After 20 years on LiveJournal, in 2022 I transitioned to another blogging platform.
Although you can still find my historical blog entries here, everything from 2022 forward will only appear on the new site.
To continue reading my cycling journal, and see new posts as they are written, point your browser at the following URL:
Judged against other years, my 2021 cycling season wasn’t bad. It was a refreshing return to a rough approximation of normality after the Covid-19 pandemic mostly cancelled the 2020 season.
In 2021, I enjoyed my first group rides, first centuries, and first major organized event in two years. I also achieved a new record level of fitness, reached Zwift’s maximum experience level, rode my 100th lifetime century, and completed my 16th Pan-Mass Challenge.
Summarized that way, it’s actually a hard year to beat! But I’ve got plenty more to say about it…
 Modeling the 2021 PMC jersey in downtown Pittsburgh. |
 The first post-Covid Team Decaf group ride |
 Ornoth & Phil overlooking the Ohio River during the Three-State century. |
 I completed 42 stages of Zwift's Tour of Watopia. |
 Banner for achieving Level 50 in Zwift. |
 Celebrated completing another Pan-Mass Challenge, backed by my 16 PMC jerseys. |
A year ago, in the midst of the pandemic and with vaccines just starting to be manufactured, my goals for 2021 were only guesses. However, my predictions were pretty accurate.
Normality
I wanted to be comfortable stopping at convenience stores, so I could resume longer rides than I could on a single water bottle. Following my vaccinations in May, I finished a metric century on June 12th (writeup), and many more long rides thereafter.
I also longed to resume attending group rides, and did my first weekly Team Decaf ride on June 1 (writeup). Over the summer I’d join 14 of their 17 rides.
I wanted to return to my normal major events and century rides. However, most organizers shortened or cancelled their events. And after foregoing one century due to rain, I completed my first big event in two years on September 12: the PMTCC Three-State Century (writeup).
I also addressed my imbalance between indoor and outdoor riding. In 2020, 81% of my total 6,043 miles happened indoors. In 2021, I rode 6,215 miles (10,000 kilometers), and only 56% were on the trainer: a much healthier balance!
Zwift Level 50
After 2½ years, my biggest achievement to chase on Zwift was the game’s top experience level. In April I rode 42 (!) stages of the Tour of Watopia (since it offers double XP) and achieved Level 50 on April 27th, simultaneously setting an all-time fitness record (writeup).
But the cost for riding 860 miles in one month was a case of achilles tendonitis that kept me off the bike for the month of May. Oopsie!
Another Virtual PMC?
After riding all winter with several Pan-Mass Challenge luminaries on Zwift, I rode a second remote PMC, mimicking the distance and climbing of the traditional route. And happily rode outdoors instead of on the trainer!
Although different from the mass participation rides back in Massachusetts, I still enjoyed it, and raised 60% more for cancer research than last year. After 16 PMCs, my lifetime fundraising for Dana-Farber stands at $119,000! (writeup)
And my PMC fulfilled another of my annual goals:
My 100th Century+ Ride
This was the highlight of my year. I wanted to mark this achievement on a major organized ride, however that wasn’t possible. But even though I rode alone, finishing my lifetime 100th century+ on PMC weekend made it special. Read more toward the bottom of my PMC writeup.
Toronto Epic Tour Redux?
My registration for this 2020 ride – planned as a Herd cycling club gathering – was deferred to 2021, but with travel still inadvisable, I took the 50% refund they offered.
Which was fine; the 2021 Epic Tour was held on the same day as the PMTCC Three-State Century, which I rode instead, marking my first major event in two years.
This year’s fitness charts include a couple significant changes.
First: the static charts you see below are now available on a dynamic Fitness Charts page on my cycling website. They’re automatically updated after every ride to reflect my training throughout the year.
Second: the vertical scale changed on these charts to accommodate my new record fitness. For five years, my CTL (chronic training load) fit onto a vertical axis that ran from 0 to 100, but it now goes to 125, making everything look a little flatter than my previous summaries.
Let’s see what the charts say about my year:
This 11-year view shows that 2021 was incredibly similar to 2020. Let’s break down the similarities.
Both years began with steady winter training, ramping up to an early peak. In both years those were new fitness records.
However, in both years my fitness then fell quite substantially, dropping back to my long-term average at the end of May.
Over the summers, I maintained my level of fitness. My CTL followed a repeating up-and-down sawtooth pattern as I alternately trained hard, then tapered before major events, then completed a big ride, and recovered afterward. That pattern repeats all summer long.
As usual, my fitness tailed off in the autumn and I took time to recharge before another winter of indoor training.
Those are the similarities between 2020 and 2021. Zooming into this year’s chart in detail highlights some of the differences.
In 2020 I reached max fitness in January, whereas this year I timed my buildup a lot better, not peaking until the end of April.
The bad news: this year I lost as much fitness in the single month of May as I lost over four months in 2020, as tendonitis kept me from riding. That’s how I wound up back at the same point on June 1st.
However, another difference is that my fitness throughout this year was about 5% higher than 2020.
