Saturday, December 26, 2020

Rear View 2020; Looking Ahead

 

As the retrospective series has now ended, I will take a moment or two to try to envision my plans for the blog and for cycling into 2021. Realizing that nothing is guaranteed, (see pre-March plans vs post-March plans for....well, anyone!), I will lay out what I am thinking now for the coming months. 

Now, as I have closed up the book on "The Quest" and have that goal accomplished, I can now focus on some other goals. But first, a word or three about the blog and my plans here. .........

First of all, I don't plan on posting any less or with much different material than in 2020, but there are a couple of things I need to let you know that might shift the direction of things a bit here in the coming months. First off, I am no longer doing any event directing at all. None. Nada. I've retired from that. So that means you won't be getting recon posts or post-event posts as I would have done in years prior to this. This extends to Geezer Rides and Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitationals which I will no longer be organizing. But there will be some ride reports. More on that in a bit here. 

I also will be cutting way back on events I attend. Well, at least that I plan on riding in. There are two I would entertain coming to now and those would be the Gent's Race, (if it happens) and Gravel Worlds. But other than those two events, I don't see myself riding where I have to pin a number on. I may be talked into a volunteering position for someone else's event, but beyond that, I am going to move my efforts heavily toward solo riding, or maybe with one or two other folks. 

Which brings me to my previous hint about ride reports. (Some of this was written about in this post) There will be, (hopefully) plenty of those. Looking at what I'd like to do I think I need to get that long-put off fat bike century done. I also would like to accomplish finishing a couple of routes I drew up over the past couple of years that I wasn't able to complete for one reason or another. Two of those being old Guitar Ted Death Ride routes. Speaking of which, that 'event' will go back to its roots as a solo adventure I do. I'm not going to paint this as anything other then a ride I'm going out on and there will be no 'big deal' made about it until I post the ride report afterward. Kind of like my "Ride To Indy" post, if you must know. 

Then I hope to be doing new routes. I have one that I've threatened to do for the past two years now that just has to get done. A "Tour of Tama County" is another one I'd like to make up and do. There are a couple places I want to revisit and make a part of a route that I did during "The Quest" as well. Speaking of that....

I don't want to commit to riding every gravel road in another county for 2021 because it would require tons of travel. Black Hawk County is one thing when I can ride right from my front door and get to most of it. Another county? Yeah.......lots of windshield time and that's a big commitment I'm not willing to make just yet. 2021 is going to (hopefully) be the year we come back out of this pandemic, and if we do, then maybe I can think more of doing something like riding every gravel road in another county. 

But doing that, riding every gravel and dirt road in any county, pretty much has to be done at the exclusion of everything else concerning riding. Really? That's not a very fun or realistic plan. I know from having done the Black Hawk County quest that it can kind of take over your life and that's not a good thing. I'd rather do quality routes in different counties myself, and that's my current plan.

So, as you can see, I should have plenty of riding reports here, which seem to be pretty popular judging from the numbers I get. I also will continue doing newsy posts when applicable, the usual "Friday News and Views", the Sunday series detailing the untold stories of Trans Iowa, and answering questions when they pop up, as usual here. The Trans Iowa stuff should end at some point later into 2021 and then I will entertain the thought of doing that series on the Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational which I mentioned earlier in the month here. 

But, you just never know where Life will take you, so while I do plan on these things, if any lessons from 2020 stick, it should be that if our plans come to fruition, we should be thankful for that because they very well may take a sudden turn. 

Next: Coming up, I list the Top Ten Posts of 2020, and on December 31st I have a special post planned which sums up 2020 for me.

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