to find a cell signal and call AAA to retrieve her. I announced that we shouldn't leave a woman alone out there at night, and that I would stay with her. This was interpreted as chivalry, but in reality I was hoping that the AAA driver might take me too. We waited and waited, tried patching her tire with dollar bills, rode another mile, the tire blew again, and we started walking. A pickup truck approached, the driver peered at us, and drove on. Ten minutes later the truck came back, the driver slowed, peered again, and stopped. It was the only AAA driver within 30 miles, off-duty and headed home. Knowing that the last AAA driver on duty was busy over a hour away, he had decided to search for the stranded cyclist rather than leave her out at night. We loaded our bikes in his truck and climbed in the cab. If he hadn't had room for me, I'm not sure I'd have made it the rest of the way. He told us we'd been stopped in a bad place. Several people had disappeared there in the last few years, hunters and hikers, the locals considered it a sort of Bermuda Triangle, which is why he'd been determined to find us and why he had been glad to see the stranded lady had a companion. He drove us to our rented condo in Government Camp, we arrived right on the wheels of our companions who had ridden until they got one bar of cell signal, managed to contact AAA, then ridden the rest off the way wondering if we'd been found. We'd ridden from about 9 am until nearly 8 pm. I had been in charge of food, and the lady's husband had brought up my coolers of pre-cooked baby back ribs, potatoes, roast vegetables. There was wine and water. Also a hot tub, but I was too tired to get in it. The next morning I left the others, slung my duffle bag over my shoulder, and descended Hwy 26 to my car in Welches. It would have been an incredible descent, if I hadn't had a 25 lb duffle slipping off my back and throwing me off balance as I dragged the brakes at 45 mph. Unencumbered, I think it could have been a 55-60 mph ride. That remains the hardest ride I've done. My buddy and I still talk about it. He once hinted that he was disappointed he hadn't gotten laid in the condo. I'm amazed he had still had the energy to even think about it.

Numbskull

Did some good ones, Mt Greylock/Petersburg Pass, D2R2 160K, L'Eroica 209K, but what I remember the most is just losing myself alone on a vintage bike in Tuscany.

Chrome Molly

My favorite rides were the DD (for the camaraderie), and then it would have to be the rides that showed the best of each season.

Spring



Summer




Fall



Winter

bikemig 

Thank you; it is green. It is a 1992 Trek 950 that I picked up this year off CL; it was a good find and the paint job was in fantastic shape as was the bike.

Both your rides sound like fun. A longish metric on knobby tires is a challenging ride esp. on the west coast.