The 2010 annual report.

So another year is over. Hope your 2010 was good, though it won't go down in the annals as one of my better cycling years. I manged 5036km which is my lowest total since 2005.  Generally I aim for 7500 or so and manage 6000. Still, I'll never argue mileage is measure of fun.


In my defence, there were a couple of things which held me back. I skipped the Opperman All Day Trial this year, so there's 360km of the missing 1000km straight away. I also spent November in China where I didn't have access to a bike for most of the month. Then there a the run-in with a Metro bus in April which meant I no longer had the nerve to ride in what passes for peak hour traffic in Hobart. As a result of that, I spent a lot more time in the gym this year instead of on the road.


Enough of the readings from the Big Book of Excuses; my 5036km came up in 264 hours and at an average of 19.02km/h. I'm 2km/h slower this year, not because of the ravages of age, but because I'm riding a lot more hills and a lot more gravel so it's hard to compare with years when most of my riding was fast road commutes. I passed the 30,000km and the 1500 hour mark since resuming riding in January 2005. I managed 144 rides, or 2.19 a week. It's the first year in five years my weekly average was under 100km, at 96.85km.


On the bright side, I cracked my first thousand-kilometre month in September, with 750km in one lovely week of the "Tour de Nord", including a memorable 300km one-day ride in the Mallee Routes. Reviewing the year's photos I remember a touring weekend up at Deloraine and plenty of trips out along the dirt roads of the Tahune. I also (just) completed the 200km Alpine Classic and the Winter Challenge and had my first go at bikepacking. 


On the topic of this blog: there were 27 posts in 2010. I had 6,700 visitors from 81 countries, Australia and the USA being the most frequent and Panama, Latvia, Mozambique and Iceland among the dozen or so with one visitor each. Visitors came directly, via Google searches (Schmidt Edelux, "flying with a bike" and "STI gears" being the most common search terms)  or via the websites of dear friends in the international randonneur community. Cheers to the folk  who arrived here after searching for "slowest up a hill" and "morbidly obese cyclist".


Who knows what 2011 has in store. I've set myself bold goals here before, which I always seem to fall short of, so I'm going to refrain this year. But to everyone who wanders by here from time to time, wherever you may ride this year, may the the wind be at your back through the whole of 2011 and beyond.


66km so far this year.