New Year Resolutions 2011

Happy New Year everyone. It's a time of new beginnings. No more resting on our past laurels or lamenting our shortcomings. The slate is clean. We start anew. When you have as many shortcomings as I do, well, the New Year is a welcomed thing.

This year my bike specific resolutions are as follows:

1. Increase my practical bike use - This is becoming an ongoing resolution of mine. I already ride my bike to work regularly. I occasionally use it for other errands, but not near as much as I could. I want to change that.

2. Lose weight - this resolution as well appears to becoming an annual one, a fact that I am none too pleased with. Hopefully this year will be the final time this one appears on my list.

3. Ride more centuries - last year I may have ridden one century (not even sure about that). This year, I want to change that. I like long distance cycling and I want to make that a staple of my riding once again.

4. Start riding across the country - I've been wanting to ride across the country for some time now. Due to work responsibilities and financial constraints, I've come to the unfortunate conclusion that taking two months off to ride across the country simply isn't feasible. While this is a tough pill for me to swallow, all is not lost. While, at this point in my life, I can't ride across the country all at once, I can at least start.

5. Increase my frequency of blogging - over the last two years, I've been posting on average of between once and twice a week. I'm gonna try to beat that this year. However, I'm not going to sacrifice the quality of what I say, just to beat some quota. If faced with a choice between the two, I will blog less.

You may have noticed that my resolutions do not have measurable targets. This is by design. I don't want to be a slave to my resolutions. I want them to serve as a guiding light to keep me focused on improving. Trust me, regardless of whether I have concrete goals or not, in the end, I will grade myself harshly.