The Bird Is The Word

Over the years, I have written a lot about my experiences with cycling coverage on television. Many of the satisfying moments have come from free broadcasts, while many of the frustrating moments have come from broadcasts for which I had to pay. I subscribed to NBC Sports Gold for four seasons, watching its annual fee increase each year. By 2021, it simply wasn’t worth the price anymore. But as the 2026 season begins, I have a new subscription. NBC Sports Gold no longer exists, but the bird in the picture above should look familiar. Here’s what I will get from Peacock:

You know what’s funny? I didn’t go looking for a subscription to Peacock; it came to me as a free add-on to my new Walmart+ subscription. I’m in the 30-day trial period right now, with a $98 annual fee to follow. I figure I can easily save more than $98 on the groceries, dietary supplements, and household supplies that I otherwise would get from Meijer, my current superstore. And Walmart will deliver everything to my door for free! I don’t like shopping. I won’t miss going to the store, which is much less convenient since the COVID-19 pandemic put an end to 24-hour access. With my weird schedule, I used to shop late on nights when I didn’t have to work. I also won’t miss self-checkout lanes. I’m not an employee, I’m a customer. Don’t give me that rot about keeping costs down. The machines themselves cost thousands, and a fair number of the people who use them are compensating themselves for their trouble by “accidentally” forgetting to scan a few things. So, yeah, Walmart+ will keep me out of the stores and away from the criminal element! It will keep me out of the garage, too. In the six weeks since my return from Pennsylvania, I have made only one trip by car that wasn’t to the grocery store. When groceries start to arrive at my front door, this remote worker may go months without touching his car keys. How much money will that save?

There’s a lot more to Peacock than cycling, but I don’t know how much of it will appeal to me. For now, I’m looking at it as a nice thing to have for free. Most of the races in the list above have been nothing to me but YouTube highlights since the end of the 2020 season. I’m going to feel like a real road racing fan again, and it all begins tomorrow at 1:30 a.m., West Bend time, with the prologue of the Tour Down Under.

I Had Bigger Plans

I continue to battle for longer and more restorative sleep, but things have been bad lately. During the last four weeks, I have averaged fewer than six hours of sleep per day. This week, the average has been only five hours. My energy level has been extremely low, and the thing that has suffered most is my commitment to indoor cycling.

I came into 2026 hoping for 15 hours of indoor cycling in January. Today, I got my first 1:23:17. Garmin Connect to the rescue! I was motivated to earn a badge that is available this weekend only:

And it may be just a digital award but look at those colors! How could I not covet a cycling badge so reminiscent of the Lampre kit that used to dazzle in the pro peloton?

Going forward, I need to rely more on discipline and less on motivation. But it is hard when sleep isn’t cooperating.

The 2026 WEMS Schedule

The Wisconsin Endurance Mountain Bike Series announced its schedule this morning, bringing back familiar favorites but leaving a little room for mystery. Here's what we know so far:

12 Hours of Alpine Valley

April 25

Alpine Valley Ski Resort, Elkhorn

Jack Lake Crazy Eights

June 6

Veterans Memorial Park, Deerbrook

Levis Trow 100

June 20

Levis Mound Trailhead, Neillsville

Nicolet Roche Boulder Dash

July 11

Nicolet Roche Trails, Wolf River

Skunk Hill Scramble

August 8

Powers Bluff County Park, Arpin

Hundred Down in the Underdown

August 15

Underdown Recreation Area, Gleason

Pitch Black Singletrack

Date TBD

CamRock County Park, Rockdale

A Little Retail Therapy To Get 2026 Started

This week, I added some new kit for the new year. And it may be months before I wear it, because this is definitely warm weather stuff. The bibs should look familiar; I’ve been wearing Louis Garneau bibs and shorts for years. Love the chamois. The orange jersey is from Sugoi, a brand with which I have a limited but positive history. The greenish-yellow jerseys are from Santic, a brand with which I have no history. I took a chance on Santic in part because of many positive reviews but also because the price was so good. In cycling, you don’t always get what you paid for. Sometimes a big name brand is a big disappointment and a smaller name is a better value. We’ll see where Santic belongs. I had to replace some worn-out articles in my cycling wardrobe, but now I’d like to be done buying kit for 2026, no matter how inexpensive it is.

2025: A Statistical Review

This year, for the first time ever, I recorded at least one exercise activity every single day. On a couple of occasions, that activity was only a 1-mile walk. And perhaps on those occasions that 1-mile walk was done simply to keep the streak alive. But I kept the streak alive. That’s the important thing. I plan to keep the streak going in 2026: at least 1 mile of walking expressly for exercise, every day. Since May 19, I have hit 10,000 steps every day. I intend to continue that streak into the new year as well, which will force me to walk more than 1 mile per day as it has for the last 227 days of this year. All of this walking resulted in a personal record of 1,141 miles in 2025, which obliterated my old PR of 554 miles, set in 2024. I’m setting no exact goal for walking mileage in 2026, but getting at least 10,000 steps per day should ensure that I finish with something like 1,000 miles again.

