Mike's Bike Blog

2008 was a great year on the bike I racked up a total of 6,577.91 miles. I climbed 256,046.2 feet and I lost 35 pounds in 2008, but more importantly I reached a long term goal I set for myself in 2007, that getting my weight down to what I weighed when I played hockey in Europe. Not only did I get back to my hockey weight but I ended up beating it by 10 pounds. Back in January 2007 I set the long term goal of losing 105 pounds to get back down to 190. When I reached this goal this summer I rewarded myself with a used PowerTap from ebay.

I'm a firm believer of rewards when goals are met, it helps to keep me motivated. In fact my reward for achieving the 2008 goal of riding 10,000 feet in 1 day was a new jersey. I actually bought the Twin Six King of the Mountain Brew Pub jersey during the summer when they had a 3 day sale. I didn't even try it on until I conquered Tour das Hugel thus reaching the 10,000 foot mark.

Another 2008 goal that I met was riding a century. Once I had 100 miles under my belt I upped the ante and set a time constraint of riding a century under 5 1/2 hours. I bettered that mark by 10 minutes at the Outlaw Trail 100. One last achievement in 2008 was getting up the Limecreek hill (the Sisters) in 3 minutes 30 seconds. My best time of 2008 was 3 minutes and 23 seconds. When I first set the goal my time was a little under 5 minutes (4'52).

2009 Goals

Where to go from here? In 2009 I'd like to try my hand at actual racing from road racing, time trials and ultra endurance races. I'll still do some event rides here and there but won't be a focus. Right now I don't have any dilusions of grandure so I won't be making any bold statements that I finish in the top 10. This year I'll just be content with competing and learning the ropes of racing while focusing on training. Without further ado here's my goals for 2009:

• A 40K Time Trial in 1 hour or less
• Ride 200 miles in 1 day
• Ride up the 3 sisters in 3 minutes flat, (2008 goal was 3'30 current PR is 3'24)
• Join a team/club
• Ride the Outlaw Trail 100 in 5 hours or less
• Increase my FTP by 20%
• Increase my 5 second and 1 minute power to balance out my power profile
• Get my body fat tested so I know how much to lose. In High School my body fat percentage was 11%. Ideally I want to get it down to 13%, I'll have to see how realistic that is, but at this point I'd rather focus on body fat than solely on weight. If anybody has recommendations on where to get a true body fat test in Austin let me know. I want either the calipurs or one of the newer tests that use professional quality dual electron machines, not the consumer level scales that give you weight and body fat.
• Raise $1000 for Team Fatty and the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

There you have it, this is what I'll be focusing on this year on the bike. So stay tuned as this is what this blog will be focusing on as well. Just for the record in case anybody clicks on the Fat Mike picture I lost the weight through working out and changing my diet, I have been accused of getting medical procedures to lose the weight, nope it was all bike and no fast food.