Reflecting on 2018 and 2019 goals

Hey everyone, sorry I’ve been a bit inactive towards the second half of the year. New job has me busy busy busy.

How was everyone’s 2018 in terms of cycling? Any goals met? Did you fall short or did life get the better of you?

For me, I hit 1/3 of my goals. I missed Feng Gui Zui in under 24m00s

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and Zhong She (Shooter’s Hill) in within 14m10sec.

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I did complete my goal is hitting under 50mins on Leng Shui Keng. Not by much though, my ultimate goal is 47minutes.

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Some other highlights for me were definitely hitting my year end mark of 7500km ridden and traveling abroad to Japan to ride. Traveling and riding was something I always thought would be out of my reach, but I had the chance and I took it!

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My 2019 goals are

  • 7800km for the year
  • Within 4h10m on Puli to Wuli

Simple, but for me, I like to keep it simple…stupid. What do you guys have planned for 2019?

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Ranlee, you are a rockstar, as usual.
My goals for 2018 were:
Buy a bike I like. done.
Ride bike as often as weather, PM2.5, traffic or time allow. done.
Ride bike to work. nope.

My 2019 goals? Repeat 2018 sans the work part.

Good luck this year, Ranlee. I’m always impressed by your humble 150+km “fun rides” on a weekend.

Flat

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Awesome effort in 2018, Ranlee! Good luck in 2019.

I started off 2018 with a goal of hitting under 3 hours for the Olympic distance triathlon. My preferred distance is the sprint distance (half of the Olympic distance), but the sprint distance is not taken very seriously in Taiwan for some reason. So I moved up to the longer distance and I did meet my goal in March. That 10k run in the end is not something I’m good at, but I did manage a decent time well under 3 hours and even came in third in my AG. I then did a sprint race in May and came in first in my AG.

I decided not long after the May race to take a break from triathlons and just enjoy the mountains on my bike. I took off the aero bars and did proceed to enjoy myself. I broke all my pr’s multiple times last year, but they were pretty bad to begin with so no big surprise there.

For 2019, my goals are as follows:

  • Cycle Wuling from the East Coast side. No time goal.
  • Get back into triathlons and possibly focus on the Olympic distance
  • Do a couple of triathlon relays for fun (possibly one with me swimming, my 14 year old daughter cycling, and my six year old son running- I may run together with him just to make sure all is okay).
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Thanks @flatlandr for the kind words. Does this mean you will buy another bike in 2019? Hell yeah.

Do not forget to share your ride on this thread:

I believe one step at a time. My PRs on the main climbs on Yang Ming Shan were kind of a stretch because they are mostly sprint segments and I am horrible at distances under 15-20km.

You too! You had a pretty awesome 2018, I saw you riding hard on Strava towards the end of the year. I even saw you made a wheel upgrade!

Train hard for that Hualien to Wuling!

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Slight upgrade. But anything is better than those stock wheels I had. I’ll be switching to 34 gearing in a month or two. Continue to watch my Strava. I’ll be picking things up very soon! I hope the weather cooperates.

No to the new bike. It took me long enough to settle on the one I got. It’s my baby.

That’s what I said about my first bike, but I sold that one. Bought a new one. Also said it was my baby, but ended up cheating on it with a second bike. They now have to stare at each other every day.

Now, I’m waiting on bike number four to make it’s way to me.

Lesson: Never so no to a more bikes.

hahaha. Yeah, I get you. This one I have is actually what would be the love child of 3 other bikes I own if I had put them into the same room for a winter.

Did about 3000km for 2018.

2019 is starting out pretty good. 5000km is the goal, with outside chance of 6000km if I don’t get lazy. If I do more flats, then I’ll rack up a lot more distance, but I like climbing better, which reduces the lengths of my rides.

But descending is free mileage!

Just past 5/12 of the year and already matched last year, having just surpassed 3000km.
Double that seems highly probable, so, I’ll raise the bar higher to 8~10,000 klicks.

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Dude, that’s awesome. Congrats.

I’m also at 3,000km year to date, but my goal is just a mere 7,800km. We haven’t gotten into rainy season of October/November/December yet, so I don’t want to set my goal too high. Otherwise, I will hate myself in December trying to get those final kms.

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How’s everyone doing on their 2019 goals?

We’re closing out the year soon and I am roughy 1800km short of my 7800km goal. I plan on doing a huan dao in December to make up 1000km of that, but I don’t see myself making up the remaining 800km in two months.

Despite not making the mileage goal. I did randomly break another personal record of summiting Wuling three times this year. Never again.

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three times? good job. that really hurts for a few days after, but then you forget the pain and the effort and remember the stunning views.

as for not hitting 800km in two months, um… could you try cycling to work, or something? I get about 200 km per week just by doing that. and it’s not too hot any more.

3rd time was most exhausting. It was a work trip for Taiwan KOM and I had arranged the entire itinerary AND had to race. I mean, it’s nice that company paid, but man, was mentally and physically dead for a solid week.

If the office was still in Danshui and I was commuting Song Shan to Danshui. Easy peezy. That’s 50km round trip on the river. However, we moved awhile ago and now I’m doing 5km round trip from Song Shan to Xinyi. 25km a week is still something, but may not be enough.

I may have to settle for Wuling PRs over my mileage goal.

will easily surpass 6000km, or double previous year, with good chance to hit 7000km.
Actually got lazy in summer.
2020 will ratchet it up another thou or 2.

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Year 2018 was good but 2019 business went upside down.

Riding in the summer requires so much effort (if you’re riding in the morning). Getting up before the sun comes up + getting home before it gets too hot limits your routes and time spent in the saddle.

At the beginning of summer, I was lucky I had borrowed my friend’s smart trainer and paid for Zwift, otherwise I would’ve never made it up those hill climbs with the little amount of outdoor riding I was doing.

You can get used to riding in 35 degree heat. You just need to start slow. Ride uphill from shadow to shadow. Stop and cool down under a hose. Or in the thunderstorm.

Then come winter you’ll be flying up those hills!

Anyway, if you’re going for a 6 hour ride it’s pretty hard to miss the midday heat at least for some part of the ride.

Hence Zwift, I guess. Although I suspect it’s more to do with USA winters than Asian summers.

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True, in KHH, for summer rides I either start out 30-45mins before sunrise (with front and back headlights, near-zero traffic on main streets) for 2+ hour rides, or after 3pm. Temps are fine. only 2 water bottles needed.