'Tis the season. With a new year underway, have you made any resolutions/goals about riding or racing?
last year, i loosely committed to riding the same bike without any significant changes to it (5010 v4, dual 27.5). before that, i'd try to ride as many of the test bikes that came through (not as the tester, but just to ride them), trying something new fairly regularly. at some point, i think the fun in riding was diminished because i was more worried about trying new stuff rather than thinking about riding technique or just enjoying the trail. over time, when i would get on a different bike, i found myself wanting to be back on my personal rig, regardless of tech or updates. i'm planning on sticking with that again this year. i can already feel the FOMO itch with new bikes that have come out or will be coming out though. it's also pretty crappy here and i haven't ridden much lately. it's easy to go down the "i should upgrade and to have more fun" rabbit hole in the throes of a dark, wet winter LOL.
This is the year I finally put the time in to learn to manual worth a darn.
Love the idea of a main squeeze bike. I do think that we get too caught up in the shiny new bikes when the improvement over what we currently have is probably minimal, if any.
The mentality you bring up also makes sense from a happiness perspective as well, don't get caught up in what you could have, be grateful for what you do have.
Goals wise, I'm adding yours in there (thanks for that) as well as a few related to skill building and a few features I've had my eyes on.
Hoping to do the reverse Everest again at our local bike park this summer, this time only on the Black DH trails. My crew and I did it two summers back (30k descending in a day), but babies and life prevented it from happening this past summer.
I want to do a 10k climbing day in the national forest by my house.
A co-worker and I also like to do "no dab rides", where we call out a loop for the week and try to ride the whole thing without ever putting a foot down. It's a surprisingly fun challenge and I'd like to do more of that in 2023.
Last, I want to get my daughter on the trails this year. She'll turn two in August and has been on the shotgun seat for a few months, just on the bike paths around town. Taking the party to the woods would be awesome.
Build build build some more
@Sspomer I feel attacked, I just got a new Oneup carbon bar today because I went far into the upgrade rabbit hole.
My goal is to ride more "true" singletrack. Happy for lots of trails springing up in the Southeast, but the machine built flow is getting boring. Every turn is a berm and the trails are wider than ATV trails. Those trails are great because they helped get my brother and others into mountain biking so I don't want to diminish their value to the sport.
My secondary goal is to volunteer more around my house trail building while also juggling family obligations.
Not shinner myself again. Did it today on both shins for the first time in years and wanted to cry.
For years, I'd go into the new year with a list of goals for racing that was good for motivation but also added some stress to my season. My goals were also very self-focused and took some of the fun out of riding.
Now, I'd be stoked just to ride a few times a week, check out some new riding destinations, and do my best to share the stoke with other/newer riders.
-Resolutions: no unnecessary upgrades, and train as much as possible for:
-Riding Ard Rock Enduro
-Riding Canazei for a week with as little uplifts as necessary
-Going for a winter bikpack adventure
Work less, ride more.
Complete the Canberra Centenary Trail without the sun going down on me.
Keep working on the skills.
Ride Dirt Digler in Fernie
Do some backcountry suffer fest where I feel like a moron the entire time for even picking such a stupid ride but at the end of day go “that was cool”.
More commitment and just send it.
Take my kids riding more.
This is going to be the year I start racing enduros, shooting for at least one BME race, RezDuro, and at least one Trail Party event.
Climb our local mountain at least once (4k” from the house)
Attend at least one skills clinic.
Goal is 100 rides every year and as many with my black lab mix trail dog as he can before he retires, he’s turning 10 this spring. Bikes are dialed in so now I just need to stay healthy.
Now, don't you guys laugh at my pitiful goals, but I hit my 800 mile goal for 2022. The problem is that I spent all my ride days focused on getting a few more miles, and I ended up riding flatter, less-challenging rides to keep the odometer ticking over. So this year, I'm going for an elevation gain instead. Last year I landed just over 30,000 feet, so this year I'm looking to get 50,000'. That's going to be a tough thing for me to do, honestly.
Similar vibe, but completely different approach to sspomer: try to be happy with a long term ride. The difference being than I'm planning on selling my highly upgraded 2018 ebike and stock 2019 bike and get a single ebike. But the market is a disaster at the moment (high prices, garbage components, unreliable motors) and I'm losing mind trying to figure out what to get. Hoping to just pull the trigger and be content with the bike for 3+ years.
Learn to manual and "try" to stop upgrading my bike in various ways that I don't really need to spend money on!
Ride more times per week
Get skills coaching (thx to the other thread!)
Get my cockpit set up right finally
Ride somewhere totally new
Help novice MTB friends out more instead of being a goddamned grouch
I always wanted to do a year where I was in shape enough to compete (and hopefully do well) in as many different disciplines as I'm able to given my current crop of bikes. Meaning race some enduros, some DH's, some BMX races, throw in a road race / crit / TT, and if I still had a MX bike do a MX race.
With the exception of a MX bike, I have the bikes I need to do it all, but I don't have the best fitness right now. I have a young family so I try to get in a long ride on the weekends and Zwift during the week at night once the kids are in bed. Maybe this is the year where I commit to it and not worry about trying to win or podium everything, just have fun and bring the family along to the races.
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