As I write this last post for 2008, it is snowing outside. It is the first big storm of the season, and it will likely mean the end of trail riding for a while. I rode the shoreline trail last night. It was incredible. Most of the trail was covered with packed, crunchy snow, but the steep parts tend to be southern facing, so the entire trail was rideable. The snow-packed trail, combined with the closest perigee moon in 16 years, made for an ultrabright ride. I almost didn’t even need my headlight. It was a great ride to end the year.
Late December is a natural time for reflection. It would be easy to focus on the economy, some unexpected family health issues and a couple of other negative events–but other aspects of 2008 were so overwhelmingly positive that the negatives seem appropriately relegated to the background, where they serve to only to remind us all of just how important each day is, and how fragile life is.
I have reported my cycling progress is some detail in my prior posts. I won’t rehash that again. There are, however, a few other interesting statistics, facts and figures from 2008 that ought to be mentioned as part of a year end post. Here are a few of those:
- Hours on the bike: 320
- Miles on the bike: 2600
- Crashes: 7
- Days biked to work: 72
- Bikes Purchased: 2 (plus 2 more for the kids)
It is also worth mentioning that I was fortunate during 2008 to hang out with some pretty impressive cyclists. Michelle easily won the ICup title, as did Tanner, and Daren is a Cyclocross Champion. If you want to be good at something, it helps to hang out with people who actually know what they are doing.
So now we head into 2009. The St. George ICup opener is only a little over two months away. It is clearly more exciting, but perhaps somewhat more stressful, contemplating a race season with the confidence inspired by your first sucessful racing season. The optimism is, of course, tempered by the knowledge that someone–perhaps someone I have never met–will come out of nowhere to make the racing interesting.