2011 by the numbers

The figures are in and 2011 was an unspectacular year on the bike for me. It's probably not all that surprising I came up with just 4208km for the year, down about 1000km on my long term average. In my defence I had August almost completely off the bike and was laid low by illness twice for three weeks or so each time in the second half of the year, so I'm not going to beat myself up about it too much. It was a year of change for my little "fleet" too, gone is the KHS folder I bought on a whim from ebay and gone too is my dual suspension mountain bike. The proceeds of those sales went towards my lovely new steel-framed Thorn Audax which is now the bike I ride just about every day.

The year's total came in 118 rides of an average distance of 35km and an average duration of 1h48m.  My average speed of 19.64km/h was about 0.5km/h up on the previous year, although what exactly that means I really don't know. Just over 78% of my rides were on either my Surly Crosscheck or its replacement Thorn Audax. My old Bianchi did just 688km (15.8% of my distance) last year and my beloved Surly Long Haul Trucker covered 274km (6.2% of the total). On average I spent just over four hours a week on the bike - and that is the subject of one of my New Year's resolutions. In my best year - 2006 - I managed close to six hours a week on the bike, which gives me something to aim for.In that year I managed to maintain an average of 17.7km a day, last year I managed only 11.5km. Doing fewer Audax rides since my move to Tasmania hasn't helped, but the first day of the New Year is not the time for excuses.

Riding less meant blogging less in 2011with just 22 posts continuing a steady decline from the heady 58 I managed in 2006 and 2007 when I started the blog to keep my motivation levels up and track my progress as a rider. I'll kid myself that the quality has improved, but will try to be more industrious in 2012 but working full time in an increasingly demanding job as a newspaper reporter does limit the energy I have left over for blogging. Even so, the blog enjoyed 4810 visitors during the year, which is up slightly on the year before and attracted visitors from just about every country on earth - something which is a source of constant astonishment and enjoyment to me. To each of you my thanks for dropping by. I hope you gained some small measure of information or enjoyment. Special thanks to those who come by regularly to see what's up.

I've now covered almost 36,000km since getting back on the bike in 2005 and have spent 1700 hours in the saddle on 909 separate occasions - the equivalent of 42 working weeks! Here's to a successful 2012 wherever you may be, may it find you always with a tailwind at your back and a broad grin on your face. And on that note, I'm off for a ride.

0km so far this year.