My goal for 2011 was to bike 6000 miles. That sounds like a lot and is wildly more than I pulled off in 2010, but truthfully it’s a pretty typical and reasonably attainable total for a recreational cyclist. Throw in my commuting/lifestyle aspirations and it isn’t too bad at all.

Things were going very well through about May. I did a few charity events, a short bike tour, was going on lengthy solo rides with good frequency, and occasionally meeting Steve for brief morning rides. At the beginning of the summer the fork on my Giant exploded and my mojo basically disappeared. The heat, no schedule being out of school, and a blown up bike were too much for my ever-crappy motivation and the summer passed with very little biking. That put a damper on the fall and I never quite got back to my spring awesomeness.

These trends are fairly obvious in the above plot. Whereas the first part of the year is steep with no clear features (rides were frequent and large enough that they sort of blend together in the plot), the rest is flatter and there are clearly punctuated little jumps in the line where I’d finally manage to go on a big ride.

2012 will feature many of the same spring events – Bike MS, Tour de Cure, Tour of the Tucson Mountains, spring break bike tour, etc. – so I expect I’ll have another good start to the year. The key will be the transition to summer. Can I avoid becoming a complete pile? We shall see…