Which brings me back to that new fitness record, with my CTL reaching 103.97. Although it has no specific significance, breaking 100 CTL was a long-anticipated achievement, which only happened after my 860-mile blitz in April to reach Level 50 in Zwift.
But the biggest difference this year was how many centuries I completed. After doing 11 indoor centuries in 2020, this year I only did 4 (but three were outdoors)! So let’s talk about:
 Riding with PMC President Jarrett Collins in the weekly Zwift group ride. |
 Proudly showing off the new in-game PMC jersey in Zwift. |
 Sunrise on the castle climb in Zwift's new Japan-themed world. |
 Enjoying the view from a rooftop ride in Zwift's new Neokyo expansion. |
Starting with the unadorned list:
There are several reasons why I completed only four rides beyond 100 miles.
After doing 11 of them in 2020, I was sick and tired of indoor centuries, so I only did one of those. Solo centuries didn’t excite me, so I completed my PMC ride, plus one other. And Covid limited me to one major event.
I wasn’t motivated to push myself hard, following an intense two years that included 24 centuries (12 indoor/12 outdoor) and 12,600 total miles. After all that, I needed a relaxed year.
But it could also be… aging. Having another year on the odometer, my tolerance for high-intensity efforts is waning. Of course, I’ll continue fighting it, but I don’t relish the effort, since we know how that story inevitably ends.
Since indoor riding made up half my mileage, I’ll share a couple noteworthy developments on Zwift.
I began the year as a regular on weekly Pan-Mass Challenge group rides on Zwift that were led by Jarrett Collins, the newly-named PMC President. Those were suspended over the summer, but resumed in November.
To everyone’s delight, Jarrett got Zwift to approve an in-game PMC jersey that riders can unlock for their avatars to wear. The design honors the red tee shirts from the first Pan-Mass Challenge, in 1980. It quickly replaced the Zwift “Level 50” jersey I’d previously preferred!
Zwift also released a major new world called Makuri Islands. The fictionalized version of Japan was released in two phases: “Yumezi” features rural Japanese villages and countryside, and “Neokyo” is a neon-lit urban analogue to Tokyo. Both were well-received, but everyone’s holding their breath, hoping that a Mt. Fuji-like climb will materialize.
In the real world, health issues remained top-of-mind. May was torpedoed by achilles tendonitis, heart palpitations, and Covid vaccinations. I also addressed a longstanding irritation by swapping out my saddle (writeup). Seasonal asthma slowed my autumn riding, and aging-related performance declines remain an annoyance.
Another challenge was getting replacement bike parts due to the collapse of the bike industry’s supply chains in the pandemic’s wake, as well as Mavic’s receivership. My LBS jerry-rigged my recalcitrant rear wheel, but I can’t put high power through the pedals due to worn chainrings that I can’t replace.
Finally, in 2021 I gathered a collection of Strava Local Legend awards, which go to whomever has ridden a road segment most frequently. Here’s some of the segments I was named Local Legend on this year:
 Riverview Park is the center of Pittsburgh's cycling universe. |
 The Team Decaf group ride stops to admire the Pittsburgh skyline from the Fineview overlook. |
Squirrel Hill:
Shady Ave:
The Great Allegheny Passage bike path:
And farther afield:
Despite the bike industry’s disarray, I made several beneficial acquisitions.
Not a purchase, but (as mentioned above) I swapped out my extremely worn saddle for a less-used one off one of my other bikes. It’s not brand new, but don’t tell that to my butt! (writeup)
My biggest purchase was the new GoPro Hero 10 action video camera and accessories. It was too late in the year to produce much, but I have huge hopes for future rides. Tho I did create this 72-second vid:
Also on the topic of optics… Back in 2015, I bought plastic HydroTac stick-on bifocals that adhere to any pair of glasses with water: perfectly functional and cheaper than prescription sunglasses! This year I bought stronger ones and stuck ‘em on my Oakley sunglasses and some clear lenses I bought for night riding.
For evening and nighttime rides, I added a new headlight: a Niterider Lumina OLED 1200. Featuring LED bulbs and lithium batteries, it’s immensely better than my old AA-powered incandescent one. Along with the action cam, this was my best purchase of the year.
Having trouble procuring my preferred Michelin Power Endurance tires, I tried a pair of Continental GP5000s, a new model in a popular line of road tires. I like them a lot, although I miss my Michelins’ red sidewalls.
Also replaced the Shimano SM-BTR1 battery for my Di2 electronic drivetrain. After 8½ years, its original battery had lost capacity, and I needed a replacement, since they’re being discontinued.
I occasionally replace the caps on my Camelbak Podium Ice insulated water bottles due to mold. I bought four replacement lids after learning they were recently redesigned, making them easier to clean.
Finally, I got new ice cube trays. These ones are nicely-sized. I also got these thinking 2” cubes would work inside a hydration pack, but that proved unnecessary once I was vaccinated and could stop at convenience stores to refuel.
