Surpassing 4,000 Miles In 2020

Today's ride on my cyclocross bike: mostly Eisenbahn State Trail with a couple of on-road loops.

Bad weather kept me off the bike for most of the last week, but today I did a 63-mile ride to surpass 4,000 miles, year-to-date. I rode only 3 times in the last 7 days for a total of 126 miles, my lowest total since May 11-17. What can I tell you? All-day rains, high winds, and temperatures that were as much as 20° below normal had a depressing effect on my statistics and on me. The forecast for the week to come shows—at least for now—temperatures that are closer to historical averages and almost no chance of rain. I need to take advantage of that. I’m certainly not overtrained now! I will try to ride every day to make a big dent in the 967 miles I still need to reach 5,000. Today’s ride was my 4th metric century of 2020 and 91st all-time. Looks like I’m not going to reach 100 this year as I had hoped, but maybe I can get a little closer next week.

Today also was notable for a brutal Tour de France stage that removed defending champion Egan Bernal and perennial “next year” man Nairo Quintana from any further consideration as challengers for this year’s title. This has been a good Tour so far, a legitimate competition altered only cosmetically and not substantially by COVID-19, but now it’s down to a two-man race. Pick your Slovenian: current leader Primož Roglič or mountain climber supreme Tadej Pogačar. Roglič has a 40-second lead and the stronger team. It’s his race to lose.

Finally, today was the start of the elite cyclocross season. I watched the EKZ CrossTour series race from Baden, Switzerland, and it made me a little sad that there won’t be any cyclocross in Wisconsin this year. Europe will hold more than 100 elite events this season, many of which will be televised/streamed (what’s the difference?). I’ll watch as many as I can and try to stay close to the sport … in spirit, anyway. Both the men’s and women’s races were mostly Swiss affairs today, with a number of pro mountain bikers using the event as training for the upcoming and condensed UCI Mountain Bike World Cup season. I’m looking forward to that too, but I’m really looking forward to the first cyclocross event with all of the top contenders: the Telenet Superprestige series race from Gieten, Netherlands, on October 11.