January This And That

In 2021 I rode 128 times or 234 hours, totaling 4'218 kilometers and climbing 119'885 meters. I spent 87% of the rides on my Nordest Albarda allroad bike and did a single mountain bike all year. That's very unusual for someone who got into cycling on a mountain bike. 2020 and 2021 have been very unusual years, not just due to the continuing pandemic, but because our two old cats have chronic kidney disease. Maintaining a good quality of life for our two bugs has become the first priority. So, whenever I left for a ride, it was a 1-2 hour road bike ride, sometimes with a bit of gravel mixed in. My wife and I stayed home to take care of them at all times, and if one of us had to go out of town, the other stayed at home with them. We never left our cats alone for more than a few hours. A weekend trip or vacation? Impossible.

Up to 2019, a good cycling year was eight to eight and a half thousand kilometers on the bike. So, I'm at about half that. But what wasn't spent on the bike was spent on taking care of my bike fleet doing maintenance and upgrades. Next in line is my 44 Marauder. The hubs need new bearings. Chainring, chain, and cog need to be replaced as well. Once winter is over, some work will be done to my 44 Snakedriver. Here too, the hub bearings will be replaced, a new drivetrain will be mounted, and later in the year, I'll swap saddle and dropper.

In other news, after a whopping 3 years after my MacBook Pro died, I finally have a new one. Well, not new New. My wife got a new MacBook Pro, and she handed me her 2016 15" MacBook Pro with a 2.9 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor. I wiped the drive and started with a fresh 12.1 Monterey macOS. Most apps I need have been installed. One huge piece of work was merging the Photos library from my old Mac with the photos I've taken in the past 3 years. I never transferred any of the new pictures to a computer. They lived in iCloud and on Flickr.

It was also time to expand my cycling wardrobe. Since I've been riding less, I never found the need to purchase new clothes. For 2022, I decided to get a handful of new garments. I often wear a sleeveless vest, whether in the winter over a jacket or on cooler days over a short or long-sleeve jersey. Primal Wear makes two nice camo vests, one green the other black/white. I bought the green one first, and once I saw fit and quality, I also got a black/white one. In addition, I ordered a camo jersey from Primal, a green DHB winter jacket, and two long sleeve jerseys from Wiggle. That should be plenty for 2022.