 My 2021 cycling calendar/log. |
 My 2021 Strava "Year in Sport" summary, averaging 62 minutes and 17 miles per day. |
2021 was a big improvement over Covid-plagued 2020. But what will 2022 look like? I’ve got a whole checklist of idears:
That’s 2021… It could have been better, but it was a big improvement over 2020, and there were several memorable highlights. 2021 fulfilled my hopes of getting closer to normality, and leaves us with the promise of an almost normal year as we roll into 2022.
Four years after successfully conquering Pittsburgh’s infamous Dirty Dozen ride (documented here), I’m still suffering PTSD. So instead of training up and riding this year, I once again chose to photograph the riders, as I did in both 2018 and 2019.
It made perfect sense. After doing eleven indoor centuries in 2020, this year I just wasn’t motivated for the intense training that would be required. On top of that, my bike’s in pretty bad shape thanks to the unavailability of replacement parts due to supply chain issues. As if that wasn’t enough, this year had pretty typical Dirty Dozen weather: cold drizzle and temps in the 40s.
So I packed up my archaic dSLR and hit the slopes on foot, hitting four strategic locations: hill #6 Logan, hill #9 Canton, hill #10 Boustead, and hill #12 Eleanor. Yes, the numbers have changed, because of tweaks to this year’s course; Berryhill is back in, but the route still begins with Christopher, which this year stands in for Rialto, which was declared too difficult and dangerous to use.
During the long waits between grouped categories of riders, you often find yourself recognizing and/or chatting with other folks who have come out to spectate. At Eleanor, this year I chatted with an aspiring future Dirty Dozen rider named Ryan who had pored over my 2017 writeup to learn about the ride and the course. It’s always a delight when I find someone who has benefited from any of my writing, and especially my Dirty Dozen and Pan-Mass Challenge reports, so that was one of the day’s several highlights.
This year I came home with 414 photos, a tiny sampling of which appear below. To see the rest of my 86 curated shots, go visit my 2021 Dirty Dozen Flickr album. And for previous years, here are links to my 2019 blogpost & 2019 Flickr album, and my 2018 blogpost & 2018 Flickr album.
And as always: click for teh bigness.
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| View the Full Album | |
A rider only touches his bicycle in five places: two hands, two feet, and the most sensitive place of all: the saddle.
People are very finicky about their saddles – for good reason – and it can be difficult to predict what will work for any given rider. I have been fortunate that the stock saddles that came with my bicycles worked well for my physiology… until recently.
And this may be where we get into what might be too much information for the sensitive reader. Viewer discretion is advised. You have been warned!
Over the past year or so, after long rides – especially centuries – I’ve experienced an abnormal amount chafing around the sit bones. It’s painful, but heals over a couple days. What’s odd is that I’ve never had this problem in the past.
I was slow to look into specific causes or solutions, mostly because it took a while for me to see the pattern, since it only happened on my (comparatively infrequent) longer rides. But when I finally decided that something had to be done, the obvious places to look were my cycling bib shorts and saddle… and my shorts are fine.
But the saddle… As I said, this is the stock saddle that came with the bike. And looking back on it, I’ve put that bike through more than 24,000 outdoor miles, plus another 11,000 miles on the indoor trainer. The saddle still works fine for me, but it does show signs of wear after nine years and 35,000+ miles of use!
Specifically, the saddle’s cover is worn, with the underlying material showing through in places, as you can see in the following two photos. But that shouldn’t have any impact on its functionality, should it?
In those photos (as always, click for bigness), there are at least four different layers of saddle material showing.
The outermost layer is glossy, ivory colored, and near the saddle’s centerline. This is the original outer layer of the saddle, and probably is some plasticky protective outer coating. The second, whiter layer is the textured cover material itself, probably leather, that shows through where the clear overcoat has peeled off.
Where I’ve worn through the white leather surface is third layer that probably started as light tan, but turns a dark grey over time. And finally, beneath that are a couple rough, black, patches of hard foam-like material.
The glossy outermost protective layer is quite smooth, but each subsequent layer becomes more tacky and sticky than the last. While Lyrca bike shorts would move and slide easily on the whiter surfaces, they would adhere to the softer, worn dark patches.
And I think that’s where my problem is. While riding, as you pump your legs and move around on the saddle, your bike shorts should stay in one place on your body, but freely slide around on top of the saddle.
But if your shorts stick to the saddle then they can’t slide around, and all that movement between your saddle and your shorts turns into movement between the shorts and your skin! It’s no wonder my ass was raw after a ride of seven hours and 30,000 pedal strokes!
Testing this hypothesis was easy, because I have two other (older) bikes with saddles that are in better condition. I could just swap out the saddle and see if the problem went away.
But the timing of this revelation wasn’t great, because it was just before my planned PMTCC 3-State century (ride report), and if there’s one single inviolable canonical rule in cycling, it’s this: never change your equipment just before a major ride. So I rode the century on the old saddle; at least the resulting sores would give me something to judge the replacement saddle’s performance against!
But after the century, I made the swap, and results so far have been promising on rides of 20, 35, and 50 miles.
Kinda weird to think that I’ve actually worn out a saddle!
Of course, the replacement saddle is black, while the old one was white, which matched my handlebar tape. So I’ll have to spend some time trying to procure my preferred saddle in white, which was a rarity even before the Covid-19 pandemic obliterated the bicycle industry’s supply chain. But having a spare saddle lying around has bought me time to make that happen.
