More Pictures of my Hand

Today is Monday December 30 2024 and i rode my bike yesterday and the day before.

2024 has been an amazing year for bike riding.

Remember in the movie Midnight Run when Robert DeNiro is gearing up to go undercover to finally bust Jimmy Serrano and Yaphet Kotto asks him why he's smiling and he replies "i feel like a cop again"... that's kind of how I've felt for the last few months.

Anyway...

In 2024 I did one race which was the Little Sugar mountain bike race in Bentonville Arkansas. It was back in October and i did the 50 kilometer distance and got my ass kicked but i came out of that race with some good fitness and i've been riding that gravy train hard ever since. 

Couple that with a relatively mild November and December and its been like heaven the last few months. 

2025 could be an even better year for bike riding but right now i'm living in the now and living in the now means that right now i find myself writing about two bike rides i did in the past.

We're in now, now.

On Saturday i rode my mountain bike on the road, specifically a route i like to do where i time myself. i've been doing it since 2018 and logging all the times. i group the times based on which bike im riding, road bike, cyclocross bike, mountain bike, plus i've done it once on my singlespeed. Additionally there is a short version and a long version of the route. This year i've wimped out and only done the short version.

I had a half a*s goal this year of setting a personal best time on this route but unless i accomplish that tomorrow (the last day of 2024) i wont be meeting that goal.

On Saturday i had to beat a time of 35:30 which is my best mountain bike time on the short route, i did it in 37:00

Then on Sunday i did a 2 hour mountain bike ride that took closer to 2 and a half hours. i rode to the levy on the Kansas River and took it all the way to Kaw Point. They've been doing a ton of levy improvement construction down there so it was a lot of stop / go while i navigated all that.

But i was able to ride with no glove in late December... which is nice.