Biking in 2015

I am feeling rather sentimental at the moment and though I hadn’t planned on doing an “end of the year” post, I have hastily cobbled one together anyway. I have included a picture from each month and added a few highlights underneath them.

January

Had my first subzero ride at -17, which was my toughest commute of all time because I was unprepared to deal with that level of cold. But I made it and subsequent subzero rides were much easier.

February

So much fun in the snow, this is the month where handling my bike in snow started to feel more natural. I discovered the wild world of snow dunes and crunchy ice rides.

March

Errandonee! Mary from Chasing Mailboxes organized a fun event that turned mundane errands into exciting adventures.

April

I used clipless pedals for the first time and promptly fell over. My mom rode with me, the first time since the start of the year that I had a biking buddy! I also clocked in my longest ride ever at 39 miles.

May

I bought my first road bike, on our first ride we went 50 miles. The next week we rode our first century. May was a month of giddy excitement.

June

My sister came home and we were able to go on some rides together through the rest of this year. She even biked with me to work one day, which no one had ever done before.

I raced an Amish horse and buggy for the first time.

I bought a bike trailer which has hauled everything from my dogs to groceries to garbage.

July

I went on some adventures to lakes and parks in my area, over 700 miles in total for the month.

August

I rode with a local group of 3-5 cyclists for a few Monday nights, my first ever group riding experience. I also biked in a city for the first time.

September

I went on my first ever mini bike tour; 3 days, 320 miles. I rode 150 miles the last day and came to the conclusion that I will never, ever bike long distances without cycling shorts again. Ouch!

October

I bought a new mountain bike to use for the winter. We had our first snowfall and it made me so excited for winter-which unbeknownst to me would take forever to properly arrive.

November

Lots of pining for snow and some fun trail riding on my mountain bike.

December

My favorite ride in the snow ever!

6,788 miles in total.

I had a great year on my bike and I didn’t do it by myself.

Even I biked the majority of these miles solo, God was always me with me. In reality, I never rode alone.

My dad was my 24/7 emergency hotline, troubleshooting problems over the phone whenever I ran into problems.

My family gave me so much love and support this past year and I even got various family members to join me on rides which was really special.

And last, but certainly not least, all of you have encouraged me so much in the past year. Your blogs have inspired me and taught me many things. Thank you for investing in me by taking the time to comment on my posts; whether you gave me a new perceptive, shared a personal story, passed on helpful advice, shared links to invaluable information or funny stuff, made me smile and/or told me to “keep it up!”, you made a difference. From the bottom of my heart, thank you! I wish I could give all of you great big hugs…

Happy New Year to all!