Or I could just change to black bar tape. Or red, which would also match by bike frame.
But either way, thanks to how difficult it has become to get bike parts, my steed has started looking like a bit of a Frankenbike.
It’s been two years since I last participated in an organized century event. But with the 2021 season starting to wind down, last Sunday I completed my fourth PMTCC 3-State Century.
The headline leading into the event had to be the weather. Hurricane Ida swept away the last humid heat of summer, and left Pittsburgh enjoying a delightful string of sunny days with lows in the upper 50s and highs in the 70s. You couldn’t ask for better conditions!
| Phil & Ornoth at the Crestview Park overlook in New Cumberland WV |
 At the teapot rest stop in Chester WV |
 Leaving WV on the Newell Toll Bridge |
 1/3 mile of very sketchy boardwalk |
On the other hand, one could ask for a more reasonable starting time! Riders choosing the 100-mile route had to hit the road at 6:30am to avoid road closures for a 5k run.
With the event beginning on Neville Island – eight miles down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh – that meant an early wake-up call. I staggered awake at 4:15am, downed half a bagel, and drove to the start.
In the pre-dawn darkness, I found I’d parked next to Phil, a longtime riding buddy I hadn’t seen in years. I checked in for the ride, put my bike together, and decided to keep my arm warmers on for a while. We rolled out at 6:40am at 63° with just enough light to see.
This year’s updated route split into two completely different halves. 71% of the climbing (3,850 feet) came in the first 50 miles, while the second half only climbed 1,550 feet, less than 30% of the total. The first half averaged 80 feet per mile of climbing, while the second half averaged a mere 30 (that’s considered pan-flat in Pittsburgh). If you exhausted yourself on the lumpy first half, it would be a long and painful slog home.
The new route began with a pointless 14-mile loop up two major climbs into the Montour Heights, followed by a screaming descent right back down again. I took it casually, mostly riding with Phil and a couple other guys. Then a minor climb along busy Route 51 before I stopped at a construction site’s porta-john while the others rode on. Then another major climb on PA 151 back up the escarpment where Phil was waiting for me for the run into the first rest stop, 25 miles and about two hours in.
The rest stop spit us out directly onto the fourth and final major climb of the day before turning onto a slightly busier US Route 30 for a smaller climb up to the West Virginia border. Just a couple miles later, the route took a new left turn onto WV Route 8 toward New Cumberland. Another change from prior rides, this would give us more time along the Ohio River and increase our riding in West Virginia from 4 miles to 24. We noticed how much the road quality improved over that in Pennsylvania, while the buildings looked shabbier. We crawled along, slowly overcoming a gusty 25 MPH headwind and two more short but steep hills.
When we descended into New Cumberland and met the Ohio River, we took a quick turn onto WV Route 2, then climbed the final hill of the day. I pulled Phil aside for selfies in a small park with a platform overlooking the river, the Stratton flood control dam and locks, and the Sammis coal-fired power plant on the opposite shore. Having ridden 50 miles in three and a half hours with only one break, I had heavy legs and a stiff back, and Phil was hungry. Importantly, this marked the halfway point of the ride, the end of the climbing, and now we had the wind at our backs; we would make much better speed on the homeward leg of the ride.
We quickly covered the 10 miles to the next rest stop, arriving at the World’s Largest Teapot in Chester WV at 11am. This is beneath the Jennings Randolph Bridge where US Route 30 crosses the Ohio, which the normal ride route would take, but is closed this year for construction. So after a short rest and a photo with the “teapot” we backtracked a couple miles to our alternative: the Newell Toll Bridge.
The Newell Toll Bridge is about as small and rickety as you might imagine a bridge built in 1905 would be, although it was rehabbed just 67 years ago! It’s just wide enough for two cars to pass on its metal grate open deck, and pedestrian access is provided by a single run of aging wooden planking hung off the side, with a rusting token railing. Did I mention it’s a suspension bridge? That means the entire bridge deforms, dips, and sways under the weight of passing traffic. In between taking photos at either end, we gingerly rode a third of a mile across the creaking wooden walkway fifty feet above the Ohio River, where I discovered my long-dormant faith in God. The friendly attendants waved us on rather than collect the five-cent pedestrian toll.
Thus began our 5 miles of riding in Ohio (this year’s new route having added two extra miles!) which quickly saw us back across the border into Pennsylvania. We were delighted not to turn left for more inland climbing this year. This whole segment was only 12 miles, so it soon ended at a Subway sandwich shop in Midland PA. It was exactly noon, and we’d covered 70 miles. I was intrigued to see they’d expanded the Subway shop, adding a Dairy Queen counter, but I was heartbroken that it wasn’t open.
