Quest for 5,000mi. & the improbable likelihood of being close

So 5,000 miles is a long ways.
When I Googled how far it was West to East across the U.S. I realized that it is practically across the country twice.
Some people set goals for the year. I'm not a great long range planner. Usually something happens 2 weeks in that kills my plan.

I've had a good year on the bike.
Probably the best year to be totally transparent.
I am fortunate enough to work for a company that has great bike facilities, a locker room, and supports a flexible work schedule if needed. I have been able to bike to work most days I wanted to.

I also, as the widget to the right suggests, track most all of my rides using Strava. So when I opened the app and clicked my profile mid-October to my surprise I had exceeded 4,000mi. this year.
I thought, 'wow, that's a lot and I could achieve 5,000 miles by January if I try hard'.

So, you may be reading this saying wow that's a crazy lot of miles and I could never do that.
You may be right, but keep reading. I have great circumstances. My commute to work is around 17 miles one way or 34-35miles a day.
If you cannot commute to work, it would be super hard to achieve 5,000 miles in a year.
If your commute is 4 miles one way, it too would be hard.

What looking at my Strava results did was prompt me to set another short term goal that was realistic and achievable given the right circumstances.
Some people may scoff at using Strava to track every little mile, but for me, it has paid off because it provides me with a good goal and a way to look back on my year.
*Strava Rant* I am not a KOM hunter. Tried it once, didn't pay off. If it happens it happens. I am only interested in KOMs that may be on my route and am certainly not naïve enough to think I can out sprint a youngster with a tailwind and strong leadout man or three with a 54 tooth TT bike. I once held a KOM in my neighborhood for about 1 hour until someone came up from behind and eeked me out by a few seconds thanks to the strong tailwind. Took the joy right out of my day when I had to tell my wife and kids 'hey, that KOM I just won, I just lost.'

Back to my stats. When I realized how close I was to 5,000 miles for the year. I did what I find natural. I'm a project manager and a data guy, so I created a tracking sheet in Excel and figured I could achieve my goal if I rode 102mi. a week from mid-October to the week before Christmas. 102 miles is my work commute both ways x3. So if I am feeling ambitious and the weather is good and I bike 4 days, I can bank some miles. I even added in a formula to auto calculate the balance of miles I will need to ride in the final week. It's my kind of geekery - simple but motivating.

The big what if has everything to do with the weather.
What if it snows. What if it gets really really cold. What if it rains like cats and dogs and then freezes like 6 inches deep and sticks like glue to the road?
Well that did happen this past week. On Monday it was 50 degrees on my ride home at 5pm and it turned to rain and snow overnight and in the morning it made for the worst commute yet this winter. I didn't ride in because I had a church meeting after work and it was horrible out. It took me 1:11hr. to drive what normally takes 30 minutes. I didn't see but maybe one or two bikers out in it and it didn't look like they had any other form of transportation.

November was a great month weather wise. A bit on the cold side which had me guessing at the best combo of socks and shoe covers and shoes and foil. I never quite figured it out. Then December warmed us up to shock us with the blast of freezing rain and now cold temps in the teens and twenties. So my total miles in November was pretty consistent. I averaged 109 miles per week because it was dry out. I also was able to ride my Felt road bike with slick tires.

So now we are into December and the snow and ice have come to stick around. I switched to my new to me Bianchi too-nice-to-be-winter-beater flat handled road bike and put my studded tires on. After the first couple rides, adjusted the psi, and feel comfortable once again and plan on crushing my goal the last week before Christmas.

So hopefully, this inspires you to take a look at what you can do to finish the year strong. The roads will clear off with the sunlight and salt. Get your mountain bike out with knobby tires and take a few laps. The clear crisp air is good for you and the biking will keep your core temperature up more than you think. Let me know what your goals are in the comments below.
Happy riding!