The year (2015) in cycling (and other sports)

2015 was quite an amazing year on the bike. I have never ridden so much, so far, so long, and with so much elevation gain before. The main themes of the year were definitely epic (solo) rides and new roads. I have ridden also much more alone, because this year I did not join WTCOOL anymore. This is likely to change again next year as I have recently joined Squadra Tornado, a more racing oriented team. The past two months I have already ridden with them on Saturdays. Besides these trainings, I did most of my rides solo in this year’s interbellum, or with Willem, who joined me quite a few times.

Memorable events from 2015 (before we jump into the raw numbers and figures):

  1. I spent February working and cycling in Santa Barbara (Southern California, USA), and thanks to the warm and dry weather (similar to an average May/June in Belgium, but without the rain), in just 3 weeks I biked enough to make this month my 2nd best month ever on the bike (and my best month in sports if you add the three 10k runs I did before and after all the cycling).
  2. I bought a new road bike, a Canyon Ultimate CF SL 9.0 Di2. Since the beginning of March, I have ridden almost 9500 km with it, and I am extremely happy with the purchase. It’s a beautiful machine.
  3. I started to use a power meter on the bike, and although I would not go for the same Garmin Vector system again (because now there are better options in this fast evolving and still very young sector), I am happy to learn from all the data I record with it. (So now I know that I sprint quite good but my functional threshold power kinda sucks.)
  4. I did many epic rides, some alone, some with a few other guys, and one in a larger group to the coast and back just like last year. This Heverlee – Knokke – Heverlee ride was my longest ride ever with 333 km thanks to the small extra I did at the end (which made some people question my sanity). Other memorable epic days mostly on new roads include: a solo century around Santa Barbara with summer temperatures, an epic climb, and 5 bottles of water; a 223 km ride to Geraardsbergen in a company of six; 173 km of climbing through the Province of Namur with Willem over 2500 metres of elevation gain, a masterpiece of route-planning; Catching the Tour de France in Namur with Willem, not an extreme long ride, but very nice route, and just a day after coming home from observing on La Palma, so I totally died by the end; a 202 km solo over the Mur of Huy and the Citadel of Namur (a ride of total mental madness); and nicely fitting into the list of epic rides to epic climbs, a 210 km solo to Valkenburg (Cauberg) and back. In total I had 5 rides over 200 km, and 11 rides that qualify as at least a century (100+ miles).
  5. I have finished one very special challenge on Strava, the Rapha Festive 500, that challenges participants to ride 500 km on the eight days between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Normally we go to Hungary for Christmas, but this year we stayed in Belgium, so I thought I would give it a try. Although I got soaked twice, and almost blown off the road by the crazy wind a few times, I managed to complete the challenge with 6 rides in 7 days. The fact that the average temperature was more typical for April than December helped a lot of course ;) Thanks to the weather conditions and this challenge, I closed off December with 1095 km on the bike. That’s insane for a winter month (in Belgium, not in Southern California), and it is more than I biked in the previous 5 Decembers, combined.

And then the raw numbers for my cycling – without the daily commutes of course – in 2015:

Total distance: 11326 km
Total elevation gain: 70307 m
Total time: 400h 17m
Activity count: 140
Average speed: 28.3 km/h
Average heart rate: 152.6 bpm (max: 193 bpm)
Average cadence: 91 rpm

And here are the figures, coming up first the maps of cycling in Belgium, with a zoom in to the area around Leuven to show my most taken loops more clearly, and also a map of the biking I did around Santa Barbara.

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Then here are the charts of the yearly progress in terms of distance and elevation gain, followed by – in both cases – a calendar view of the same metrics. (Figures from VeloViewer.)

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Then here is a figure from Golden Cheetah showing my Performance Management Chart since I have a power meter.

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Then here I my statistics grouped by the 4 bikes I have ridden this year.