After ingesting a meatball sub (after defending it from some insanely persistent hornets) and filling my bottle with ice and cola, we continued up the riverside to Beaver PA, then across the bridge over the Ohio into Monaca (pronounced m’NACK-a, not MON-a-ka). We pulled aside for a quick rest to freshen our legs for a 7-mile all-out sprint down Route 51 to the Ambridge Bridge. Route 51 would be considered a four-lane superhighway if it met state or federal safety requirements, and it’s one of the most dangerous roads in Western PA. However, we survived our passage, crossed the Ohio (again!), and pulled into the final rest stop of the day: Sweetwater Bikes in Ambridge, where I filled up with ice and water. It was 1:50pm and we’d covered 91 miles, with just 7 miles to go!
Having stayed on my tail all day long, Phil was starting to flag, so we continued on at a much more casual pace, proceeding down Beaver Street into the more familiar roads in Sewickley PA. We crossed the Ohio (again!) on the Sewickley Bridge, ambled through Coraopolis, and crossed the backchannel onto Neville Island, where we’d started out eight hours before. We did a quick couple miles up and down Grand Ave to round our ride up to an even 100 miles, with 5,400 feet of climbing.
After putting my bike back in the car, I joined other finishers, where I enjoyed a cola and some pizza after claiming my finisher’s medal, tipping the group’s bartender the $5 bill I had found in the street on a June ride that coincidentally had also gone through Neville Island to Sewickley.
So that’s the ride. Now for some final observations.
As mentioned earlier, this was my first organized century since my Michigan trip back in October 2019, my fourth century of the year, and my 101th century overall. It definitely felt good to be back doing a big, supported group event, and the weather was absolutely perfect.
And it felt good to really thrash my legs on another serious day’s effort. I seem to have escaped without any of the severe night calf cramps that hit me after last month’s PMC.
Phil’s presence made it better, too. He was strong and stayed with me the whole day, even if I did the lion’s share of the pulling. He and I seem to have a similar pace and riding style, dating back even beyond our mutual support leading up to the challenging 2017 Dirty Dozen ride.
The changes to the route were mostly successful. The bonus climbing loop at the start was begrudgingly tolerable, even though I’d rather do something with more value than a pointless loop. The cut across West Virginia Route 8 to New Cumberland and along the river up Route 2 were excellent additions. But I’d rather cross the Ohio on Route 30 and avoid risking my life and emotional well-being on the 116 year old Newell Toll Bridge!
For the bike, this might well be the last big ride for its stock saddle. One of this year’s major themes has been chafing around the sit bones, and I think I’ve finally figured out that it’s because of how worn my saddle is; understandable, since it’s seen 24,000 road miles plus another 11,000 on the indoor trainer. I thought about swapping it out before this ride, but was stopped by the age-old cardinal rule: never change your equipment just before a big ride! Fortunately, my butt (mostly) survived this saddle’s last hurrah. But there’ll be a whole followup post about my saddle woes shortly.
Sadly, with September halfway gone and the season winding down, there won’t be many other organized events this year. There’s the Western PA Wheelmen’s fall picnic, which includes some short rides, and Tour the Montour. And the Dirty Dozen, which I’m in no shape to tackle, so I’ll probably play photographer again. And I suppose I ought to do another FTP test while I’m still in good form, since I haven’t done one in 10 months…
It was a wonderful day in the saddle, and one more big step to celebrate in the post-Covid return to normalcy.
Everything was set. My fitness had returned following the foot problems that plagued me in May. I’d gotten permission from my better half to take the car. I was all set for my first organized, outdoor century ride since October 2019: the Akron Bicycle Club’s Absolutely Beautiful Century. The only variable left was the weather…
And sadly, the weather steadfastly refused to cooperate, ominous enough to persuade me to skip the two-hour drive into neighboring Ohio. As one of only two or three organized centuries that are taking place this year, I'd been really looking forward to it. Even if it was the right decision — over two inches of rain fell on the route — it was a huge disappointment.
Sunrise on the Monongahela
I was still eager and ready to complete my first outdoor century of the year, so I simply waited a few days. Once better conditions prevailed, Thursday morning I set out on a solo ride up to Butler and back that I’d done two years ago, back in August of 2019.
I climbed out of bed at 4:20am — thanks to summertime’s early sunrise — and took time for a relaxed breakfast. Knowing that it was going to be a sticky and very sweaty day, I braided my annoyingly long Covid hair in order to keep it under control. Then I set out at 6:20am, catching the last portion of sunrise on my way down across the Monongahela and up the Great Allegheny Passage bike path back into town. I appeared to have achieved my goal of beating commuter traffic out of the city.
Over the preceding week, I’d suffered a couple recurring flat tires, so I was extra paranoid about how the bike felt underneath me. And sure enough, nine miles into the ride — just as I was about to come back across the river, my rear tire went soft. Fortunately, I wasn’t far from the Golden Triangle bike rental, and used their presta pump to give me enough tire pressure to make my way back home to effect repairs. I was fortunate to have begun with a short loop near home, rather than immediately heading out of town.
I took half an hour to find the puncture and replace the tube before heading out a second time. And then quickly backtracking to pick up the heart rate monitor strap that I’d forgotten. I was nearly two hours into my century ride, but had only covered 15 miles, and now I’d have to contend with the commuter traffic I’d gotten up so early to avoid. It wasn’t an auspicious start.
