cyclinfool

You might make some of these goals, but I would give yourself some time to ramp up to them. You should also make sure to give yourself enough rest, driving too hard usually results in less progress.

zonatandem

The more you talk about it, the behinder you seem to get . . .
I've set very few cycling 'goals'. Always wanted to do a century in under 5 hours and a double century in 12 hours.
Achieved both goals.
Did a century in Ontario, Canada in 4:45 and did the the route back the next day in 4:50.
Achieved my double century time goal when I was in my late 50s; 12 hours for 204 miles.
Have ridden over a 100 centuries and half dozen double centuries.
Have pedaled over 300,000 miles; my wife has pedaled over 2230,000 miles with me on tandems. BTW, she's only 75 and still does 75 to a 100 miles a week.
While weather at times can be a factor I've ridden in temps from 20 degrees in Michigan to 117 degrees in Arizona.
Yes, have ridden in Louisiana and it is FLAT but had to watch out for trucks hauling sugar cane that fell off the overloaded trucks and became a serious road hazard.
Have ridden in pouring rain and been caught up in a snow squalsl and a few hailstorms. Have been blown over and crashed due to the wind. Have ridden at sealevel and as high as 9,200 feet.
Am 78 years old and still riding 100 miles a week. Don't ride as fast or as far as I used, but am riding.
So, why will you not ride tomorrow . . . too cold, windy, rain, don't feel like it?
Quit planning. Quit procrastinating. Ride!
Pedal on!
Rudy/zonatandem

rdtompki

I'm with Rudy on this. I was a pretty fanatical runner into my early forties (I'm 65 now). When I started running I logged everything and measured myself by the number of weekly miles. After three years or so I just ran for the joy of it. Still ran 50-70 miles a week, but enjoyed running with my friends so much that we only ran a few marathons a year 'cause recovery cut into running.

Same with cycling now. My wife and I are probably averaging 75 miles/week on the tandem. I use a Garmin and save the files, but never look at them. Our goals: ride every organized ride that looks like fun, the century if there isn't too much climbing (certainly <4000' or so), the 100K otherwise, and keep riding whenever we can. My only personal goal is to get down to 190 from my current 200 (I'm 6'0") just because nothings flat around here and I'm tired of lugging my butt up these hills.

The goals are absolutely fine as long as you don't despair if you start falling short. Just enjoy riding. BTW, I have no aerobar experience, but from your description of your riding style/pace I wonder what advantage you might gain. I sure hope your collision with the sign didn't happen when you were learning aerobars in windy conditions!

drmweaver2

Got in some night/low-light riding and am actually within 50 miles of my end of month goal. New aerobars and the associated bike setup adjustments I've made are making a serious, positive difference in my mileage and ride comfort. Getting used to "dressing down" (lighter than I expected to have to) though it's cool-to-cold outside at the start of a ride has been a learning experience far more involved than dressing to go snow-skiing. ;-) My knee is mostly healed after being whacked in a fall a few weeks ago. An unexpected over-2-hour-ride issue surfaced with my shoe laces. I found they were cutting off circulation and switched to "elastic" laces similar to what come with the "yankz!" lacing system - which I tried and promptly got rid of as they allowed too much movement inside the shoes.

Longest ride this month: 45 miles
Most rides in one day: 3 - 10 (morning), 12 (afternoon), and 32 (nighttime) miles.
Upcoming event: 200k brevet on 1/2/2011 IF I can get through a 60 miler beforehand. Backup brevets a week later, and a week after that. Brevet miles aren't included in "training miles" for the month.

Phil85207

If you don't have a dream, you can't have one come true. The only thing is, it takes more than dreaming to make it come true. I have found that the harder I work the luckier I get in reaching my goals. I would suggest setting sub goals to support your overall goal. One sub goal could be to get at least 8 hr. sleep the night before a ride, or no alcohol the day before a ride. or drink 8 eight ounce classes of water a day. You get the idea. Its a change of life style that will help you achieve your goals. Good luck.

drmweaver2

Phil, a line from your sig says it all:

drmweaver2

Made my end of month mileage goal after a late start. Holiday meals have taken their toll on my weight progress however though that wasn't entirely unexpected.

Looks like a cool, fairly-nice weather forecast for Sunday's brevet. So, my training miles for January probably won't start to accumulate until Tuesday/Wednesday. Here's keeping the fingers crossed.

Happy New Years.
Geaux Tigers! Who dat say dey gon' beat dem Saints?

AzTallRider

Nice game Monday... Who Dat indeed!
(married to a Parish girl)

drmweaver2

Yeah, Parish girls are nice (depending on the Parish! [county for you non-Louisianians]).

Added a new goal - going for the new RUSA P-12 award https://www.rusa.org/award_p12.html

AzTallRider

According to her, there is only one parish that is THE parish: St. Bernard! Not much left of it now, but a few folks have rebuilt. Her mother and 3 brothers lost their houses to Katrina, and only one was able to rebuild. The others moved to the other side of the lake.

AzTallRider

That one looks like you could do it without destroying your body.

drmweaver2

Been away from riding/this forum/this thread for a few months due to yet another accident - non-cycling, but literally couldn't get on the bike period until last week. The details are unimportant.

Anyway, all of the original goals for this year have now been canned and are in the process of being "adjusted"/re-thought. Sucks to have to redo/re-think this as I lost a lot of the "mental drive to complete them" during the doctor-ordered downtime.

Preliminary rethinking has me laughing at some of the goals themselves and at my process when establishing them as I reread my notes from last Dec. I did ride with a number of the local randonnuers prior to the forced bike-parking incident and realized, while they are nice people, their riding/companionship styles aren't mine - that is, I never felt like I really fit in with their group (even relatively small sub-groups). That's okay, I like solo rides. Which led me to question why I wanted to do any organized rides/brevets at all. The local "brevet"/populaire routes are published/available online for the most part and I don't need a medal to confirm I completed a 100k/200k ride a month for a year. So, I've even begun questioning the RUSA membership I paid for.

Shrug.. not really sure why I'm posting this, but it felt like an incompleted story that needed at least an update in case anyone who read the initial post wondered what happened (was that just a grandiose "claim" and then a quick fizzle by that guy?).

So, there it is. 2011 has not been my "cycling year to remember" thus far - or put another way, my cycling year willl start May 1st.

DnvrFox

Seems like you might want to set yourself a "smile" goal. It would be a shame to add more stress to the apparent stress you have been under the past several months. Why not just enjoy your bicycling for a period of time - use it as a bit of therapy and renewal?

Pat

0) this is possible but if it is not "flexible", it could be awfully inconvenient. It is not hard to do 3 20 mile rides per week but every week is another story. Something could intrude like a trip, an illness etc. Streaks are hard to maintain which is why a hitting streak in baseball is such a big deal.
1) 400 miles per month would seem to me to be easier to do than the one above.
2) Century a month. Here in Central FL this is something one can do. But who would want to? FL is not century friendly in August. This one is a matter of grim determination. I could see riding 12 centuries in a year easily. Riding one in each month would be harder. I would tend to want to bang out a bunch and get it over with.
3) I have done some short self supported bike tours. They do not appeal to me. But they are certainly possible. Here it is more a matter of wanting to do them.
4) Probably a good idea if you can get one locally.
5) Losing 50 lbs in a year is possible. But it is a tall order. The rule of thumb is that it is not good to lose more than a pound per week. The trick is to not diet as much as changing your lifestyle. The trick to losing weight and keeping it off is changing your habits so it changes the way you live. Good luck on this one.
6) Randonneurs? I think doing those takes a certain combination of committment, fitness and maybe a bit of insanity (couldn't hurt).