Mountain Loop 60th Anniversary

 

Mountain Loop 1966. Paul, referred to below, is on the left.

In my last post, way back in December of 2025, I promised "I will not post again until there is something I really am inspired to write about that has something to do with bicycles." What caused me to say that was that my cycling had gone into a slump and no bicycling means no reason for a blog post. Unfortunately, that slump has not gotten any better. So why this post?

Here's why: this the not longest slump in my cycling career, not by a long shot! During the summer of 1979, my wife and I enjoyed a week long bicycling vacation. The end of that vacation was the beginning of a slump that lasted 28 years. What ended that slump? In early 2008, my phone rang. A voice I hadn't heard in over 40 years shouted "MOUNTAIN LOOOOOP!" It was my high school bicycling buddy, Paul, who had decided to look me up. The shout referred to one of our favorite rides, a 5 day bike ride through the Sierra Nevada mountains. The shout was something that we spontaneously started doing over the course of the ride. Paul's phone call inspired both of us to restart bicycling, thus ending my 28 year slump. Sadly, Paul stopped riding ten years later after a serious crash, but we have stayed in touch. He called me a few days ago to remind me that this year is the 60th anniversary of The Mountain Loop.

So how is that worthy of a post? After all, I have already posted about The Mountain Loop. Here's how it is worthy:

1. It raises the question of what I could do to commemorate that anniversary and, more generally, commemorate various bicycling-related birthdays and anniversaries as they arise.
2. Those commemorations might help me get over my slump.
3. It gives me an excuse to evaluate the slump I am in, and that is what I will do first.

Part 1: How Bad Is It?

My current slump began the week of October 13, 2025. This post will cover that slump through the week of June 29, 2026, a total of 38 weeks. I will compare those 38 weeks to the equivalent 38 weeks from the previous year, October 14, 2024 through June 30, 2025 and to the first 38 weeks of my "Big Slump" of 2009. The lens through which I will look at this comparison is my Cycling for Health training program which uses cycling to follow the aerobic exercise recommendations of the medical community. Those recommendations are to undertake at least 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity aerobic activity (Adequate) and ideally 300 minutes a week (Optimal). Those recommendations makes a distinction between light, moderate, and vigorous intensity but it turns out I can ignore those distinctions and classify any cycling that I do as moderate intensity so long as that I am careful not to have too many of my rides be easy rides on my trainer. 

The picture below is meant to give a quick visual comparison of those three 38 week periods. Weeks in which I met the optimal goal for minutes per week are highlighted in yellow, those in which I met the basic goal are highlighted in green, and those weeks during which I failed to meet either are in white For each week, the numbers are the total minutes of cycling for that week.

My reaction upon seeing this comparison was one of encouragement. Sure, I am definitely in a slump, but compared to the Great Slump of 2009, it is nothing. During those 38 weeks in 2009, I managed a total of only two bike rides. During my current slump, I have been averaging 3 rides a week. Sure, I have gone as long as three weeks with no ride at all, but then will try yet again to break out of this slump and manage a week where I ride every day. The amount I am riding is not nearly enough but I am pretty sure it is way better than nothing. I am still in a slump, I still need to keep trying to break out of that slump, but all is not lost, there is still hope.

Part II: Commemoration

In 2024, I commemorated my 75th birthday with a 75 mile birthday ride. I had a complex set of feelings about that ride. First, it followed on the heels of a metric century ride where my performance was so bad it convinced me to abandon metric centuries altogether. Second, up until the last minute, I was convinced I would not be able to complete the ride. Third, unlike my metric centuries, which provided a continuing motivation to stay in shape, this was a "one-off" ride, one that offered no motivation for the future. Or did it? I have already come up with another commemoration ride, a 60 mile (60 kilometer?) ride on July 1 of 2027 to commemorate the 60th birthday of the Hetchins Mountain King I rode around Europe during the summer of 1967. But why stop at the Hetchins? I own five other bikes that I could commemorate as well. This led to a long (and continuing) consideration of what the rules for a commemorative ride should be, a consideration much too tedious to post here. Anyway, I think a more intuitive approach might be better. 

• Does this commemoration feel justified? I love my Orbea Gain, but does its fifth birthday justify a commemoration? 
• Does it feel special? Simply repeating a ride I have done many times before on the correct date does not feel special. 

Returning to what inspired this post, what would a commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Mountain Loop look like? This is complicated by the fact that on the date of that anniversary I will be visiting my son's family in Seattle, away from all my bikes. In this case, justification is easy, it was 60 years ago that we did that ride, and it was a big event in our lives, but what could I do that was special? Given the hurdle of doing any kind of ride at all so far from home and away from all of my bikes, any ride at all might be special. With that in mind, I am going to try to accomplish a 60 minute ride on any day between July 27 and August 1 2026, and if I can manage that, I will consider the Mountain Loop commemorated. How would I do that? Well, when I realized I was not going to be able to bring a bike to Seattle, I decided I would buy one there. My son's family graciously agreed to store it for me so it would be there when I visit them. But buying and riding that bike is not going to be easy, I can think of many reasons why I might decide it is too hard, why it doesn't make sense, so the challenge of this particular commemoration will be to actually purchase a bike and to actually get comfortable enough riding it so I can do more than ride around the block, to manage that hour long bike ride. Can I really do this? Stay tuned and find out.