After starting cycling in January 2012 when I got my road bike, I finally managed to hit 10.000 km cycled this year. It took me pretty much 3 years in which I learned quite a bit. Let’s see how these 10.000 km changed me
Year 1
After everybody in Japan was cycling everywhere, I eventually decided to get a bike too. When spending money, I decided I can just as well get a decent road bike that is worth taking back home. So I got one. I had zero experience with bikes so I had not much of a clue on what to get, what to look for etc. I went to a small bike shop near university lead by an old guy speaking some english who offered discounts for students. Actually, that guy was kinda cool. Yet the bike was probably not the best fitting one, as I am a rather small person and I did a number of adjustments for better fit over the years.
By first rides with the bike were ridiculously short, but the posture on the bike is completely different and frankly, the hills around my house in Japan were quite steep so I got tired easily.
My equipment at that time consisted of the bike, platform pedals, normal shoes (used only for cycling and eventually worn down within the year), an air pump, a LED flashlight mounted as frontlight, a saddle bag and a back light mounted on it. I lost the latter pretty quickly, it just fell of somewhere. I ended up replacing it with my much beloved Fibre flare (I immediately fell in love when I saw someone with one, it is such a great idea).
Clothing wise I had some cycling-like shirts which were not real cycling shirts (lack of back pockets) and cheap cycling shorts bought from Amazon. Plus long gloves for winter and a collection of short gloves which had to be replaced often.
Year 2
I was back in Germany and while the roads were much better, the winter was much longer. January is a bad month for cycling in Germany. When the weather was finally more amenable for cycling, I managed to produce an accident and break my finger, so I was out for two more months. Bummer.
Equipment-wise I upgraded to first to platform/SPD hybrid cycling pedals then to double-sided SPD pedals. Together with the proper shoes, this has been a very welcome change. I also changed my tyres from the crappy stock ones to proper Continental GP 4000S which I’d recommend without hesitation.
This years km were mostly spent on day trips with a friend of mine to most nearby towns, roughly 100km each. So you start in the morning, arrive for lunch, eat and return. Pretty good, though I’ve been rather disappointed with the roads on the way. The remaining km were done mostly in two months where I tried the Strava 1000km challenges and succeeded. That felt like a tremendous achivement, but it also cost a lot of time and energy. The odds were in my favour that year, because it was warm and didn’t rain for about two months.
During this year, I also upgraded from the stock wheels to the Campagnolo Zonda wheelset which is probably 3 or 4 times more expensive than what came with the bike. The wheels are about 500g lighter and they look really, really pretty. After all, it was a compromise: I wanted wheels that are durable, light and as inexpensive as possible. The more expensive Campagnolo wheels are less durable due to aluminium spokes, so I shelled out the 300€ for the Zondas. Haven’t regretted it yet.
At the end of the year, I managed to outdo my previous distance record by a tiny amount. Considering I started 5 months late, that is a pretty decent result.
Year 3
This year I got a headstart, since winter was kinda short, so I could start cycling in earnest pretty early. Also, I got a home trainer, so I wasn’t as much out of the loop as the year before.
The longer trips were replaced by one long trip with a friend, from Munich to Vienna via Passau, Linz and Melk. We had bad luck because the first day, the longest was also incredibly rainy so when we arrived in Passau after some 10 hours in rain, we were really exhausted. The remaining days were better, but still had their share of rain. Though cycling along the Danube is quite nice (if somewhat boring) and definitely an achivement that we can remember for a long time.
I also moved to the south of Munich, which allowed me to explore the south more. Pretty nice places there, arguably better than the north. Actually, not really arguable, I can get to Lake Starnberg in about an hour.
Equipment-wise I hardly changed anything. Don’t fix what isn’t broken, right? I upgraded my rear derailleur from Tiagra to 105 hoping for some better shifting performance (and because I suspected the old one was bent) as well as replaced the cabling. The changes are minimal, but on the upside, it wasn’t expensive either.
It is this year that I managed to finish my first 10.000 km, so big hooray here. Actually, I’m at 10,500 now, but that looks like the end of the line for this year as it is too cold for me to enjoy it.
Conclusions
What did I learn? I learned that proper clothing makes quite some difference. I learned that once a bike is proper road bike (not the cheap road bike lookalikes that get sold for 300€ new), updating equipment is mostly cosmetic and improves the morale more than the performance. Another lesson is that cycling alone, while definitely a good thing, is not really enough, since my legs are trained pretty allright but my arms, well.
There is also a lesson that I need pure water when cycling, all these sweet isotonic drinks and whatnot do not work for me at all. To prevent muscle lock-up I sometimes bring a smaller bottle with water with dissolved magnesia with me.
The only thing that worries me is that it is slowly getting boring. Fortunately I have a winter to think about it and maybe find a way to make it more interesting, I believe I need some more challenge.