Cycling Goals

What Are Your Cycling Goals for This Year?

Even here in the rainy Portland area, cycling season will soon arrive, so it’s time to think about reestablishing your personal relationship with your bicycle. And there are many ways to think about and set realistic cycling goals. Hopefully, this will help you focus on areas you’d like to include in your cycling plan.

Frequency: How many rides do you want to do? 1 per week? 2 per week? 100 per year?

Distance: What is your mileage goal? Do you want to increase your distance per ride, or do you want to set a comprehensive mileage goal? (My personal mileage goal is at least 500 miles for 2022, because I love to get the PBC lapel pin each year!) Perhaps you want to ride your first century (100 miles), a metric century (100 kilometers ≈ 62 miles), or a certain number of centuries during the year.  ✎

Try new types of terrain:

• A – Basically flat, no steep hills
• B – Gently rolling terrain with one or two short hills
• C – Moderate terrain with rolling short steep hills or moderate, sustained climbs
• D – Difficult terrain with longer, steeper hills
• E – Extreme terrain with frequent steep hills and long sustained climbs

Increase your ride pace:

• Slow – Speeds approximately 8-13 mph (or in a group ride, the pace of the slowest rider)
• Intermediate – Speeds approximately 13-15 mph
• Brisk – Speeds approximately 15-17 mph
• Fast – Normally a paceline ride; speeds in excess of 18 mph

Health/Fitness:

• Do you want to raise your level of fitness or build muscle mass?
• Lose weight or improve heart/lung function?

Participation:

• Learn to ride in a group?
• Go on a multi-day bike tour?
• Develop your social connections with club members?
• How about being a ride leader, or volunteering in another capacity that fits your schedule and strengths?

Bike Maintenance/Mechanics:

• Learn how to take care of your bike, fix a flat tire, or use Ride With GPS?

Safety:

• Learn basic bicycle laws, guidelines, and uniform hand signals; and become more aware of situations or locations that may be especially dangerous for bicyclists in your area.

Whatever your goal is, even if it’s just to have fun while riding, let us help you. Portland Bicycling Club is a great community. We can motivate and support each other to reach our personal cycling goals while enjoying time with others.

For more information about club rides, go to Ride Ratings, Requirements, and Tips on our website, PortlandBicyclingClub.com.

Lynn Blanchard, Editor