I was so proud when I completed all 25 of Zwift’s course achievements that I wrote about it in a December 1st blogpost.

Six days later, Zwift decided to add 42 new course badges, including ones for all their most difficult routes. Sigh.

I guess the upside of having 42 new carrots to chase was that completing them gave me enough Experience Point bonuses to rise from Level 29 to 33 over the course of December and January.

And all that riding helped me reach a new all-time record level of fitness, as measured by a Chronic Training Load score of 98.18… in January!

By February 1st, I'd earned 65 course badges, with only the two hardest routes left to do: the hellaciously hilly “Über Pretzel”, and the tedious and repetitive 11-lap “PRL Full”.

Both of those wound up being “Zenturies”: indoo »more

Over the years I’ve collected a huge number of cycling jerseys. Some are purely utilitarian, but most have some personal meaning, whether from a ride or a club or some other association.

As I mentioned in my year-in-review post, in 2019 I picked up three new jerseys, each noteworthy for some reason. And two of them violate cycling’s code of style! That's enough talking points to justify a dedicated blogpo.

My first new kit breaks both the Velominati’s Rule #17 and my own personal ethics, which is that you should never wear pro team kit unless you are a professional being paid to ride for that team. Lance Armstrong’s team kit manages to simultaneously look amateurish and pretentious when worn by a 50 year-old overweight MAMIL toodling down the local bike path.

But a jersey from a te »more

In contrast with a miserable 2018, 2019 was a complete renewal: possibly my best remaining year on the bike, and arguably the best of my entire lifetime.

While it lacked crowning moments like the Pan-Mass Challenge or the Dirty Dozen, I set dramatic new high water marks for miles ridden, century rides completed, and level of fitness.

Beyond the numbers, though, was how easy it felt. After my first winter using a smart trainer and Zwift, I began the season already near peak form. It was such a different feeling, without the usual early-season suffering to build fitness, and I went into every major event strong, confident, and at ease.

It made setting and chasing my cycling goals an unblemished pleasure, making 2019 a complete reversal of my disappointment in 2018. It was an absolutely »more

Cyclists come in many flavors: roadies, commuters, mountain bikers, racers. Then within the ranks of roadies, you have sprinters, climbers, all-rounders, endurance riders, and more.

It might sound odd then that after such a long time—exactly 1,000 weeks, in fact—I still struggle to find where I fit in that spectrum.

It’s obvious I’m not a sprinter. My top-end power is perfectly described by the term “pedestrian”.

Does that mean I’m a climber: a grimpeur, as they say? Not if you judge by my build, or my performance in the Dirty Dozen! True climbers are much lighter than my (reasonably scrawny) 77kg, and usually much shorter, too. My best strategy for becoming a climber involves losing 6kg of weight and nine inches of height by cutting my head off at the neck.

But I do drop people on sho »more

I’ll admit it: I respond well to gamification, whether that’s keeping my streak of consecutive days of meditation alive on Insight Timer or—more pertinent to this forum—my indoor cycling on Zwift.

This fall Zwift added 25 new achievements to their existing set. The new ones are based on completing specific routes, which earn both an achievement badge as well as bonus experience points. A sucker for XP, I recently finished completing the entire set.

Of Zwift’s known cycling achievements, I’ve earned 57, leaving 7 badges that I’ve yet to achieve. And therein lies the rub.

One of them is simply a matter of time. Once you’ve climbed Alpe du Zwift—Zwift’s in-game copy of France’s Alpe d’Huez—25 times, you earn the “Masochist” badge. It’s a tough climb, but no problem there; I’ve a »more

To make this late-season update a little more interesting, I decided to do a video update.

The TLDR is this: contrary to expectations, my season ended quite abruptly, but not before a record-shattering 2019. Now, with snow flying in Pittsburgh, I’m mostly transitioning back to the indoor trainer and my virtual Zwift world, amidst daydreams and scheming for 2020.

There won’t be much more to tell before my usual end-of-year summary, but that’ll be a big post, as I hope to do justice to this exceptional year. But for now, here’s a quick audiovisual update:

Another year, another edition of Pittsburgh’s signature Dirty Dozen ride.

Although I conquered the challenging course in 2017, I wasn’t in physical or mental condition to ride last year; instead I threw my camera bag over my shoulder and played photographer, bagging 350 action shots while driving frantically between the course’s five steepest hills, trying to simultaneously keep pace with seven different groups of riders.

Despite this year's record-smashing cycling season, over the past two months I was plagued by a strained achilles, a lingering cold, plus a week of travel. I didn’t do any of the Dirty Dozen group training rides, and was in no shape to approach those hills on a bike myself. So I spent another day documenting other riders’ suffering and triumphs.

That’s okay tho, bec »more