I cut straight across town and crossed the Allegheny via the 62nd Street Bridge. The next hour was spent traveling along the river on Freeport Road, which has a fair amount of high-speed traffic, but is blessedly flat: a rarity in Pittsburgh. But as is often the case, I probably went a little too hard trying to match traffic speed, and I would pay for that later.
My route took one of my favorite rides — climbing Days Run and Sun Mine Road almost to Saxonburg, then back down to Harmar via Brewer Road and Little Deer Creek — and extended it a dozen miles, past Saxonburg to Butler. That meant 30 miles of non-stop rolling hills: a sure recipe for exhausting your legs. By the time I pulled into the Sheetz convenience store in Butler at mile 58, I was feeling pretty used up.
It didn’t get any better once I turned around for home. A breeze provided a little cooling, but also slowed my progress even more. I started taking brief roadside rest stops after reaching Culmerville at mile 73, eager for the ride to be over. But another 30 miles lay before me, punctuated by a half-dozen intimidating hills.
Ten miles later I pulled into the Sheetz in Harmar to replenish and rest. From there I could return to town on the nice, flat expanse of Freeport Road, but I needed a little more mileage, and had planned to return by my usual (but much more challenging) route climbing Guys Run and Old Mill, and descending on Squaw Run. Knowing it would be an epic trial, that’s what I set out to do.
From that point onward I was simply in survival mode, just trying to keep the pedals ticking over as the miles crawled by. After another ad hoc rest, I dragged myself over the 62nd Street Bridge, up One Wild Place, and Beechwood, finally limping into our driveway with 104 miles on the clock.
Of note, this was my first outdoor century since the Leelanau Harvest Tour back in September of 2019: just shy of two full years! It was also only my second century of the year, the other being completed on my indoor trainer in Zwift back in March.
Even more significantly, as far as I can tell from my early records, this was my 99th ride of greater than 100 miles since getting back into cycling as an adult back in 2000.
And of course, this was also part of my training up for my remote Pan-Mass Challenge charity ride, which is just three weeks away, and which will comprise my 100th century+ ride.
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It really wasn’t anything special, just the regular 25-mile “Team Decaf” Tuesday night group ride out of Highland Park.
At the same time, it was a rare and special event, for several reasons.
Beginning with the most mundane of those reasons: it was the first Team Decaf ride of the year. That’s normally a chance to catch up with riding buddies I haven’t seen all winter long, and perhaps test one’s legs to determine one’s current position in the hierarchy of speed. The first group ride always has a bit of a “reunion” feel to it.
| First post-Covid Team Decaf group ride |
| Sunrise on the castle climb in Zwift's new Japan-themed world |
But never mind this year, this was their first group ride in more than 1½ years, as they've been on hiatus since October 2019 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. After such a long break, getting back together felt like an extremely special occasion.
For me, this also (hopefully) marks my return to outdoor riding. I actually did a couple outdoor rides back in March, but Zwift’s Tour of Watopia and my mission to reach Level 50 kept me on the indoor trainer through the end of April. With those out of the way and a new all-time record fitness level, I was all set to rediscover the hilly roads of Allegheny County as the calendar ticked over to May...
I started the month with a couple outdoor rides, only to be sidelined with a bad case of achilles tendonitis. Between my injury and additional downtime around my Covid-19 vaccinations, May was a near-complete write-off. The only things that got me on the bike (gingerly!) were the final PMC group rides of the season on Zwift, and Zwift’s release of a new Japan-themed virtual world (which I must admit is pretty cool). Meantime, my fitness absolutely plummeted. That’s what happens when you cut your training down from 200 miles per week to less than 50.
However, I’m now fully vaccinated, which means this was also my first time riding with any other people in more than 18 months. During the pandemic lockdown, I rode 7,700 miles; only 1,250 of them were outdoor, and all of those were solo.
So with all those milestones, yesterday’s group ride was memorable and even a little emotional. Enough so that I felt inclined to actually smile and photobomb. My ankle felt reasonably good, although there’s enough pain — both on and off the bike — to constantly remind me that I’m not 100 percent, or even 90 percent.
The next question is what will the summer of 2021 riding season look like?
The first order of business is getting my achilles fully healed and ramping my mileage back up. That might take quite a while, both because tendonitis is a long-term injury, and it is aggravated by overuse. So returning to long endurance rides is going to be a slow process.
I don’t know when I’ll be able to return to full century rides, which has implications for my goals for this year. I’d like to hit the Akron Bicycle Club’s century in July, do some kind of “reimagined” Pan-Mass Challenge ride in August, and either the Epic Tour in Toronto or the PMTCC’s three-state century in mid-September. And I’m eager to get my milestone 100th century ride under my belt, whatever that winds up being. But there’s no way to know when — or whether — any of that will happen.
In the short term, it’ll be a bunch of short rides, probably sprinkled amongst lots of recovery days. And putting some time into my PMC fundraising, as well. That’s really all I can do until I’m injury-free and back to full fitness.
It looks like my return to normalcy following the Covid-19 pandemic will be a very slow, gradual one.
