It’s time once again for my annual review of how I did in the biking and running endeavors that I do, and first up is a review of my year in biking.

After completing the Tuscobia 80 on foot last New Year’s Eve, I took a break from all workouts. It was nice to let the body recover and not be constantly in a training plan. However, that didn’t mean I wasn’t dreaming of getting out there. In particular I had visions of singletrack riding in the deserts of Arizona and Utah, as my wife and I had planned a big trip out to Moab and Sedona. The one complication? I didn’t own a true mountain bike.

Thus, my year began with lots of bike research and testing to figure out a full suspension mountain bike option to bring along for our trip. I checked out a bunch of the brands I knew of, such as Trek and Salsa, but as I wasn’t 100% sure what I wanted out of the bike I was reluctant to pull the trigger on something really expensive. Then enter Canyon Bikes. My wife shot me a link to one of their bikes that looks like a really great option and was reasonably priced. Canyon is a mostly direct-to-consumer brand and so their prices are a little less, but the components are pretty good overall. I snagged a Canyon Neuron 6 with an SLX drivetrain, and even managed to get it on sale for less than two thousand. It ended up serving me really well all year long, not just on our trip out west, but at multiple other singletrack adventures around the Twin Cities.

This past year was also the year that I decided to upgrade my main gravel/ATB/commuter ride. I had been using both a Salsa Vaya and a Surly Ghost Grappler as my daily drivers, and both were amazing bikes. But then I spotted the Otso Fenrir Ti and knew I had to check it out. I’m a big fan of bikes that can do a little bit of everything, and the Fenrir is billed as Otso’s ATB (All Terrain Bike). It combined the mountain bike style geometry of the Surly Ghost Grappler with the weight savings of titanium and a great component set to really win me over as the bike that I could take just about anywhere and do anything. It was however the most expensive bike I’ve ever purchased so it took quite a while before I was willing to pull the trigger on it.

However, now that I’ve had it for over half the year it’s become my go-to bike for just about every ride. Since we’ve had almost no snow around here yet this year I’ve even been using it a bit during the winter months when I normally am 100% fat bike. It can accommodate a range of tire sizes, both width and diameter, and is built around Otso’s tuning chip features so that you can alter the chainstay length to dial in your ride. Overall, really loving this bike, and I still owe the blog a full review.

With the new Otso I also took on a couple of gravel races this year. I headed back up to the Freedhem 46 got to spend a wonderful morning on the bike, despite a bit of a bonk towards the end. I then gave the bike a proper mud bath at the Heck of the North gravel race this fall, which was some of the most fun I’ve had on two wheels ever.

Apart from these couple races, much of my bike time was spent in basic commuting or nice long rides, alone or with the wife. I even logged my longest ride ever when we kept extending a 50 mile ride until we got to 70 miles out along the Dakota Trail. I had originally planned some other gravel races this year, but for various reasons they ended up not working out.

The year was also filled with lots of rides to breweries and restaurants to hang out with friends. Social biking because a big part of many of our weeknights, riding with Lisa’s biking friends or doing my usual Beer & Bike group rides. Or sometimes, just a casual ride to our favorite hang out spot at Forgotten Star Brewing to play a game or just chill.

All total, 2023 ended with 1507 miles on bike. Although nowhere near my 2300+ miles in 2020, I’ve happy to have cracked the 1500 marker. I’m hoping to inch just a bit closer back up to that 2k mark in 2024, but we’ll see how things go.

One thing that did become very apparent to me this past year is that I can’t just toss myself at long bike rides out of the blue without having done some riding to lead up to them. I need to be more intentional next year about incorporating biking into my overall training. I know Freedhem 46 would have gone a lot better if I had been doing some longer bike rides leading up to it in the weeks prior.

This means I need to get more creative about how I train and be more holistic in my training so that I’m ready for more variety instead of just big long running efforts. Granted, that has a lot to do with the events I sign up for, but I think there’s probably a better way to keep things more harmonized.

On the calendar for next year is some potential bikepacking, both on our own or as part of events, as well as potentially returning to at least one of the races we did this last year. We’re also heading out west again this Spring and I imagine the bikes will come along with us for that. Not sure what we’ll ride, buy it will be different than here and we’ll get some more natural trail experience in a cool place.

Riding around on human powered two wheels is still one of my favorite ways to experience the world, and I can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store!