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Concerning the social aspects, as I have already mentioned, this year I did many more solo rides compared to 2014. Out of the 140 activities, only 29 were not solo rides, and out of these only 19 were rides where I was riding with more than one person. When I was not alone I rode most often with Willem, on a total of 24 rides (a sum of 79 hours).

I did not want to put it on the list of memorable events, but this year I started using Rapha products. They are on the more expensive side, but the quality and the service is so good, the bibs are so comfortable, and the design is so clean and stylish, that it is totally worth it. I even tested their free repair service and it has exceeded my expectations (big time). So, if anyone needs a present idea for me, Rapha vouchers are always highly appreciated ;)

I have also ran 401 km this year (with quite some trail running on La Palma), and did some hiking with Clio, so at the end I had a total activity time of 451 hours (up from 350 hours in 2014). I am fully satisfied with that, and I am happy with all the achievements (see list of Strava challenges completed below) along the way.

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I always wanted to have one year when I bike more than 10000 km, so now that I have achieved that, my goal for 2016 is more about quality, and not about quantity. I hope that in 2016 I will have even more self-supported epic rides, some good structured trainings, and maybe even a few races. The most important goal is to have fun on the bike :)

Holidays in Boston – Part 3

Thursday the 24th we first headed to the Harborwalk facing the Waterfront to take pictures of the Boston skyline in the morning sunlight. Then after a quick sandwich and salad lunch, we visited the New England Aquarium. This was the first time that I have been to a proper aquarium ever, and it was awesome. Clio loves fishes (and that is an understatement), so for her it was almost as good as going to Disneyland. We could even pet some animals in the ‘ray and shark touch tank’. We spent more than 3 hours here! Afterwards we still walked through Chinatown and spent some time in the Public Garden (surrounded by hundreds of squirrels) before taking the subway home in the sunset.

On the morning of the 25th we started with a visit to the Science Museum. It was all right, especially the more interesting interactive elements, although I was a tiny bit disappointed with their collection overall. It’s not like the science museum in London… I think this one might be more fun for smaller children. But then after a lunch break (BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich for the win!) and buying a few more GoPro accessories (that are so much cheaper in the USA), we went kayaking on the Charles River. There was quite some wind, but the water was not too rough, especially inside the Storrow Lagoon along the Esplanade. The view towards the city was really nice and we enjoyed our time in the sunshine a lot. I am sure if we lived somewhere in New England, I would have a sea kayak.

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Saturday was our last full day, and the first day when we were not exactly sure what to do. After quite some thinking we decided to go to South Boston. We walked along the Harborwalk from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum all the way up to Castle Island. The weather was still nice, although the wind got quite strong, so we were happy to warm up with a hamburger and a hot dog at the end :) Then we took a bus towards Downtown to find a place that had happy hour for oysters (for Clio).

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Then Sunday morning we still had a nice brunch (where I had a gigantic breakfast pizza) at the MIT before going to the airport. The flight was uneventful, especially since we were sitting on the left side of the plane and thus we did not get to see the total lunar eclipse happening on the other side… And unluckily there were no northern lights on our side either. We arrived home on the afternoon with some serious jet lag. Clio tried to fight it with some sleeping, while I tried to stay awake playing FIFA 16 on the PS4…

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To sum it up, we had a really nice time in Boston, it was really worth going. I spent quite some time making a selection of the hundreds of photos I had taken there, so if you are curious to see more than the very strict selection of this blog post, then head over to my Flick gallery. Thanks for reading!

Holidays in Boston – Part 2

On Tuesday – if I remember correctly – I was first properly beaten in the game of The Rivals for Catan (and this repeated itself at least one more time during our stay, and I kept loosing by only one point…), then we headed to Fenway Park. Now this might seem like an interesting choice, but I have a weird, slightly unexplainable attraction towards baseball. For some reason I like baseball movies, I even play baseball sometimes on the PS4 (MLB 15 The Show), but maybe the most important of all, I think baseball is an important part of the American culture and heritage. So it is only logical to visit the oldest and most famous ballpark in the MLB. (Clio was nice enough to come along although I know it was totally boring for her.) We had a 1 hour guided tour with quite some interesting info, and plenty of photo opportunities of the field, the stands, and the Boston skyline. Afterwards we walked to the Public Library and the Trinity Church, followed by some window shopping on Newbury Street.

