Photo: An early start for what might have been the last ride of the year.

Gutted. The only way to describe my feelings on Tuesday evening. This story started a year ago. I set myself a target of 15,000km for 2018. That’s 288.5 km a week for every week of the year. The cut off is midnight on the 31st December.

After the 200k audax on Saturday I checked my year to date on Strava. 14,842km. If I could do another 158km then I would achieve my objective well within the year and before a different kind of cut off.

The cut in question was facial surgery, on Wednesday, to improve the look of my scar. Last year, before I started this blog, I climbed the Stelvio and the Mortirolo passes. Only one slight problem.

Whilst descending the Mortirolo I hit this

Did this

Spent some time looking like this

… and ended up looking like this

The surgery, under local anaesthetic, was to correct the small indent and investigate the cause of the inflammation I get from time to time. No big deal but I’d be off the bike for a week or so. With the uncertainties of the British weather and going away for New Year without the bike I wasn’t going to risk falling short of the distance challenge.

I created a ride to the Bicicletta cafe in Saffron Walden and back. A 161km round trip just to make sure. I managed to complete it, solo, within daylight hours. It was cold at 0° from time to time but remainded dry all day.

After my usual recovery drink I loaded my ride from Wahoo to Strava in the expectation of seeing the 15,000km mark achieved. I did. But there was a problem.

Something was not quite right. 14,842 + 161 = 15,003. Where did 15,101 come from? I could have left it at that but I would never overclaim an achievement. I hesistated for a while before pressing the ‘Refresh Stats’ button. WTF? It changed to:

I was now 60km short. Gutted. Post op I spent last night completing a spreadsheet of every ride in 2018. It came to 14,939.78 km. The ‘Refresh Stats’ had correctly reset my numbers but I’d been misled somewhere along the line. Lies, damn lies and Strava statistics.

I now have to complete 60km after my face is ok and before the 28th. No big deal.

The op went very well. It will take a while to see what it looks like, but New Year, new face.

Hopefully I will report achieving my goal before the year is out.

 

Year to date

14,940 km / 131* rides / 114 km average per ride

146,401m elevation gain (16.5 Everests)

*The ride figure is lower than Strava as I have allowed for when my Garmin/Wahoo recorded them in two or more parts etc.