MNR - 1000 miles!

Last night's Monday Night Ride was one to put down in the history books! For the first time ever, I cleared 1k miles in a year! And what better way to cross that milestone than to do it during the Monday Night Ride? Not a big deal for most, especially you roadies and you racers. But for me, the year consisted mostly of casual Monday Night Rides, tacorides, and some weekend riding on the trails. I think the generous weather provided me the chance to clear 1k. Also thanks to the friends whom I biked with this past year. I could have just as easily spent those cold Monday nights sitting on the couch watching How I Met Your Mother. Thanks everyone!

Last night's ride on the other hand was a harsh one. I got down to Tranquility and was heading towards the kiosk on the Muk. Squish. Put my foot down. Squish. Whoa! Not good! We didn't seem to be putting a dent in the trail, but a thin top layer of mud was just sticking like crazy to everyone's tires. We shortened the ride and headed to Paul's heater enabled garage. Sounded like a pretty good trade off to me! Dale, Ryan, Paul, Brian, Eric, and myself were the crazy fools braving the mud and the extreme cold just to get a few pedal strokes in. Paul had asked about where I had reached the 1k mark. It was pretty close to when we had stopped on the northside for a quick break. While resting, we got an explanation of Ryan's thru-axle and had a chance to scrape off the chunks of mud. Glad we got the ride in fellas! And thanks to Brian and Paul for the refreshments afterwards.

This was about the time that I hit the mark

Next year? I'm aiming for 1250 miles as my goal. This year brought an increase of over 150 miles as compared to 2010. A new bike, snow, and warm temps helped me to fuel that increase. Also the Tour de Cure and a few Wear Yellow NE charity rides helped me to bump up those number. To a great 2012!!!

The trails are way too muddy to ride unless the ground is still frozen. Please stay off of the trails. All of that mud on the tires made the Mukluk feel like a 40lb monster.

Yup, that's about all it took to reach 1k miles during last night's ride