Well, I had a good cycling year - my highest ever yearly mileage, which was a side-effect of riding a ridiculous number of audaxes. I set myself the target of 100 points,
as long as I enjoyed them.
Mostly, I did - the only audax that stands out as a bit miserable was leaving work early at 2 pm in March to ride 200 km, and it was a long day, arriving home after midnight, with lots of riding in the dark on my own. However, even that had its highlights, especially the views of the fat stormclouds sitting over Darlo, and pausing in a Yorkshire lane to look up at the field of stars. More importantly, it was one the early iterations of the route which became the
Peculier Old 200 - I never made it explicit, but in a lot ways the ride was a tribute to my dad, who'd died earlier in the year, and I had a great time chasing round pubs and volunteers (not to mention being chased by volunteers when I'd been a bit lax with comms), and on the day it all just-about came together. That was probably the best ride of the year, especially hearing how great it was from riders at the finish, then from the volunteers and pubs when I went round for the debriefs.
On the audaxes, I rode the
B7076 a few too many times, but I also rode with Steve Gee a lot, and had a great laugh. I rode very few audaxes solo - and the best of them all was the
Borders of Belgium 1000, as it was a pretty social ride with D.A.L.E., ramcityrocker and (occasionally) fboab, and it nearly always felt more like a holiday than hard work. Dales's shit-eating grins at headwinds and other random stuff were brilliant. Dale was another good riding companion this year - I only lost my temper once with him, on the
National 400, when his love-hate relationship with his Garmin stopped being funny. As I rode down to the National 400, this also meant that I left my house on Friday, and on Saturday I was in Wales. Brilliant!
The
Mille Pennines 1000 was a different beast, and I can't really ignore it. A lot of my riding early in the year was with this in mind, so hills, hills and more hills. Luckily, I have hills nearby, and of the hilly rides I rode,
Revellinho's Lakeland 200 and
the Dales Grimpeur were both testing but fantastic rides, so I had no excuses for not completing the Mille Pennines. It was quite a ride, and I'll be back next year (as a volunteer).
I could gibber on about audaxes, and they did form a lot of my cycling year. The November 300 km with Steve including frost and COR is like a weird dream of still air and darkness and icy roads when I think back now - I've actually accumulated more audax points now than I had at the same point last season, so I'm pleased to report that I haven't killed my joy in riding a bike. I should thank fboab for the extra fillip to ride more audaxes, by the way, as she pointed out that we were head-to-head in the club points championship, and we had an entertaining not-quite-rivalry the rest of the year, even though we didn't ride together a huge amount (mind you,
taking her to Whygate was a great way to spend a BH Monday).
Away from audax, I actually rode with my sisters a fair bit as they're getting into cycling (and will probably outclass me, as big sisters should), and had a great weekend with Peter exploring the tracks of Upper Teesdale before a gig. That was nearly the only camping I did, apart from
a week on Isla and Jura with a distillery tour which I should probably finish. I didn't get any farther north in Scotland, which is a shame.
There were also a final few rides with Graeme while he was still living up here - I especially enjoyed
the run around the ranges post-Mille Pennines. It was about the right distance for a ride of enjoyment, and I think I'll aim for more of that next year.
