Since I was a young child, I have owned a number of different bikes. Although I cannot remember them individually from my early childhood, I do know through my teenage years, there were two different mountain bikes for sure. However, after leaving school one bike spent many years sitting in the garage never used.
Finally in 2013 when I took up the hobby of Geocaching, I again found a need for a bike. Even though I used that on a couple of occasions it to has spent plenty of time sitting in the garage. I do recall a time a couple of years back when I would go out on my bike most days. But that is just a faint memory now, and I could not even pinpoint when or for how many days that happened.
On The Bike Travelling
To date, I have taken the option to rent a bike twice while travelling. The first time was on my first overseas trip when I was visiting Vancouver. I was looking for something to do and decided to save a little time getting around one day by renting a bike. At the time in 2010, I was somewhat unpracticed, and it was a hard slog on the peddles. I think this might have turned me off just a little from renting a bike more often while travelling.
The second time I got on the bike while travelling was a whole five years later in 2015 when I visited Wellington, New Zealand. I speak a little about this in my post “Exploring Wellington, New Zealand.” But basically, I rented the bike and rode around 30km from Wellington City to the town of Petone. It was an enjoyable day out and made me keen to include a bike in more future travels.
2018 Goal On The Bike
Since that day, I rented the bike in Wellington; I do not think I used my bike at home very much. So it was around a month ago I decided that this was something I wanted to change in 2018. I decided that I wanted to make bike riding something that I would do on a regular basis. Starting out with small local rides and building up to bigger rides as I build my endurance.
That is my bike above, there is nothing special about it, in fact, it was possibly the cheapest one I could find. Well not the cheapest maybe, I did at least bypass the $100 department store special. Back in 2013 when I bought it, I paid $500, and it has been a good bike for the last four and a bit years. At this point, I see no reason to need anything more than a couple of new tyres soon.
The Goal
Around the 20th of January, I decided that I needed to give myself a few things to achieve for the year. One of those things was to set myself a target distance for how far to ride my bike. I considered a couple of different options for the goal and am happy with what I finally settled on.
The first number that came to mind was 1,000km, but I straight away knew that would be too easy. The next thought was 10,000km, but that seemed a bit of a stretch. I considered the average of 10km per day every day, or 3,650km but that seemed still slightly easy.
Finally, I settled on the middle ground of 5,000km which is the goal that I am working towards. If I had started from January 1 that would have been an average of 13.7km per day. However, with my actual start date of the 23rd of January, it was sitting at 14.6km per day.
Current Progress
I am now 43 days in working towards this goal, and I can say maybe that goal is a little low. As of 6th of March I have covered 577.4km with a daily average of 13.4km. At this point that places me reasonably close to achieving the goal. In the past couple of days I have missed getting on the bike twice due to weather. However at the same time I have a long period of cooler temperatures ahead as well.
I want to be somewhat slow to be too optimistic about the current progress. I have found myself keen and motivated up front in the past and come up lacking towards the end of a goal. However, that is part of why I am putting it out here like this, to have some form of public accountability.
Going Forward
Taking an optimistic look at the future of this goal this year, I do entirely believe that I can get there. I think that I have already crossed the first hurdle in ensuring that I achieve this goal. The last two weeks especially have been the hottest this summer in Brisbane. With that being the case I have still maintained a riding routine almost every day.
On the other hand, I do predict that I will be more inclined to get on the bike in winter. So the next six months for me will be an excellent opportunity to take on some longer rides. I do already have a couple of spots planned, and the whole South East Queensland area has many great options. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but there could be real potential to achieve the goal well ahead of schedule with winter. But that is something that only time will tell.
There is an excellent chance that with me wanting to get on the bike more often, I will be sharing more of my experience. So keep a watch for a few posts about different riding routes around the place.
Wish Me Luck
I hope that I can fully realise this goal throughout 2018 and there is a way that you can help. If you know me personally or you are connected with me on social media, I would love any support you can offer. Even if that is just asking the question “How is the riding going?”
On another very related note, what are the goals that you are targetting this year? Let me know in the comments below.
