My Year on a Bike for 2020

The pandemic had an enormous effect on my cycling outside. Through January, February and early March I had my usual routine of mostly bike commuting with some longer rides on the weekends. Then the pandemic came. I didn’t ride again outside until June. The transmission of the Coronavirus was not well understood. If I ended up in accident, I would not have wanted to enter a hospital and didn’t want to take bed space away from those being treated for the virus.

Eventually the weather was so beautiful in June and the pandemic had subsided a bit in Boston that I started taking solo rides outside. Eventually, a small group of similarly safety-conscious cycling friends starting cycling together. We kept our masks on and kept distant at stops.

The big difference in 2020 was that I set myself up with a smart trainer and an account on Zwift. In the end I ended up with almost 5500 miles of riding outside. That is right around my usual amount. On top of that, I rode another 3200 virtual miles on Zwift.

My biggest day on the bike was a James Taylor ride, from Stockbridge to Boston. That was 162 miles with almost 8,000 feet of climbing. It was also my longest one-day ride ever. (Yes, I might end up riding it again in 2021.)

Pan Mass Challenge

That ride was part of my 2020 Pan Mass Challenge. The Pan Mass Challenge was its usual centerpiece of my cycling season. The in-person event was cancelled, but fundraising was still in full swing. Every rider had to “reimagine” his or her ride. I imagined big and put together 10 events over 10 days to celebrate the Pan Mass Challenge and the fight against cancer. I ended up with over 700 miles over the course of the event. With the sweat and tears, I also gave a pint of blood.

JDRF Ride

When my son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2018, I began to support the JDRF. That organization was so helpful in getting my family adjusted to the new world of regular insulin shots and blood glucose monitoring.

JDRF hosts a series of fundraising rides. Of course, this year’s rides in-person rides were cancelled and left up to the fundraisers to come up with their own ride.

For me, I waited for the 2020 JDRF Ride jersey to arrive. When it finally came in late September it coincided with the CRW’s cancelled Cranberry Century. It seemed like a good idea to combine two negatives into a positive and ride the Cranberry Century as my JDRF Century.

Steven, Rob, Jarrett, Mike B, and Deb supported my JDRF ride and came out to keep me company on my JDRF My Ride 2020.

I decided to ride on my single speed as a sign of support for Type 1 Diabetes.

Tour de Quabbin

A new challenge was a bike ride around the Quabbin Reservoir. John and I had a similar idea at the same time. This may become an annual tradition. Nine other intrepid souls joined us on the adventure. I had targeted two climbs that had broken me during the Formidable Ride in 2016. They were much more manageable with 10 miles in my legs instead of 100 miles.

Zwift

I was a skeptic of indoor riding. I had a trainer and had used it a few times in my basement. It was a terrible experience. One I rarely repeated. Branfman convinced me that the new smart trainers combined with the Zwift application were a different experience and did a good job of recreating road riding. I wasn’t completely sold on the idea, but decided to credit my investment in the smart trainer as a Christmas present at the end of 2019. I thought it would be a good hedge against a lot of cold and rainy weekends like I had in the late winter/early spring of 2019.

Branfman was right. Zwift with a smart trainer does a fantastic job. I became a Zwift junkie. Add in the ability to talk to other friends using the Discord app, it becomes as social (if not more so) than an outside ride.

I would argue that those 3200 Zwift miles are harder than the road miles. It does a remarkable job of adjusting resistance on the bike to match hills. And there are a lot of very big hills in Zwift. Those miles include 11 times climbing a recreation of Alpe d-Huez and twice up a recreation of Mount Ventoux. I didn’t climb anything that big on actual tarmac.