For the past 2½ years, Zwift has done a great job motivating me to ride the indoor trainer. While the social aspect has been rewarding, one of my biggest motivators has been chasing in-game achievements: what the industry terms “gamification”.
But a problem arises when users have been around long enough to check off every achievement, and I started reaching that point about a year ago. At the pandemic’s onset, I was already sitting at Level 37, and there were only two interesting things left for me to unlock: a Mondrian-themed in-game jersey at Level 42, and an excellent time trial bike and wheelset at Level 45.
| The long-awaited Level 50 achievement! |
| Riding thru the Tour of Watopia archway |
 Sporting my new Level 50 rider kit |
 List of Tour of Watopia stages ridden |
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After that, the only achievement left to chase was getting to Level 50: the highest experience level in the game. Higher levels require more XP to advance — and commensurately more time — so I could only level up once every 5 to 10 weeks. So at that point, I knew I was still more than year away from Level 50.
With Level 50 being so far away, my biggest question was whether I could get there before Zwift decided to introduce more experience levels. Shortly after I had begun Zwifting, they increased the top level from Level 25 to 50, and 18 months later it seemed kind of inevitable that they’d add more levels soon. So reaching Level 50 before they moved the goalpost felt like a race against time.
For a while, I followed a not-widely-known strategy to earn 25% more XP than usual. By riding a time trial bike, I was given a +10 XP bonus instead of a power-up each time I passed a banner kite on the road.
On top of that, a recent update introduced a new shortcut between the 360 Bridge and the JWB Bridge, which created a small two-kilometer loop around the Italian village. That became the new shortest route between banner kites, allowing a rider on a TT bike to earn 50 XP every 2 KM, rather than the usual 40 XP. That may not sound significant, but when every level requires 20,000 XP, that 25% bonus will save over 120 miles of riding per level! So even though countless little 2 KM circuits got pretty tedious, I eagerly exploited that advantage.
But this past month was even more productive than that... and commensurately more tiring. Zwift’s Tour of Watopia, which always offers an irresistible double XP on every ride, ran from March 29 to April 29. So instead of 20 or even my crafty 25 XP, all “ToW” rides earned a bloated 40 XP per kilometer! It was the ideal opportunity to finish off my quest to reach Level 50.
In the end, I rode 28 out of the tour’s 32 days, only taking one day off due to an emergency room visit for heart palpitations; a two-day break for a followup visit to my doctor and my first Covid shot; and a rest day to celebrate after I hit Level 50.
Although the Tour of Watopia is usually comprised of 5-7 stages, back in 2019 I rode multiple times — 23 stages, in total! — to quickly leap from Level 20 to 26; and last year I managed 16 stages, advancing from Level 35 to 37. But this year I completed a record-shattering 42 stages! That was just enough to earn the 50,000 experience points I needed to tick off my final 2½ levels.
For the record, that was one ride of Stages 1B, 2A, and 5B; twice each for Stage 4A and 5A; three rides of Stage 3A and 4B; Stage 3B (Ocean Lava Cliffside Loop) four times; Stage 2B (Volcano Climb) six times; and Stage 1A (Magnificent 8) a whopping 19 times!
I tripped 500,000 XP on April 27th. After more than a year of working on that goal, I had finally reached Level 50: the non plus ultra of Zwifting. I’d been Zwifting for 2.4 years, and had racked up 11,000 miles over 610 hours of indoor riding, burning 306,000 kcalories (about 90 pounds of body weight), or 1,075 pizza slices according to Zwift). That also included 616,000 feet of ascending, and twelve indoor “Zenturies” plus one 7½-hour 200k ride.
Never let it be said I lack determination, fortitude, or self-discipline.
From this point forward, the orange UI progress bar that shows how far I am through the current level becomes a worthless, unmoving waste of screen real estate. Amusingly, just last week Zwift introduced the ability to hide all UI display components except the riders and the landscape of Zwift’s worlds; I’ll probably make use of that, rather than let myself be discouraged by a perpetually unchanging grey progress bar!
It’s nice that the Tour of Watopia — with its double XP bonus as a motivator — takes place in early spring, when I’m topping up my fitness before transitioning to outdoor riding. After a strong indoor training season that included this year’s Tour de Zwift and Haute Route Watopia events, on the seventh day of the Tour of Watopia I surpassed my previous lifetime fitness record of 98.18 CTL, set last year.
Two weeks later, on my 30th ToW stage, I finally surpassed a CTL of 100, and maxed out at a new record 103.97 a week later, on my Level 50 ride. While a fitness value over 100 doesn’t have any special meaning — other than forcing me to change the scale on all my fitness tracking charts! — it’s still a big, round number that I’d never attained before, and thus worth celebrating. For me, it’s perhaps even more meaningful than reaching Level 50.
There’s a ton of satisfaction in achieving these milestones, but there’s also happiness and relief that all the extra effort and focus of the past year — and especially this past month’s Tour of Watopia — is over!
And more importantly, it’s well past time for my outdoor riding season to begin. I’m sure I’ll be very thankful for the fitness I built up as a result of all this Zwift-inspired off-season training.
