Last year was a bit of a washout for me, not in a bad way, just I didn’t really have much free time to do a lot of the things I have done in recent years. And by that I mean cycle mostly!

With redundancy looming I didn’t really get out on the bike much at all, and to be fair summer of 2024 was late starting, failed to really get going and was over in a flash. Another great reason to have not been out on the bike much.

I did however do a lot of running last year as it was far more doable in the weather, and didn’t involve constantly washing a bike and maintaining it from being caught in the rain all the time. As a result of this my annual mileage was quite frankly piss poor, and my preparation for the winter months non existent. So it will come as no surprise that I really only got back on a bike last month.

Missing the winter prep is rough, as getting caught in a rain shower here and there, turns into being happy going out for an entire ride in the rain. Having a start to a ride in very low temperatures and feeling relief when the sun shows up and things warm up, morphs into being OK doing an entire ride in 0-3c degrees. Without that transition, it’s simply a no go.

Hence not getting riding again until the temp was at least 8-10c. But it is OK, I am in my flow now and happy to get out there, and hopefully I will be able to keep riding regularly on my rest days, and leave days right through the summer, into autumn and winter. I really want to get my miles up this year, and do some fun rides, especially now I have my little drones for recording some fun footage.

The most important thing here is having the feeling of wanting to ride, rather than the feeling of dread which has overtaken in the past. The obsessive determination to get to a certain amount of miles for the year etc. It really sucks the fun out of riding for me, so I am keen to avoid doing that again.

The gravel bike is serviced, the good summer bike is still waiting for its first ride of the year, and the commuter I bought is just sitting there doing nothing, and I am in the process of selling it. Impulse buy, losing money on it, but such is life.

Now I just need to find a sense of adventure and ride in some new places, explore a bit, and broaden my horizons as they say. I would love an international ride this year, but that remains to be seen. I would not do one solo, so just need to convince someone of similar abilities to join me for a little adventure. Maybe not AdH again just yet lol.

The weight loss is going well, I am close to my 12 month lowest again now, and hope to get below that soon, while at the same time increasing my fitness back to a reasonable level. I am aware that as the years pass now I am less and less likely to return to my peak numbers, but staying relatively fit would be nice.

Anyway, this isn’t the entry I came here to write, so I will wrap up here, and vow to get at least 2 rides in during my rest days and leave I have coming up. Hopefully a lot more than that.