In December 2014 I received a BMX bike as a gift from my boyfriend, just a few months after we started dating. I would ride it to the skate park & pedal around. In May 2015 I rode the warm up line at the legendary Posh Woods for the first time ever. My first attempt, I crashed. There's been plenty of crashes since then but my riding & my confidence have improved (which you can read all about over on my guest blog post on Fit & Feminist). That same month I bought my first road bike & began riding bikes for fun/fitness. Three months after getting my road bike I started a cycling journal on this website but then, my boyfriend crashed his motorcycle & we stopped riding bikes for awhile.

After a few weeks of being bed ridden he was able to get down to Posh with his walker or crutches & coach me from the side lines. For that, I am forever grateful. In March 2016 I decided to ride 50 miles each week which felt like a huge goal - but I did it! It felt awesome & got me even more psyched on bikes. Then that September, I attempted my first century in the BikeMS City to Shore ride. I successfully rode 82 miles. The following year I tried again, and rode 77 miles. Third times a charm. In September 2018 I successfully rode my first century, again as part of the BikeMS City to Shore ride. Since then I have successfully complete a century for the event including 2020 when it was a self-sustained ride which we chose to do on the D&L up through Carbon County PA (why oh why did I think a gravel 100 was a good idea)?

Anyway, I used to keep all of my stats on this page but it got to be a bit much. All of my rides can be found on my Strava page. For now, I will include total distances for years but each ride is logged over there with photos so be sure to friend me!

2020: 1,016.6 mi (41,654 ft & 112h, 20m) 129 rides
2019: 500.7 mi (12,096 ft & 68h) 51 rides
2018: 713.6 mi (26,322 ft & 77h, 50m) 101 rides
2017: 699.5 mi (20,663 ft & 94h, 41m) 85 rides
2016: 1,071.6 mi (17,224 ft & 130h, 22m) 111 rides

It's so cool to see how much faster my riding has gotten the more I ride. But I also can see the fluctuations in my mental health in these stats. For 2021, my goal is 2021 miles ridden. As I write this, it's June & I don't think I've ridden even 200 miles. 2020 was a rough year because of Covid but I had more time to ride. This year my mental health is so poor that I have the time but not the motivation/drive to get on my bike.