If it seems strange that I’m leading with my walking statistics instead of my cycling statistics, then my explanation is that my walking statistics were remarkable while my cycling statistics were – if you can forgive the pun – pedestrian. I rode outside 122 times for a grand total of 3,246 miles, an average of 26.6 miles per ride. My longest ride in terms of both distance and duration was only 47 miles in 3:11:35. None of this is breathtaking stuff, but at least I beat my target of 3,161 miles. Here’s the month-by-month breakdown:

My outdoor mileage goal for the new year is 3,075. That will get me to 100,000 lifetime miles. To be ready for the outdoor season, I plan to spend 50 hours on the trainer before May 1. There will be some outdoor riding before May 1, of course, but the indoor sessions will be more important until then. And I will be looking for at least 25 hours of mountain biking in 2026, after doing none this year.

Aside from walking mileage, there was one other personal record this year. It came from a statistical category I never really tracked before: total exercise volume from all sources. I started tracking bike ride distance way back in 2004, but I didn’t start tracking bike ride time until 2013. In 2020, I added walking/hiking/rucking. Earlier this year, I added strength training and floor climbing. This comprehensive recording of all my activities yielded a massive 669 hours, 50 minutes in 2025, far outpacing my previous PR of 421:50 in 2021. And this matters because no activity type by itself, not even cycling, is enough to give me the kind of fitness and longevity that I want to enjoy. I realize that an hour of easy walking and an hour of intense cycling are very different efforts, but rewarding myself for every effort motivates me to do a healthy mix of things.

Times Two … And Times, Too

I reached another walking milestone this morning: 1,108 miles, year-to-date. That’s double last year’s total of 554, which was a personal record. Garmin tells me I have spent about 400 hours–the equivalent of more than 16 days–on walking for fitness this year. Time on the bike, year-to-date, is 233 hours, and that includes both outdoor and indoor rides. But don’t accuse me of neglecting the bike. With 10 days remaining in December, I need only 3 more hours to beat last year’s total.

More Tacx Facts

My free trial of the Tacx training app has ended. Basic functions of the app will continue to work, but subscription-only functions are now unavailable. The subscription has different payment options. Interactive riding environments are available in standard definition for $9.99 per month or $99.99 for one year. To get high definition video, the price goes up to $13.99 per month or $139.99 for one year. At least for now, I am content with the free tier. If I were going to pay for an indoor training environment, then I almost certainly would return to Zwift.

Before Thursday’s 1-hour ride, I abandoned my efforts to calibrate power on the Tacx trainer, which I knew was inaccurate. I stole the Favero power-sensing pedals from my Scott Addict and installed them on my Trek Boone, which is on trainer duty this winter. Power numbers for Thursday’s ride were comparable to my most recent 1-hour outdoor rides in Zone 2, and they were much higher than those that the Tacx reported on earlier rides at the same perceived effort. I rode for 30 minutes on Friday and for 90 minutes earlier today, again with power numbers consistent with my expectations.

There’s a good argument for using the Favero pedals all the time, indoors and outdoors. Unlike heart rate, which naturally varies in response to things like fatigue or illness, and unlike Rate of Perceived Exertion, which is completely subjective, power is always an objective measure of how hard you’re working. Whether my Favero pedals are strictly accurate is not important, but the trends revealed by their measurements are! If I want my indoor training to translate to better performance outdoors, then it makes sense to get performance metrics from the same source. And if I go back to the Saris trainer, then it will be interesting to see how its power numbers compare to those from the Favero pedals.

The best case for continuing to use the Tacx app is that it integrates seamlessly with Garmin Connect. Many of the Tacx-specific badges are available only with a subscription, but there are two more “freebies” that I would like to earn. After that, I might abandon the Tacx app and the Tacx trainer. The remaining incentive to stick with them would be small indeed: Garmin Connect values long Tacx rides more highly than long rides on other trainers. Garmin awards 4 points for every Tacx ride of 75 kilometers (46.7 miles) and 8 points for every Tacx ride of 100 kilometers (62.2 miles). Garmin’s 50-mile trainer ride is worth 4 points, but you can earn the badge only once. Garmin doesn’t have a 100-mile indoor ride. Its 8-point indoor ride–repeatable and available on any trainer–is based on a duration of 4 hours. If your goal is to game the system to maximize points, then the 100-kilometer Tacx ride accomplishes the same thing as the generic 4-hour ride in less time as long as you average more than 15.55 mph, and a good Zone 2 average of 17.77 mph gets the job done with 30 minutes to spare. But even 3:30 on the trainer sounds like a lot to me! I was more than ready to be done when I hit 90 minutes today.

