It was almost a year ago now that I had that beer. Okay, beers.

After my annual giant solo ride in Telluride on my then-fairly-new Yeti MTe, some of the sweetest high country singletrack in the world, I was exhausted. I made my way back down to the mountain village and grabbed a beer at the Telluride brewpub. The Tempter IPA, specifically.

On the first beer I was thinking I need a change. More riding. More days like this. How do I get my family to live here? By beer three I’d realized it was more subtle than that. I didn’t need to leave Austin. I just needed to get on my fucking bike more. For all the obvious reasons. Physical health, mental health, all of it. By beer four, slurring through my sentences, a question bubbled up: what if I just rode my bike, like every day or two? what would happen to my life?

Well. I’ve been doing exactly that for a year. By the time you read this, it’ll be a full fucking year of riding bikes more.

Me first, bike first, everyone and everything else second. It sounds selfish. It’s not. If you believe the benefits, the order of operations is clear. You get your body and your head straight, then you go into battle. Your strength comes from that place first. It lifts everything around you. It makes you better able to serve your spouse, your kids, your job, and all the shit that flies at you every day. It helps you weather the cadence of shit, the hard times, the big decisions. And it helps you actually understand the grand moments too. The ones where you need to sit back, take it in, and feel grateful and blessed.

So what did it look like? Let’s get into the change. The numbers, where I was, where I am now, and lastly, where do we go from here?

where I was

If you’ve been reading along all year, you know some of this already. Both of you. For everyone else, a quick recap.

I’ve been riding since I was about 18. I’m 55 now. So, uh, that’s almost 40 years on mountain bikes, folks. I had to check my math twice. Even writing this I can’t believe the number, but here we are.

In my 20s I was avid. Racing, riding every day, a Colorado Front Range ripper. Equal parts lactic acid and beer, held together with duct tape. And I mean that literally. I had near zero cash, so I duct-taped my SPD shoes skater-style and kept rolling.

But there’s been a giant lull in my riding arc since the 2000s, as life took over. Sure, I rode. But not like that. I’d head out to clear my head a couple times a month, maybe once a week. Casual. The muscle memory and the skills from my 20s were locked in, so it was easy. But it wasn’t this.

Fast forward to the 2010s and I taught my kids to ride. We’d hit Colorado every year and I’d ride behind them, shepherding them like little ducks, teaching them the way of the MTB. I’d ride behind them at Crested Butte, Snowmass, Telluride, Angelfire, Purgatory and more. Both my daughter and son are rippers at heart now. My son crushes me now, so, there’s that.

And there I was. Telluride, on the mountain, my favorite place on earth, heaven, drinking this beer. 54 years old, bike sitting right there. Fundamentals done. Parenting, bike-wise, done. It was my time. I’d gained weight, gotten lazy, fitness in the toilet. Skills locked in, but aging.

I was reminded of the dude at Purgatory. Yeti Gathering, 2018. We saw him out on the mountain, 65 years old, ripping. We stopped and chatted, then he took off, absolutely hair on fire off the drop, over the double, a whoop out of his mouth, then gone. I’d have thought it was god talking to me, except the kids saw him too.

If not now, when?

ridetool fitness trajectory: a flat decade of fitness, then a sharp climb to a peak of 74 in the journey year, an injury crash to 15, and a rebuild. created using RideTool MCP and Claude Code · tap to enlarge

the year

The year started out with a bang. No more beer, strict diet, and riding. A lot. Mostly on the MTe, so, ebike.

mountain biker in a plaid shirt riding a teal yeti through golden-hour texas hill country, other riders behind the rattler, 2025. hill country golden hour. most of the year looked something like this.

I could write a book at this point on what eMTB means to me, and I might. For now I’ll sum it up this way: without eMTB technology, this year would have been near impossible. So, hat tip to the eMTB gods. If you’re over 40 and you need to ride more and you’re not going to enter races, then, uh, dude, get an eMTB. You can always lower the power as you gain fitness. I’ll write a whole piece on this later so the haters can hate over there.

Over the fall I bought the Santa Cruz Stigmata and entered Dos Gravel. Got it done. Then I built up the SB150 into a Breakfast Ride so I’d have an analog bike that was XC-ish, and raced it at Rattler and Fat Chuck’s Revenge. My fitness peaked around December, right when the holidays hit after Fat Chuck’s. I’d built up a new SB140 and she was sweet. I had the fitness, the bike, the trails, the crew. All was well.

Then disaster struck.

My MCL decided it needed a break. I was pushing hard after the holiday layoff. Fitness down a notch, but my head still all the way in the game. I literally pulled my MCL apart just pushing pedals. Then, to add insult to injury, the stress of it set off a giant gout attack. Knee, ankle, toes. I was fucking cooked. Lucky it was a tear and no surgery required, but it meant time off the bike. 45 days, to be precise. Almost exactly what it takes to lose six months of progress. Ironic, eh? I gained 10 pounds back and watched my fitness slide right off the chart.

ridetool

Well, I’d done it once. Might as well do it again. I wasn’t going to give up that easy. I was driven by finishing the year. This moment. Holding myself to it. Never ever fucking give up.