After spending so many hours on the indoor trainer getting to Level 50, it feels strange not to be working toward any Zwift achievements. Will I still have the same desire and motivation to ride Zwift when there’s nothing particular to ride for?
With the outdoor season upon us, I happily won’t need to worry about that until next winter. And I still expect Zwift to release another set of advanced levels any day now. My top-level status will have to be reasserted whenever Zwift decides to expand the parameters of the game. After all, it’s in their interest (as well as my own) that they continue to offer new carrots for experienced riders like me to chase.
And I expect they’ll provide me with an opportunity to do that very soon, because rumors have recently resurfaced about Zwift unveiling an Olympics-related Japan course. That could be absolutely stunning, and trigger another series of rides to reassert my longstanding “route hero” status.
But in the meantime, I’m finally taking my partially-vaccinated body and my hard-won fitness outside to enjoy some long, warm summer rides!
My first Zentury of 2021 is done. First that, then an update on 2021 so far, and prognosis for the summer.
This was a duplicate of my first ever Zentury, in April 2019: doing a Zwift gran fondo event (100k), then extending that with four laps of (essentially) the Volcano Flat route, finishing at 170km. With this being the final ride in the five-episode Winter 2020-2021 fondo series, I figured it was time to go long.
I managed to hang with a couple ad hoc friends for the first 20 miles, but unceremoniously dropped one who didn’t bother switching to a mountain bike for the jungle loop. Then I lost my other friend around Mile 45, when I stopped for a 15-minute stretch and burrito break.
Because this fondo was run in multiple categories and at multiple times over two days, there were only 100 riders in my group, so I was alone on the road much of the time. No one else I knew was on the ride, and the Herd, PMC, Team Kermit, and Western PA Wheelmen Discord audio chats were all empty. That made for a really tedious ride.
Somehow I didn’t realize the obvious: that the first century of the year would be really hard, especially the last 20 miles. I had to stop for another 5-minute rest break, and limped home to the accompaniment of my music collection. It was a really long, hard, solo slog.
I finished 170km with 5,000 feet of climbing in 5h44m, exactly five minutes slower than my 2019 ride, although in 2019 I didn’t take any breaks off the bike. My weighted average power was 180W, which is 16W greater than 2019.
Overall I guess I’m happy with it, although I suffered a lot more than I expected. It’s also my 98th century-plus ride, putting me closer to that magical 100th 100+ ride. And the extra 3,450 XP also gives me a big head start on my way to Zwift Level 48 (more on those below).
Now let me segue to an overview of my 2021 training to date.
 Exploring new roads |
 Ornoth at Mon Wharf |
On the indoor side, it’s been a typical Zwifty winter, with a balance of new features, familiar events, and achievement chasing. In addition to the aforementioned five-ride fondo series, annual events included the 8-stage Tour de Zwift and 3-stage Haute Route. New features included the rollout of “robotic” pace partner rides, acquiring the newly-minted Herd club in-game kit, trying my first individual time trial ride, and the rollout of a couple small but strategic connector roads in Zwift’s imaginary Watopia world. The latter prompted a brief chase to try the four new routes that accompanied the new roads, to reassert my “Route Hero” status. But my focus has been working from Level 43 to 47, ever-closer to Level 50, the current maximum.
Outdoor riding has started slowly. On a couple consecutive days in the 60s, I got two rides totaling 70 miles in, but picked up a tiny staple that flatted my front tire overnight. My biggest problem has been that the pandemic has made parts ridiculously scarce, precisely at a time when I need to replace both my rear wheel and chainrings / crankset. For now I can limp along, but soon I’ll need to address the problem, which probably means swapping out both my wheels and entire drivetrain.
In terms of fitness, it’s been a steady, predictable progression from a CTL around 55 at year-end to 95 following yesterday's Zentury. It’s been a little better paced than last year, when my CTL peaked at 98 in January before tailing off!
Looking forward toward spring and summer, Zwift is running the Tour of Watopia throughout April. With double XP for every ride, you know I’m going to be hitting that hard, which will artificially reduce my outdoor riding. That’ll probably continue to elevate my CTL before I dial it back a bit and enjoy some time outdoors in May, while still putting time into my quest for Level 50 inside.
The prognosis for a summer of outdoor rides is mixed. On one hand, Covid vaccinations have been rolling out quickly, and I hope to get mine before too long. Once vaccinated, I’ll have less fear about stopping to refuel during long rides at convenience stores. Plus most major rides have scheduled dates, with surprisingly few exceptions.
On the other hand, most of those events have dialed back their scale, in terms of length, duration, number of participants, and/or amount of rider support. Some are taking a “Here’s a route map; you’re on your own” approach, some two-day rides are now one-days, and century-plus rides have downsized to piddling 100ks. So it really remains to be seen how many outdoor events — especially organized century rides — I’ll be able to accrue. Still, I’ll hopefully be able to do a few solo centuries, as well as simulated ones back on the trainer.
The remaining big questions are what I’ll do for my hundredth century, and whether I’ll do another “reimagined” Pan-Mass Challenge this year. I should spend some time thinking about those while I’m stuck on the trainer next month, chasing that elusive Level 50 jersey...
