Do you know where you’re going with your bicycle riding? Do you know what your current mileage is and how much you’re planning to ride this year? Do you have a target weight? How do you plan each bike ride you do? Do you roll out of the driveway knowing what the plan is for that ride or do you decide when your tires hit the pavement? Are you planning on riding in an upcoming charity event or race? If so, what’s your finish expectations? In short, do you have a goal, or goals, to accomplish what you want to do on your bicycle? If not, you dramatically increase your chances of failing or not performing as well as you wanted to.

Why do we have goals?

We set goals in order to achieve something important. Goals are our recognition of a problem, or opportunity, and serve as a target for us to focus on. Without goals we risk wandering aimlessly in our bicycle riding. Setting goals requires that we establish our baseline and determine where we want to be in the future. Setting goals puts the proverbial carrot out in front and keeps us moving towards the completion of that goal.

A goal properly set is halfway reached.
-Abraham Lincoln

Defining your goals

There are several factors that must be taken into account when you want to define your goals.

1. Where are you now? You have to have a starting point which means you need to make an assessment of your current situation. If you’re looking to lose weight you need your current weight. If you’re looking to improve your health see your doctor and get a complete checkup. If you’re looking to improve your riding record your most recent workout data to set as a baseline. Only by knowing where you are now can you plot a course to get where you want to be.
2. Where do you want to be? Do you know where you want to be with your bicycle riding, weight, or overall fitness? If you don’t, you need to figure it out. Do you want to ride a certain number of miles per week, month, or year? Do you want to drop a specific number of minutes off your weekday loop or commute time? Do you have a target weight you want to be at? Do you need to drop your cholesterol, blood pressure, or resting heart rate? Do you want to complete your first century ride or compete in a race next year? These are the types of questions you need to answer before you can figure out where you want to be.
3. How do you measure your progress? In order to determine if your bike rides are doing you any good you have to determine how you’re going to measure your progress towards your goals. Setting a goal and not measuring your progress leaves you wondering if you’ll ever achieve the results you wanted. So, how do you measure your progress? Some are:
   • Going to your doctor and getting your blood work checked periodically.
   • Measure and record your resting heart rate when you wake up each morning.
   • Use a bicycle computer to track your ride statistics (mileage, average speed, heart rate, etc.)
   • Weigh yourself periodically.
   • Are you able to keep pace on the group ride?

   These are just a few ideas and I’m sure you can think of others.

4. How do you get to your goal? This is where the rubber meets the road. Literally. If you want to improve your bike riding, fitness, or health, you have to define, specifically, the action required to get there. For example, if you want to put in 5000 training miles this year you need to determine the number of miles you need to ride per month and per week. In this example, you’ll need to put in approximately 417 miles per month or 104 miles per week to achieve that goal. You’ll need to measure your progress periodically to ensure your on track to meet that 2000 training miles goal. If you find yourself trailing behind you’ll need to re-adjust your plan (increase the daily/monthly mileage) to achieve your goal.

SMART Goals

SMART is a common method used to help in defining goals. SMART stands for:

• Specific
• Measureable
• Action-Oriented
• Realistic (yet challenging)
• Time-defined

1. Specific and Measureable. Your goals must be specific and you must have a way to measure them. If you simply say to yourself, “I’m going to ride my bike more this year” what do you think the chances of you actually following through on that are? How would you know if you were riding more than last year? It would be better to write your goal as, “Increase my training mileage this year by 30 miles per week.”
2. Action-Oriented. How are you going to increase your mileage by 30 miles per week? Expand your goal by defining exactly how your going to do it. How about, “I will increase my training mileage this year by 30 miles per week by commuting to work one more day per week”, or, “by increasing my Saturday training ride to 50 miles”, or, “by participating in the Monday night group ride at the local bike shop.” Writing your goal this way reminds you exactly how you were going to achieve it.
3. Realistic and Time Defined. You’ve got to look at your goal and make sure that it’s both realistic and can be achieved in the time you allot for yourself. If you’ve only been putting in 500 training miles per year how realistic do you think it is to set a goal to ride 5000 training miles the next year? Not very. You have to make an honest assessment of your abilities and use that to help set your goal. Additionally, you’ll need to propose a realistic time scale to accomplish the goal. If you’re looking to lose fifty pounds and give yourself twelve weeks to do it you’re setting yourself up to fail. Healthy weight-loss is 1 to 2 pounds per week which means a fifty pound loss should take, at a minimum, 25 weeks to accomplish.

Write your goals down

Can you remember everything without writing it down? I know I can’t. That’s one reason to write your goals down. Another is that writing your biking goals down allows you to refer to them often as a motivational tool to keep moving towards that goal. Another is that being able to refer to your written goals allows you to make modifications if necessary. You can’t make modifications if you can’t remember what you were trying to achieve. Written goals help hold you accountable as well. Put your goals on the mirror so you see them every morning when you get up. Share your goals with your spouse, friend, or riding buddy. If you’re comfortable doing it, you can blog about your goals as well. Sharing your goals lets others know what’s important to you and perhaps they can help you achieve them. Who knows, maybe they have goals of their own that you can help them with.

Over on the right side of the blog, under the categories section, you should be able to see a Tour of Utah Standings widget will show you at a glance who the leaders are in each of the categories. Images were provided by Blackbottoms Cyclewear. Coding provided by yours truly.

Sorry for the break between posts but even though this was a four-day week, it felt like a five-day week at work. I was slammed. Friday morning I woke up and didn’t feel 100% and couldn’t ride. By the time I got home that evening around five, I was totally blown. I had zero energy and couldn’t stay awake. It took all I could do to just crawl in bed. I slept until about 8:45 PM, then went back to bed at midnight, and slept until 7:00 AM this morning. When I got up I didn’t feel great but I felt ok. I decided to go ahead and ride the same route I did last Saturday because I needed the ride.

