Past & Future Joys: My 2025 Ride Goals
Setting a few goals last year gave my riding purpose. Even though I didn't meet them all, 2025 was one of my best years on bike and set the stage for more to come.
I'm pretty OK at riding bikes, but I've never been great at setting goals. My 'bike goals' in years past have been pretty one-dimensional. Analyzing Strava data and quantifying year-to-date metrics feels about as charming as a stockbroker monitoring the markets to hoard capital.
Last year, I was inspired by Stefan Zajic to set and share my 2025 Bike Goals. Stefan shared his goals for 2024 on social media and chronicled his experience on The Trellis in Ride All the Rides: Six Social Cycles. I didn't end up completing all my goals. But they did keep me focused and any of my shortfalls were balanced by new dreams for future joy.
Jersey Devil Hunt Bikepacking + Kensington Derby
Like any world record, New Years Resolutions are made to be broken. I could point out that the grand depart for Jersey Devil Hunt was cancelled due to a prohibitive permitting process and that the Kensington Derby moved from it's typical spring date to the fall, but I had plenty of time to get my shit together and follow through. On the other hand, I've learned that life provides boundless joys beyond bikes. It's important to make time for other pastimes and give myself grace when bike goals fall through.
For the Derby, Steve and I planned early to score a tandem bike and fabricate a Bitchin' Camaro. After the date changed, I simply balked like an anxious pony. Julian, Jersey Devil Hunt's organizer, stayed in touch throughout the year and we're planning to bring some coverage of the route to The Trellis soon. To atone, I immersed myself in John McPhee's seminal The Pine Barrens, pounded at least a half-dozen wieners at Hot-Diggity Dog on shore rides, and got dropped in Wharton State Forest on an out-of-my-league road ride. Shout out Eric Hinkley for the epic illustrations.
Lead a Wednesday Night Rides
Wednesday Night Rides has become a year-round ritual as essential as summer water ice. WNR is managed extremely professionally. Every other week, it starts in a different location, traverses town on a new route, and ends somewhere fun where folks continue to hang. There are always new people to meet and new ideas to exchange.
I brainstormed hard about the ride I'd lead and came up with some pretty terrible ideas. Trace the former creeks (circuitous and unpleasant). Visit Phillies landmarks (taken; go Michael!). A tour of dead ends (seriously?!).
But after stumbling on a curious collection of mosaic sculptures in North Philly, I knew I had a destination. On what may have been WNR's 100th ride, we departed the Rail Park for The Village of the Arts and Humanities. That's where an art-based neighborhood revitalization effort began 40 years ago and has since transformed vacant land into parks, gardens, and space to build community. We passed out spoke cards, a City Councilmember and rolling DJ booth joined the ride, and we wrapped up at Love City Brewing. It was the type of day you wish would never end.
Checkpoint at three alleycats
Alleycats are the ultimate expression of urban cycling culture. They're DIY, challenging, inclusive, and fun, like racing your friends through an obstacle course when you were 10. They're always different. Not only to race - but to checkpoint. Fun checkpoints are part of what makes an alleycat memorable, and I really wanted to do my part to support the people who organize these events.
- Bicycle Day Alleycat. Bicycle Day celebrates the discovery of the psychoactive effects of LSD, which snuck up on Albert Hoffman like a rat in a subway station during a bike ride home from his lab on April 19, 1943. The race had psychedelic themed checkpoints, and one of my checkpoints was at the Pavilion in the Trees. There were a lot of balloons there. Let your imagination run wild.
- Friday the 13th Alleycat. Steph and I checkpointed at the Willow Street Steam Generation Plant during a spooky themed fundraiser for Citywide refreshments. Racers had to blow a bubble of Big League Chew, which turned out to be harder than we anticipated. There was a lot of cursing, but we unwound with some head banging at the Doom Bar afterparty.
- Citywide Alleycat V. As quintessential as Amoroso's. Over 150 riders turned out and posed for a portrait at Passyunk Gateway. An archive of Philly summer 2025 patois is preserved in galleries Part One and Part Two on The Trellis.
Ride a 200k brevet in another region
Contrasting with the intense, competitive, and urbane form of an alleycat is a 200k brevet in southeastern Pennsylvania with PA Randonneurs. Riding 124+ miles is surely still a challenge. But spending all day pedaling through small towns over rolling hills on idyllic country roads is truly transcendent, like climbing a mountain peak to witness a solar eclipse.
I crossed this goal off my list in early June by embarking from Westchester County, New York on the Ardsley Acres 200k. The route skirted countless lakes and reservoirs through the lower Hudson Valley while weaving back and forth across the New York-Connecticut border. I felt so fresh at the ride's conclusion that I decided to bail on my resys at the motel, slam a carton of raspberries, and ride the extra 24 miles back to Manhattan to catch a train home.
Riding 150 miles at once empowered me to take on an even longer brevet. In September I took on the Jersey Shore 300k, basically drawing a giant circle on the map around Central Jersey like a toddler with a box of crayons. Despite a relatively flat route, the day was plagued by ferocious headwinds and relentless thunderstorms. The conciliation was the view of New York City from 20 miles across the bay in Atlantic Highlands and the confidence to pedal even further into 2026.
Ride a multi-day bike tour
Nothing beats travelling by bike and the best weekends this summer were spent riding hundred-or-so mile overnighters with Steph. We spent our fifth anniversary warming our toes by a fire under the stars and wading in Skippack Creek during the Swift Campout, organized by Keystone Bicycle Co and RAR. After pedaling up with friends on Saturday, we charted our own course home by detouring onto unpaved trails through Valley Forge.
A couple weekends later we crafted the perfect weekend by stitching together rails and trails along the Delaware and Lehigh Rivers. Despite the snow coating the ground out my window today, I can still fell the sun on my skin when I think back on this ride. Read more about that trip and find the route here. I may have planned for a longer tour, say four or five hundred miles across a week, but I'm counting this goal as complete!
Dreams of future joy
After Simona insinuated that I'd ride Paris-Brest-Paris in 2027, reading Noah and Greg's accounts of Crush the Commonwealth, copping a Philly-bred rando rig, and wrapping up my first two 300ks in 2025, I'm hooked.
Aside from commutes and group rides, no two rides looked the same in 2025 when I used Wandrer. Wandrer compiles your ride data and rewards you for riding new road segments. I filled in the map by designing new routes across town and racking up base miles exploring parts of Philadelphia I'd otherwise never venture. As someone who finds a way to do everything to excess, I landed at the top of Philadelphia's leaderboard for the year with 461 new miles.
My bike goals for 2026 are simple:
- Ride the PA Randonneurs SR-series to qualify for PBP-2027.
- Keep on Wandrer-ing. Share the journey on The Trellis.
- Keep having fun on bikes.
Be sure to let me know in the comments what your 2026 bike goals are. I'm excited to find out and even more excited to see you outside on bikes 🧡