Early Start For The 2025-26 Fatbike Season

GEARS, the local mountain bike advocacy group, took advantage of last weekend’s heavy snowfall to groom the Regner Park trails for fatbikes. Here’s the announcement from the City of West Bend’s weekly newsletter, which hits my inbox every Friday:

To subscribe to the city’s newsletter, click here.

Dave Retreats. And Then? A Tacx!

It even came with a trainer tire!

I’m back in West Bend after a week in eastern Pennsylvania. While it was great to be with my mother on Thanksgiving and great to have dinner with a couple of my cousins on Black Friday, the trip was something of a disappointment. There was only one day of nice weather: 61° and dry last Wednesday. I did a 4-mile outdoor walk and hoped for more days of the same sort. But those days never came. The temperature dropped, the wind roared, and day-long rains arrived. With the great outdoors rendered off limits and with no treadmill at my disposal, I kept my walking streaks alive with hundreds of ridiculous circuits around the interior of Mom’s house. During the last week I ate too much, exercised too little, and missed West Bend even though I knew it was getting pounded with snow and bitter cold.

Now that I’m home again, it’s time to get back into regular workouts. But as I resume turbo trainer rides, there is a noteworthy change. In Pennsylvania I unexpectedly picked up a second-hand Tacx Vortex smart trainer. On Facebook Marketplace, it was listed for $20 and I gladly would have paid that price without haggling, even though I had no way to test its functionality before returning to Wisconsin. As things turned out, the owner simply wanted it gone and let me have it for free! You can’t beat that deal, but you might wonder why I wanted it when I already had a newer and arguably better smart trainer. The answer is Garmin Connect.

When Garmin acquired Tacx in 2019, it integrated the Tacx training app with its Garmin Connect platform. Since that time, numerous Garmin Connect challenges have been available only to users of the Tacx app. I intend to pursue those challenges to add some spice to my indoor trainer season. The app has features similar to Zwift, Rouvy, and MyWhoosh, so it should be more engaging than the handful of ride stats that come from my Garmin Edge cycling computer.

I got my first taste of the Tacx training app today. I did not, however, explore the many virtual environments. I contented myself with a simple display of ride stats and it looks like I might need to make some adjustments. Tacx said I averaged only 74 Watts for a 30-minute ride at 13.4 mph. It was an easy, get-to-know-you ride, for sure, but that power output seems low. At least I could count on my heart rate monitor, which paired easily with the Tacx app. And Garmin Connect rewarded me with my first two Tacx badges, so I’m satisfied with my first ride.

My next step should be to explore those virtual environments, the cornerstones of the Tacx platform.

And I Would Walk 500 More?

Walking 1,000 miles this year was not in my plans. In my New Year’s Eve statistical review of 2024, I wrote that I would shoot for 500. And we should remember two things. First, I was still recovering from surgery when I set that goal. I could not be certain how my body would respond. Second, I had set a personal record of 554 miles in 2024 and didn’t want the pressure of extending my record every year just to feel accomplished.

I surpassed 1,000 miles today. With 42 days remaining in 2025, I might get another 100-150 miles. I expect to keep going at approximately the same pace, and that means walking every day. The streak is still alive: I have walked at least 1 mile expressly for fitness every day since last December 13. Achieving that consistency might be a more worthwhile accomplishment than the big mileage total.

I still won’t want the pressure of chasing a new PR for walking in 2026, so I probably will set no mileage goals outside of Garmin Connect. Garmin’s “Walk Streak” challenge requires a single, 1-mile walk every day for 30 consecutive days. Garmin also has quarterly walking challenges that reward the 1-mile-per-day minimum, so those are automatic for anyone who keeps the “Walk Streak” challenge going. And then there’s the annual “Ultimate Walking Badge,” a reward for completing all four quarterly challenges. Again, simply meeting the “Walk Streak” minimum will yield the “Ultimate Walking Badge.”

Walking 1 mile every day has some general health benefits, but it isn’t enough by itself to build real fitness. Hitting my minimum standard of 10,000 steps per day goes further. On recent 1-mile walks, I have averaged about 2,000 steps. I have to walk the equivalent of about 5 miles per day to hit 10,000 steps. So, is 5 miles per day my real standard? I didn’t become a 10,000 steps-a-day guy until this year was well advanced. Am I going to surpass 1,825 miles in 2026, 5 miles per day for 365 days? That doesn’t seem likely. I’m getting some of those 10,000 steps from ordinary daily activities and not from measured walks. But I sure didn’t expect to double my PR this year, which I am on pace to do. So, never say never.