wow, nice work! I did 2,000 miles last spring and summer (my biking season). this year my season started in November and went through the winter and I'm just over 800 miles so beating 2,000 by September should be a cinch! my goals though are more toward body transformation and its hard to judge that quantitatively. I've been seeing impressive progress and I've been ramping up my training and trying really hard to stay injury free. nothing stokes my engine more than seeing results.

from a training stand point, sure. from a just riding stand point, miles are a fine metric. that said, i've ridden 1875 miles this year.

Goal

Main article: Goal setting
Goal-setting ideally involves establishing specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-targeted objectives. Work on the goal-setting theory suggests that it can serve as an effective tool for making progress by ensuring that participants have a clear awareness of what they must do to achieve or help achieve an objective. On a personal level, the process of setting goals allows people to specify and then work towards their own objectives — most commonly financial or career-based goals. Goal-setting comprises a major component of Personal development.


Specific, measurable, realistic and time targeted. My goals and many of yours fit that and therefore are very legitimate. That was the point of my post, not styles of riding and race event measurement.

Goal

Main article: Goal setting
Goal-setting ideally involves establishing specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-targeted objectives. Work on the goal-setting theory suggests that it can serve as an effective tool for making progress by ensuring that participants have a clear awareness of what they must do to achieve or help achieve an objective. On a personal level, the process of setting goals allows people to specify and then work towards their own objectives — most commonly financial or career-based goals. Goal-setting comprises a major component of Personal development.


Specific, measurable, realistic and time targeted. My goals and many of yours fit that and therefore are very legitimate. That was the point of my post, not styles of riding and race event measurement.

My goal was to not hit the ground. I failed.

uh oh, wait, what? did I miss the thread for your fall? did you not post all the gory details? is my advanced age and dementia preventing me from remembering that I actually even responded to the thread? jeez, all these questions just made me dizzy and I need some pie.

I didn't fall from failing to unclip, it was a crash in a race.

ouch. same goal for not hitting the ground the rest of the year?

Well it's always a goal to not crash :p

my goal was to ride 45 mph for 2 miles.

Last season I was able to average that speed for around 10 km, but at the time I was coming down the side of a mountain. I'm not sure I could hit that speed anyway else.

It's a joke referencing razor's thread recently ;)

I ran my maraton :)

Now I need to work on that century... links to training programs anyone?

Everyone seems to have a problem with the label of "true rider" than the concept of miles vs. time.
There are many two-dimensionally thinking people out there.

A true rider does it to enhance his/her fitness or to achieve a training goal.
It is most useful to know that you have 12-15 hours of saddle time per week.

I am not an elitist, nor do I post inane comments every 3 minutes during the work day.

I am suggesting however, that over time you don't want to become a motor for your bike.
People get caught up in the numbers (miles) and go out when they should have a rest day simply to "round out the milage"
Or guys who ride around the block one more time to hit exactly 100 miles instead of 98.7 miles at the end of a group ride.

Tell me you aren't looking at extending the ride, even to coast just to round out your week's milage....
Or tell me that you aren't the guy who has already done the math to see how many miles you'd have to avg to get to X miles for the season.

Would 4,942 miles do it for you? or would you need to get to that 5,000 mile mark to satisfy your milage goals?!

Nothing elitist here. Just sensible.
Enjoy the 49.54 mile ride, not the 50 miler 'cause you circled the block an extra time.

all in good fun.

I thought it might be a joke but I wasn't sure. I guess that was my passive agressive way of saying "not going to happen."

But as spring has come only in the last 2 weeks to Finland I have no progress to report as of yet. I just put away my ski's and got my bike ready for the season. This week I have been out 3 nights doing about 60 km per night. I plan on going out again tonight to try and get 70 km in.

I'm working towards improving on my raceing performances from last year. First test will be in June. I would also like to get faster, I have a goal to sustain 40 kmh for long distances (100 - 140 km) and I would need that fitness level for September. I think it's do able with some hard training.

You should have waited for more replies.

So far, I'm on track with my goals. Two 2nd's, Two 1st's & an upgrade.

I didn't have anything in the way of mileage goals other than to ride more than I have in the past - typically 1,000-2,000 miles per year. By riding the trainer through the winter, which I historically haven't done, I'm about to hit 1,000 miles on the year already. So far so good on that front.

The other goals were to get my butt in shape and give racing a go. I've lost close to 30 lbs and I'm probably in better cycling shape than I've ever been in through the trainer workouts. I've been in two crits and gotten shelled in both, but saw improvement in the second one and am looking forward to continuing to improve. The only real racing goal I had was to be able finish with the pack by the end of the year and I think that is within reach.

Supersedes all others, IMO.

My goal this year was to not worry about mileage but focus on speed and elevation. I know, based on previous years and my riding habits, that I will be able to easily reach 10000 miles with out too much effort.

So far this year I'm at 3500 miles and pedaled this distance over 8 hours faster and over 6 miles higher than this point last year.

So I looked up my goals for the year:

1/2 my upgrade points for 3, and podium a non-weekly race.
so far I've got 6/20 upgrade points, and a 2nd place podium.

I've become more aggressive in my races, so I'm confident those upgrade points will come.

Well to date I have done some pretty amazing things since the beginning of the year:

-Climbed Haleakala (made it to only the visitor's center, but that's ~7-8K ft in 25ish miles, I blame the rental bike!~ )
-Climbed Mt. Diablo (and doing it twice in one go in a few weeks!)
-Finally signed up for the Auburn 140 mile, 17k ft century (/twitch)
-Finally bought a long sleeve jersey (haha)

Year to date: 1854 miles, 101k ft of climbing, 121.55 hrs on the saddle. Not bad for 3 months.
Year goals: ? ? ?

Maybe I'll see you July 24th for the hill climb?!

I agree tha it is more useful to know/track/care about hours than time for training purposes, but not everyone has the same reasons for riding and the same goals. To label someone a "true rider" or not because they don't meet your criteria is a bit silly.

Note that some of you may think that this position is hypocritical for me given my posts in threads like "average distance", but my problem with that thread was only the issues surrounding taking the "average" of a bunch of different length rides and having it be representive of the riding one does.

My goal was 1609km by June 28th, if I keep going at the current rate, I'll get there and then some

Bicycling Mag has some free download plans for improving your century performance.