But I had some time to kill, and my brain wasn’t broken, no more than normal, and you can only watch so many episodes of Impossible Routes on YouTube while you sit on the couch icing your knee. So I picked up my laptop and started to code.

The entire fall season I’d been running a Wahoo computer, an HR strap, and Strava plus Intervals.icu as my data stack. I’ve recorded every ride since 2012, so this was no different. I went into this journey fully data-engaged. But through the fall I’d started to want more. Strava is a social network with some fitness stuff bolted on. Intervals.icu takes a PhD in data analysis to actually use. And I build data systems for a living, so if I couldn’t read Intervals, then, duuuude. And here’s the thing neither one got: this was never me versus the leaderboard. It was me versus me. Was I stronger than last week? Was I ready to push, or about to dig a hole? No tool I could find was built to answer that. I needed something more. And I wanted to use this new breed of Claude tooling to full effect.

So I built ridetool. It’s the thing I wanted and needed for this journey. An AI-enabled, common-sense fitness software system that would help me repeat my fall fitness arc.

As I came out of the injury, I used ridetool to keep my fitness load under a certain value each week. A slow ramp, on my doctor’s advice. I also used it to gauge where to set the power on the eMTB, and when I was good to ride and then push on analog. It was like a superpower. I knew what I had under me. I kept wishing I’d had this capability all through the fall. It would have been so helpful.

So, recovery complete, fitness restored, head in the game through March, April, May, June. Riding two or three times a week, having so much fun with the pressure off. I knew I could do it and I knew what it would take. I didn’t schedule any races. I didn’t need to. I know where my fitness is. I didn’t need to race to prove I wasn’t fat. Just ripping on the bike, enjoying every second of it, pushing myself to get better. There were margarita night rides with the crew and a road trip to Bentonville that turned into mud, tacos, and a hospital visit. And now with a bunch more bikes.

And none of it happened solo. This was the year the crew got tight. Mark, JB, DC, Brett, Vbergh, Z, Parker, Boot, DG. We all rode a ton this year, and we got better doing it together. Dawn patrols, dragging each other up the climbs, waiting at the top, wrenching in the parking lot, talking shit and meaning none of it. You get faster riding with people who are faster than you. You get tighter riding with people, period. We didn’t just put in miles this year. We got closer. That’s the part beyond the stats, beyond the data. Mountain biking builds relationships, the durable, lifelong kind.

first-person view dropping into a rocky green trail in bentonville bentonville, friday morning, dropping into the rock. the crew trip that turned into mud, tacos, and a hospital visit.

where I am now

Looking back, I didn’t just get back into riding. I didn’t just self-identify as a mountain biker again. I fucking fixed my life.

I have a new life now. A new cadence. A healthier, stronger person. A calmer, happier person. I proved not only that I could lose the weight, gain the fitness, and do it while having a blast. I proved I could do it twice. Muscle memory, literally. I have a new data company built out of this experience. Five bikes sitting here. And I know I’m doing everything I can to make sure I’m not dead if and when grandkids arrive.

And the riding spilled into everything else. Somewhere in the middle of it I started writing this journal. I’m still not sure exactly why. I just felt the need, it felt good, so I kept going. I started making parts too. Stem risers, tool bag holders, little garage experiments, with more on the bench. Turns out when you get the engine running, it doesn’t only move the bike.

night peloton of riders rolling down a road under oak trees, red tail lights glowing rolling out into the dark with the crew. this is the rhythm now.

I’m teeing up that 65-year-old moment. The one where I rip a double, yell out a whoop, and disappear, leaving the bystanders to say damn, that dude is rad.

one year by the numbers: 129 rides, 1,448 miles, 125,367 feet climbed, 175 hours in the saddle, 101,629 calories, 26 pounds lost, peak fitness 74, 45 days off the bike, plus deltas versus the previous 12 years of data. created using RideTool MCP and Claude Code · tap to enlarge

where from here

So, where from here? Keep riding, that’s for damn sure. Another year LDTS.

With ridetool in hand, I can start to ramp my training over the summer and fall. I’m entered for the 2026 Rattler, so that’s on the schedule. I’ve got Yeti Gathering this year and a week in Vail with the kids, where my son will predictably roost me, and I want to get some gravel events under my belt. There’s a new SB150 build coming for that trip, and I’ll document the build.

But beyond the schedule and the goals, I’m at peace. At peace with my pace, my tires, my tired legs after a push. At peace with using data to make myself better. At peace with my loved ones and friends.

So, what would happen if I took the entire year and focused on riding?

Holy shit. Great things.

Editor’s note: a shout out to my wife Eowyn. She’s been encouraging and supportive beyond what is humanly possible. Her love and guidance through this process, our discussions over an athletic brew, her pushing me, her never giving me shit when I wake up and make noise pulling on riding shorts before dawn, her at the finish line at Chuck’s, her sitting with me in Telluride. This is her victory too. We rode together through this. I love you, honey.