2025 Goals
 

In the spirit of terrymorse 's 2024 Year in Review thread, I thought that I'd start one for 2025 goals.

What are yours?

I'll start...

I was picked in the lottery to participate in the Unbound Gravel 100 mile race. So I'll be heading to Emporia, Kansas at the end of May, hopefully with a lot of miles in my legs.
My partner and I are also discussing domestic bike tours for the summer.

My hope for 2025 is to make it up Mt. Tabor hill in the SW Indiana Hilly Hundred. It’s not a big hill…only about ¼ mile long, and not a lot of elevation gain…maybe 125 feet. But it is steep with some of it at 20% grade. There are always people walking their bikes up it. I was always able to make it up without stopping before I had knee problems. But a few years ago my RIGHT knee had gotten pretty bad, and the hill just presented too much pressure on it. I’d have to get off about halfway up and walk. I finally got the knee replaced in October 2023 right after that year’s ride, and by spring 2024 was able to ride out of the saddle again without pain. I worked on hills all summer long (re)conditioning my knee, and hoped to ascend Tabor without stopping this year. But it wasn’t to be. That was the only hill in the entire two-day ride that beat me. I guess I need to work a little harder.

Dan

My main goal is to get through a 1000K brevet. There are a couple other ultra events around here that I'm adding to my calendar as well.

Every year I start with the goal of riding 6,000 miles. I'd succeeded for 12 of the previous 13 years (with a year off for a heart attack), but missed the goal for the last three years. If I get a good start on the year, it can be fun as I concentrate on the rides and the miles come easy.

And I'd like to cycle the last 100 miles or so of the Blue Ridge Parkway I haven't ridden. I've ridden most of it in sections, as the opportunities arise. Missing the Mt. Mitchell to Linville, and the U.S. 421 to I-77 sections. I'm not sure what happened to the road in the first section during Helene, and there are three bridges being rebuilt in the second section. Here's hoping the Park Service can rebuild early in '25!

The Flint Hills are beautiful. Please report back on your experience. Take some good photos.

I'm planning on finally making Festivelo in the Lowcountry for a metric century ride. Last time I went, the car suffered a fatal transmission issue, luckily in the parking lot of the hotel on the first day of the ride. :notamused: Missed the ride trying to arrange a tow truck to get it to a dealer, get the bad news on diagnosis and had to have my neighbor drive down in the truck to rescue me. The blue Honda shown is the replacement car.

I'm also hoping my S.O. can get more comfortable on the tandem (she had never ridden a bicycle of any type before) to where she feels okay riding in a charity event.

EDIT: my S.O. (now my fiancé :love:) has decided she's not comfortable mentally riding. She's terrified of crashing, so the tandem and hitch have been put up for sale. :(
I think I'll wait until the end of 2025, see what I've done, and set that as my goal for the year, just so I won't be disappointed.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...ed318e5989.jpg

1. Ride
2. Not crash
3. Tour more
4. Get off my arse and start looking for a replacement bike with newer technology (current bikes are all approaching 20 years old).

Better hurry, before the upcoming tariffs drive the price of that new bike way up.

Well I have a few:

1) Bike in Portugal next month. I have my trip all set. Very excited.
2) Complete a Century Ride.
3) Complete 3,000 miles next year.
4) Attend the Vuelta in September in Spain and go around to the areas of "For Whom the Bell Tolls"

Mine are:

Don't fall off the bike
7,500 miles
Lose 15# beyond the 100# this year that brought me to 205#.
10 days riding in France (already planned)
One bicycle trip each month
Build a frame @ Ti Cycles
4 centuries (2 already scheduled and registered; 2 planned but registration not open)
Plan an Italy trip for 2026

I used to have mileage and performance goals like 10k miles for the year or a certain performance for a race or whatever. These days I just shoot for getting out on the trails every day and enjoying the wildlife sightings and scenery. I do mske sure to get my heart rate up for a decent workout on most rides. How hard of a workout varies from day to day, but I don't allow myself to get too lazy.

My goal is to form some goals. I'm not sure how to do that.

Ride the rest of the Route 66 route, Flagstaff to Chicago...then maybe home to Green Bay

Similar to, "To understand recursion, you must first understand recursion."

It's a good thing I studied Computer Science.

Lots of ambitious plans here! My more modest goal is to ride more than 100 miles every week. I've been doing that for years and rarely have a week where I fall short. I also plan to do a century in the fall when the weather cools off. I've done that the past five years, but fall is so far off that it seems too soon to plan for it.

My goals are fairly tame and similar to this year:
1) Stay healthy, avoid injury, mixed load w/recovery.
2) Keep running 3x/wk, weights 2-3x/wk, walk the dogs every day possible, ride a lot when I can.
3) Keep both bikes at 42/16 SS so I have a common frame of reference over the years.

Otto

1. Getting a new knee in Feb so short and long term goal is to concentrate on rehab - doc tells me my bike is the reason the old one lasted as long as it did! Planning on doing lots of circles around home in Central NJ this spring as I get better and stronger. If it's ready...riding the GAP again this summer with my college roommate. I find it amazing that I can ride a bike 60+ miles in a day but can't walk around the block with the current knee...can't wait to get a new one.

2. Do some riding in Delaware this fall - never rode there. Cape Henlopen and the surrounding area trails have me intrigued...

3. Take bike on Amtrak train to somewhere and ride back....Where? Not sure yet.

have the ortho surgeon install the W30 ‘stick cam’ when you get your new knee and you might do the GAP in one day !

this might be why I’ve heard others describe you as on off on off on on on off on off on off … and your age progression: 2 … 4 … 8 … 16 … 32 … 64 …

Well done!

Surgeon: "We put in the QuadraJet knee like you asked for"
Me: "Yesss!"

“To have ambition was my ambition “




.

LOL. It took a minute, but I figured out what W30 cam and QJ are (from long, long ago).

If you can tune a QJ, you are a better man than I am. :)

A 13-day, unsupported tour in MT.