The best and worst of 2002
 

OK, so everyone seems to be in the mood to reflect on the year (almost) just past. So what was your best and worst cycling moment(s) during the year? Here are mine:

The best: touring in Victoria in November, specifically riding the Great Ocean Road. Something I had not planned on doing at the start of the year. An unexpected bonus.

The worst: Having a run of flats toward the end of the year (four in four weeks) after having only two in the twelve months leading up to that. Oh yeah, and copping that @#*$ing dust storm a few months back. :cry:

being able to ride stuff I never thought I would ever be able to.... completeling my first century.


wrecking two times, one time on my road bike, the other on my mtb....

:beer:

Best - Ride for the Roses without a doubt.
its not the most memorable ride, not particularly difficult,
but its absolute magic. . .
worst - There really aren't any, even the worst is better
than none.

Marty

The Best.
Doing 113 miles and making that final mile/climb into Austin, Nevada, seeing the camp site along with pool- and soon after having my Ginger ale and brandy in a 160 year old bar imported from England.
The worst. I enjoyed it all- hopefully every 8,800 miles of it.. Eight days to go.. I even found the couple rainy rides I did -not awful.. Guess, I do not really like cool clamy/drizly rides, but I can live with it.. As the song goes, we all are mostly happy when we are thinking here comes the sun..

Easy for me, at least personally.

Worst - Trigeminal Neuralgia in August causing extreme and persistent pain or else being on awful medications. Slowed me biking down a lot.

Best - Neurosurgery November 18th and the pain is gone. However, biking is slow now due to weather.

My worst was my crash, well more specifically having to wait a month before I could get back on my bike.

My best was my first superweek (I was going to say getting hooked on racing, but I am yet to figure out if that was a good thing :) ).

-Matt-

The best : Buying my mtb bike and actually using it for the purpose it was built for

The worst : Winter coming leaving me to train inside.

Best: Getting my $6500 road bike for free (thank you sponsership)

Worst: Finding out my knee is shot and can't use that $6500 road bike to race.

The best, doing my first first century followed the next day by my second. The worst throwing my chain on an organized ride last fall and doing almost $300USD damage to the bike. Ouch (RE: another thread how to establish a relationship with your LBS throw a big wad of money at him. He now walks up and shakes my hand every time I walk in :D )

:) The best: riding with my 14 year old son for the first time and seeing him nonchalantly clear things I wouldn't ride. Ah, youth!

:( The worst: breaking my chain for the FOURTH time on the same ride. After the first two times, I just wanted to get out of the woods before it got darker. I finally found the problem, stayed in one gear and just drove right to the LBS.

STP? This year's STP was my first STP and that was probably my best cycling experience. It's the longest back-to-back ride I've done. It wasn't the hardest but it was a lot of fun. And I got to go for free since the LBS owner likes me and had a spare ticket.


My worst event was when I cracked my helmet in October (along with my sunglasses... faceplant after going over the bars while MTBing). Anyone ever tried to replace a helmet at the end of the season? All the good ones are gone and the new ones haven't hit the shelves yet. My LBS owner took pity on me and gave me a huge discount on their last high-end helmet though so the strategy of supporting your LBS does actually work. Also around the same time, I had a string of flats and even split my rear tyre. They [LBS] lent me a tyre to use for a couple of weeks while they ordered me a new one since they didn't have any GP3000s in stock.

Geez, what is it with October? All these bad things seemed to happen then. It may have been a great month for Mario Cipollini but it sucked for so many other cyclists. That's when I had my worst of 2002, being hit by a car, bike banged up, broken hand and injured back, pretty much toasted my season.

The best: When I finally climbed Mount Pleasant, a notorious climb here in Montreal which most of us refer to as Mount Unpleasant. I almost made it to the top but my cleat slipped out. ANd it was a really warm day, but I was so surprised to make it that far.

best: getting fully sponsored

worst: my shoulder blowing out at every major race



conclusion: learned that life is what you make it, and how u play your cards

Now I have to add Montreal to my list of places to visit.

Being car free all year was the best.

Crashing my RockHopper , getting stabbed in the upper quads 2" deep by the brake lever.

Best: Finding all kinds of new trails in my own backyard...

Worst: Everyone I showed the trails to got hurt... :confused:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

BTW; just got back from a gruelling X-mas day ride at Henry Coe, and my dad ate it bad, endo action into a stream, he lost all his confidence after that and kept falling the rest of the day..."bad day"! I feel really guilty for taking him out there, even though I know he's a good rider - just had an off day!

Mike

Chris, don't forget montreal has a mountain in the middle of it so it's a hilly city, not quite like San Francisco. Mount Unpleasant isn't the worst of them, there are other climbs, like the Goat Path on Mount Royal which I have yet to even attempt. And there are streets parallel to Unpleasant which are also hilly, but Unpleasant is steeper. But by all means, come and visit!

I got a new job, whoa, this is way off topic, as for cycling, I did a pretty good miles this year 2002.

Not really. I got a new job this year, which meant I finally had some money to buy some spanky gear for my ride. :D

(I had spent the previous three years having to make do with cheap stuff and trying to stretch it's life out to the absolute max).