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The next day we took the commuter train (luckily into the opposite direction of all the actual commuters) to Rockport, a very cute, tiny fishing village one hour North of Boston. Here we had lobster for lunch (my first whole lobster ever), Salt Water Taffy for dessert, and Clio could finally go and find all the crabs hiding on the beach :) The sun was so strong and the air so clean (turning the sky extremely blue), that although the temperature was only around 20 degrees Celsius, we had to put plenty of sunscreen on. It was a great day, and a nice change after spending so much time in the city. Also the train ride itself was quite scenic, with nice views of the villages, small bays, and forests around. When I have my driving licence, I am happy to come back for a roadtrip of New England.

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To be continued!

Holidays in Boston – Part 1

Since I have nothing to do right now as I am sitting in the middle of the worst weather I have ever seen on La Palma, I have some time to write about our trip to Massachusetts. (By the way, this is my 200th night ‘working’ at a professional observatory!)

We spent 7 full days (20-26 September) in and around Boston, enjoying a really nice Indian summer. As the hotel prices in the area are totally insane, we stayed in an Airbnb apartment in Cambridge just 5 minutes from the Central station of the subway. This was quite convenient, not only because we could reach downtown Boston in no time, but also because there was a very nice sushi place (and other restaurants and shops) just a few minutes from our door.

We arrived with an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin on the evening of the 19th, and thanks to the very smooth US Preclearance back in the Irish capital, we could immediately just pick up our bags and take the shuttle bus/subway to our apartment. The 20th was a Sunday, and we spent the full day in Cambridge, mostly in and around Harvard University. We went on a very nice and unexpectedly informative guided tour of the campus, then after lunch from the Au Bon Pain (hmmm, really nice BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich), we visited the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Thanks to Clio’s amazing organisation skills we had pre-purchased (low price) tickets for everywhere with a custom Go Boston card, so we did not have to pay entrance fee (or wait in line) on the spot anywhere that week. The museum was interesting, especially the Glass Flower collection of “over 4000 models – some 3000 on display – that was created by the glass artisans, Leopold Blaschka and his son, Rudolf. The commission began in 1886, continued for five decades, and represents more than 830 plant species.” At the end of the day I bought a pair of trail running shoes (which are since then very much approved), then we walked back home following the Charles River.

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On Monday the 21st we got to taste how crowded the morning commute can be on the subway, so we tried to avoid the peak hours afterwards (with quite some success). We spent the day walking along The Freedom Trail, passing by most of the historical spots of Boston. Although non of us is really interested in this part of the US history, the architectural beauty of some buildings and the atmosphere of old Boston is well worth the visit. Boston is luckily much more compact than New York for example, so we did not feel completely dead at the end of the trail. On the contrary, we kept walking further across the green streets of Bacon Hill, then along the green riverside of the Esplanade before heading home.

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To be continued!

Four planets and the Moon over the Mercator telescope

I am back on La Palma (again), supervising our Master students at the telescope (again). Although I did not bring the ‘big guns’ from my photo gear this time, I still have my small camera with me. The first night of this observing run was my 100th night at the Mercator telescope :) To celebrate this, here is a picture I took of the beautiful planetary conjunction before Sunrise on the morning of the 11th with my FUJIFILM X100S camera (with an equivalent focal length of 35 mm) set at f/2.8, at ISO 800, and using an exposure time of 10 seconds.

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Although the Moon looks full, it is just a thin crescent (which is better visible after clicking on the image), but the dark side is quite strongly lit by light reflected back from the Earth. This is called earthshine. (At the same moment, Earth looks almost full from the surface of the Moon, so there is a lot of Earthlight even on the dark parts.)