Day Zero once more

Another year over and the odometer resets to zero once more. How was 2008 for you bikewise? Apart from a few glitches it wasn't a bad year for me. Although some of my targets seem a little ambitious in hindsight, I did pass last year's mark of 6,000km with a day to spare. Interestingly, I covered the distance a couple of hours quicker. Not much of an improvement but at least I didn't go slower.

At the start of the year I set eight goals, here's how I went:

1. At least 7,200km on the bike. A 20% rise.

Fell slightly short of that one. If 1200km is slight. Can't complain about 6041km, but could have done better. I was badly let down by be effort in February when I rode only 104km. Mind you, November made up for it with 705km. I'm going to try to be more consistent this year. I wouldn't mind trying for a 1,000km month or two, like Treadly and wurple did.

The 6,000km mark came up on the grandly titled Hobart Intercity Cycleway, inbound just past the Tasman bridge near the angry seething seagull rookery.

2. Finish the year in the top 1,000 riders on bikejournal.com

Not even close, I came in about 1300th.

3. At least 366 hours in the saddle - one hour a day for the leap year.

I'm not unhappy with 287 hours (12 days solid riding) , although it was an hour less than the year before! Doing fewer 200 and 300km Audax rides had cut into my hours a bit. In 2006, my best year, I did 6400km in 300 hours on 136 rides.

4. At least 183 rides - on the bike every second day. A 42% increase.

Final total 179 rides. Pretty damn close.

5. Lifting my average speed to at least 22.5km/h. A 4% increase!

Result: 21.46km/h. A speed increase of 20 metres an hour faster. 0.09%. Break out the champagne!

6. Seeing how many days in a row I can ride at least 10km, starting on January 1.

12 days before I got stale and sick of it.

7. Riding at least 400km in the Oppy (360km last year) and completing the 200km Alpine Classic within the time limit (130km last year).

387km in the Oppy. Damn close. Didn't finish the Alpine due to a hangover. Not close. Not smart either.

8. Blog more.

No joy here either. 44 posts, down from 58. Slack. Though this blog mainly continues to be a long conversation with myself, it is approaching to 200 post mark without having managed to impart much useful information. Still, I suppose that's what most blogs do anyhow.

This year's goals are fewer in number: 7,200km on the bike; top 1,000 finish on bikejournal.com; 300 hours in the saddle over at least 180 rides; average speed to more than 22.5km/h; complete at least 360km in the Oppy, 130km in the Alpine and ride enough Audax events to win an award.

20.9km so far this year.