Today is the anniversary of my last bike race: October 26, 2019. Perhaps I should say most recent instead of last; I am not ready to be an ex-racer. But who knows when I will be allowed to race again? The coronavirus isn’t remotely close to containment, much less resolution. If I want to compete against anyone but myself in 2021, then I may have to dust off the credit card and join the Zwift revolution. It’s more likely, though, that I will content myself with individual goals like these:
- Complete a 300-mile week. (Current record: 283 miles)
- Extend my longest ride. (Current record: 114 miles)
- Complete 100 career metric centuries. (Current total: 92)
- Complete a solo century. (I’ve never done one.)
- Complete centuries on consecutive days. (I’ve never gone back-to-back.)
Those would be worthy accomplishments in 2021. Right now I’m still trying to polish off 2020, but my quest for 5,000 miles has stalled. I am assuming that the next 10 weeks cannot possibly be as bad as last week. I need only 66 rotten miles—just 2 or 3 more rides—but I don’t know when I will get them. I do know that it won’t be 30-something degrees when I next hop into the saddle. What the hell? Unimpressive as it is, our weather history says we still should be hitting the mid-50s at this time of year. My furnace has been running for weeks. We had snow yesterday and early this morning … only a trace, perhaps, but it’s hateful and insulting in any amount. Just give me a couple of “average” days between now and next Monday and let me be done.
At least there was good professional bike racing at the end of last week. I said on Wednesday that the Giro d’Italia appeared to be a two-man race between Joao Almeida and Wilco Kelderman, but things turned out very differently. On Thursday’s Stage 18, Almeida lost almost 5 minutes and Kelderman lost more than 2 minutes to Jai Hindley and Tao Geoghegan Hart, who vaulted into 2nd and 3rd, respectively, as Kelderman backed into the top spot. Kelderman faltered again on Saturday, allowing Hindley to take the maglia rosa. Hindley and Geoghegan Hart started Sunday’s final stage—a flat, 15.7-kilometer individual time trial—on equal time, so it was winner-take-all. How’s that for drama? I had failed in all of my previous attempts to find live video of the Giro, but on Sunday I coaxed a pirated feed into working just well enough to watch Geoghegan Hart prevail. Good stuff. And the Vuelta a España was plenty entertaining too. Unfortunately, today’s a rest day for the Spanish race. I could use the distraction.
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