Upon setting out my hamstrings felt pretty tight and it took several miles before they started to feel good. As I neared my normal weekday turnaround point I just wasn’t sure how this ride was going to turn out. I felt tired already and just was having a hard go at it. I reached the church that’s my turnaround point and had to stop for about 10 minutes to rest. I drank some water and had some Jelly Belly® Sport (ENERGY) Jelly Beans. After resting I felt a bit better and set out again.

About 5 minutes later I crossed an intersection and saw a group of three riders approaching the same intersection from my left. About a mile later they start to overtake me (I’m going approx 17 mph). The lead rider pulls up next to me and says, “We’re lost and hope you know where you’re going because we’re just going to follow you.” I said, “If you follow me, you’ll just wind up at my house.” They laughed and kept on going. I caught up to them again about 2 miles later at a stoplight. The light changes green and I’m ready and take off. They seemed to be taking their time getting across. They probably thought I was a tool as I passed them. Once across the intersection the road climbs for about 200 feet and then descends back down on the other side. I let my speed carry me and I’m riding along at about 20 mph. I see some guy operating a leaf blower up ahead next to the road. It looks like he was fixing to step out into the road, saw me, and thought better of it. I’m still pushing 20 mph, get within about 10 feet of the guy and he turns to step out in front of me. At the last second he sees me and jumps back. That would have hurt. About a 100 feet later I’m still pushing 20 mph (just to see if the three riders were going to catch me) and here they come just cruising by me with a girl in the lead. They must have been moving along at close to 25 mph. Wow. I hope to be able to ride at that pace some day.

After these three passed me again they left me behind pretty quick and then I turned to start heading back home. The effort over the past five miles was starting to get to me. It took a huge effort to keep pedaling over the last stretch home and by the time I got home I was hurting pretty bad. I’m not sure what caused me to crash so bad yesterday and then to not be able to ride at my best today. I’ve wondered if it was some kind of bug but I don’t feel sick. I’ve also wondered if it’s perhaps my diet and if I’m not getting enough of something. I’m not sure. I welcome anyones opinion.

Here are the numbers for today: 24.22 miles, 1:34:01, 21.7 mph max, 15.4 mph average

I was up at 5:00 AM when the alarm went off and headed out to the garage to get ready to ride. Once the garage door was open the magnitude of the day hit me. It was overcast (I could see a little filtered moonlight), there was no wind, and the temperature was perfect. And it was quiet. I could hear the crickets and that was it. That was awesome. I just had this sense that I was going to turn in a special ride today.

Once I got started and warmed up I started to feel really good. Now that I’m riding the Crotch Rocket (Cannondale R-300), I felt like I was flying. To me it was flying but to a more experienced rider I’m sure it was a crawl. Regardless, I could tell I was making good time. My brother-in-law was not at our meeting spot so I kept on going.

As I neared my turnaround point I decided to go ahead and extend the mileage a little by going to the next median turnaround point. Once I turned around I kept mashing it all the way home.

Nothing too terribly exciting for this ride. I saw one runner and that was it. I figured there would be more for a Friday. There was little traffic as well which was nice.

I wasn’t kidding about a special day for a ride. This was the first day I could really open it up with the Cannondale and I did. Here are today’s numbers: 12.17 miles, 47:05, 18.7 mph max, and 15.5 mph avg. Those are all new records for me (except max) for my morning ride. The perfect weather conditions and road bike made all the difference. Being able to get the avg speed up let me ride about 7 tenths of a mile more but do it 2 minutes faster. Awesome!

Now, after getting back home, getting ready for work, and leaving home with my daughter (whom I take to school every morning), things became interesting. The exit from our neighborhood turns onto a service road that leads to a stop sign. There is a large, divided six-lane, road just off the service road. As I approach the stop sign I hear a very unnatural sound. The kind where the hairs on the back of your neck start to stand up. I’m driving so I look over my left shoulder and see a car spinning across three lanes and begin to enter the ditch that seperates the large six-lane road from the service road. He’s coming right at us. The car hits the ditch and throws up a ton of dirt and grass. Luckily (for me, not the driver of the spinning car), there’s a light pole about four feet into the ditch and the car hits it broadside right in the driver’s door. I immediately throw my car into park, put on the hazards, and run over to the wrecked car. The driver (the only passenger) is conscious and asks me to call 911. I call 911 and explain the situation. By the time I get off the phone someone else has stopped and the driver of the wrecked car is out walking around. He seems fine. I have no idea what caused the accident. His was the only car involved and my guess is that he was speeding and lost control of his car.

After leaving the scene I had a chance to think about the whole ordeal and realized how lucky my daughter and I were. There’s no doubt in my mind that if that light pole hadn’t been there that his car would have either slid straight into mine, or, hit the ditch, started to roll, and rolled into my car. Either scenario would have been ugly. Luckily, that light pole was there. Even luckier, he hit the lightpole square in the drivers door. I’m confident, that with his speed, if he had hit the pole on either the front or rear fender that he would have been thrown into a spin and hit me as well.

All I can say is that I’m thankful we made it through ok.

I just ran across a great post over on Cycle Pig about a family of four (Dad, Mom, and ten year old twin boys), and the family dog, that will be biking from Alaska to Argentina. When they have completed the trip, the boys will set the Guinness record for the youngest to bike the Pan-American Highway. They will begin their trip in June 2008. Here’s a link to Cycle Pig’s full article:

http://www.cyclepig.com/archive/family-on-bikes/