This year I missed out on a New Year’s Day ride. I was pretty smoked after a big December so decided an additional rest day wouldn’t hurt. To make up for that, it was straight back into the swing of things with a metric century on the 2nd of January!

I’m not planning on topping 2021’s mileage, but it’s always good to get off to a flying start. There’s also a few work commitments that may keep me from longer rides this month. Knocking off the hundred early in the month avoids any last-minute rushed rides. The weather forecast was for a warm start, but with heavy rain predicted by lunch time. I happily rolled the dice on those odds.

As always, I got off to an early start to give the legs a test. While not 100% on form, I was feeling pretty spritely as I whizzed around my usual Sunday morning roads, en-route to the SunDaze meet-up spot. By the time I found the guys over Tunnel Hill, I’d already racked up 45km.

It was a smaller than usual turnout. I guess a lot of people are still on a Christmas break or were put off by the chance of rain. Even with reduced numbers, the ride from Cambridge to Richmond went by in a flash with Stewie, now recovered from his Everesting success, drilling the pace and motoring on the front like a V8 supercar. By the time we hit the outskirts of Richmond, only myself and Jon were left on his wheel.

After a café catch-up over coffee and walnut slice, I said my goodbyes to the bunch and took the backroads home to rack up the metric century. By the time 100km come around I’m usually ready to climb off and put the bike away, but today I felt like I could have kept going! All those endurance-paced rides must have been having a positive effect. The heavy rain clouds approaching in the distance put paid to the idea of any further distance so with 101km on the Garmin, I retreated to the car.

Now, back to the birthday! My 2002 Trek 5200 is now officially 20 years old! Waaaay back in 2002 when this team-edition colour scheme was released, Lance Armstrong “won” his fourth Tour de France, Avril Lavigne released her debut album, The Osbournes debuted on MTV, and Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake officially broke up… #sadface

She’s half my age and still hustles with the best of them (just about). 😄 And what a beauty…

I know I bang on a lot about my Trek 5200, but you know you love it really. I’ve been riding it so much recently (including my Rapha Festive 500 rides) it’s almost caught up to the mileage on my Canyon Aeroad that I’ve owned for longer! What started as a “winter/rain bike” project ended up being so much more than that, with the final result being just TOO good to be relegated to bad weather.

Distance: 101.2 km / 62.8 miles
Total elevation gain: 765 m / 2510 feet
Average speed: 30.4 kph / 18.9 mph