2020 : Our Rides in Words, Photos & Videos

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Art Deco said:
Really looking forward to the 2021 version of this thread. Only one more day of this accursed year to go. Do you start the new year with a few favorite posts from the outgoing year?
Click to expand...
Art, I suggest that this thread keeps going without being considered 2020-specific. Put simply, no new thread for 2021. What do others think?

Reviewing our 2020 rides is a good idea. For example, our storyteller extraordinaire R2R could provide a dozen or so links to her favourite rides… mine is the recent crossing-the-flooded-stream saga when the intrepid leader (herself!) was upstaged by the hesitant novice. Rab, who has posted the most photos, could make a selection. Stefan, of course, will be in charge of New Year's Eve catering.

Many of us love our data summaries. Let's share!

And so on… reminiscences of what happened in the year that few foresaw.
 
David Berry said:
Art, I suggest that this thread keeps going without being considered 2020-specific. Put simply, no new thread for 2021. What do others think?
Click to expand...
David, please make the 2021 thread. And rename this one to 2020. The thread's got too big. Probably the biggest EBR Fora thread ever :)

But not so fast! 2020 is not over yet and "I have not yet begun to fight!" :) My daily report comes soon. And there is the 31st of December 2020 coming!

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David Berry said:
More opinions, please.
Click to expand...
I'll vote again for a new thread. This is a very picture heavy thread and can take way too long to load a page even after one year ! Takes half a cup of coffee now just waiting, would take a whole pot after awhile . And of course, posters can always link back to this thread for a before/after type of ride photo. Others please comment. Thanks.
 
"Hey! When John Paul Jones gives his order, the powder stench, blood spatters everywhere..." (Year 2020 Five-Thousand Mile Decider Ride)
Pursuing the Yearly 5000 Mile Target - The Day 3 (The goal met)

Of course, I refer to the "Father of The U.S. Navy", not to the bassist of Led Zeppelin :) And to his famous words "I have not yet begun to fight!" I have overslept this morning, as it was raining. So, I missed a weather window of 10:00-11:00 with pleasant sunshine. As a good Scout, I was prepared. I pulled my "NASA spacesuit" on and took two pairs of spare gloves and an extra jacket with me.

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On the Hwy 7 (Warsaw - Radom - Kielce - Kraków). It is not the expressway part yet. The post at the right indicates an immense Chinese Trade Center in Wólka Kosowska. I doubt they carry e-bikes there :) Regarding the weather, this photo was taken at 12:08 pm. No raining yet but already cloudy.

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A funny place-name. Łoś means "Moose" :) The name made me attracted to take a ride there (again).

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After passing Łoś, I hit the 8000 km yearly mark. Celebrating the achievement with OSHEE, a Polish sports drink (the ZERO version).

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At that point, I said "I have not yet begun to fight!" to myself. Why not to make the 5000 mile yearly goal? It started raining here...

I admit I settled on the 70/70% assistance/max motor power for todays ride. Riding in the rain in the winter time is not funny. High assistance level let me spend only four and half hour outdoor. That's the beauty of e-bikes. And of riding with two big batteries.

1609365467321.png

The battery swap was necessary at the 44th kilometre. I was riding fast through the rainfall. I experienced reduced visibility with wet goggles and finally miscomprehended the "Czech Joanna", or my GPS navigation system. It added some miles to my ride. Here: Lost in the Mazovian backwoods. A very typical view, probably enjoyed a lot by Frederic Chopin but not by me :D

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I reached my yearly 5000 mile goal some 6 km from my place. The blue dashed line is the route plan. The red one is the actual trip.
I have to say I was tempted to ride to our local small store in Podkowa Leśna to buy some paszteciki and red borsch for @Prairie Dog but had no spirits left with me :) I just wanted my spacesuit off! Well. Body dry. Boots - dry. Third pair of gloves lasted. Why ask for more?

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Thanks to 70% assistance and dual battery, I could complete the trip pretty fast, just after the sunset.

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My 2020 distance goals met!

But 2020 is not over yet... :D Joking. Need to dry my clothes first. The last day of the year will be marked with shopping! Perhaps I can buy some paszteciki too! :D
 
Stefan Mikes said:
"Hey! When John Paul Jones gives his order, the powder stench, blood spatters everywhere..." (Year 2020 Five-Thousand Mile Decider Ride)
Pursuing the Yearly 5000 Mile Target - The Day 3 (The goal met)

Of course, I refer to the "Father of The U.S. Navy", not to the bassist of Led Zeppelin :) And to his famous words "I have not yet begun to fight!" I have overslept this morning, as it was raining. So, I missed a weather window of 10:00-11:00 with pleasant sunshine. As a good Scout, I was prepared. I pulled my "NASA spacesuit" on and took two pairs of spare gloves and an extra jacket with me.

View attachment 75487
On the Hwy 7 (Warsaw - Radom - Kielce - Kraków). It is not the expressway part yet. The post at the right indicates an immense Chinese Trade Center in Wólka Kosowska. I doubt they carry e-bikes there :) Regarding the weather, this photo was taken at 12:08 pm. No raining yet but already cloudy.

View attachment 75488
A funny place-name. Łoś means "Moose" :) The name made me attracted to take a ride there (again).

View attachment 75489
After passing Łoś, I hit the 8000 km yearly mark. Celebrating the achievement with OSHEE, a Polish sports drink (the ZERO version).

View attachment 75490
At that point, I said "I have not yet begun to fight!" to myself. Why not to make the 5000 mile yearly goal? It started raining here...

I admit I settled on the 70/70% assistance/max motor power for todays ride. Riding in the rain in the winter time is not funny. High assistance level let me spend only four and half hour outdoor. That's the beauty of e-bikes. And of riding with two big batteries.

View attachment 75491
The battery swap was necessary at the 44th kilometre. I was riding fast through the rainfall. I experienced reduced visibility with wet goggles and finally miscomprehended the "Czech Joanna", or my GPS navigation system. It added some miles to my ride. Here: Lost in the Mazovian backwoods. A very typical view, probably enjoyed a lot by Frederic Chopin but not by me :D

View attachment 75492
I reached my yearly 5000 mile goal some 6 km from my place. The blue dashed line is the route plan. The red one is the actual trip.
I have to say I was tempted to ride to our local small store in Podkowa Leśna to buy some paszteciki and red borsch for @Prairie Dog but had no spirits left with me :) I just wanted my spacesuit off! Well. Body dry. Boots - dry. Third pair of gloves lasted. Why ask for more?

View attachment 75493
Thanks to 70% assistance and dual battery, I could complete the trip pretty fast, just after the sunset.

View attachment 75494
My 2020 distance goals met!

But 2020 is not over yet... :D Joking. Need to dry my clothes first. The last day of the year will be marked with shopping! Perhaps I can buy some paszteciki too! :D
Click to expand...
Stefan, impressive mileage for the year. Congratulations! 😎
 
Stefan Mikes said:
I have to say I was tempted to ride to our local small store in Podkowa Leśna to buy some paszteciki and red borsch for @Prairie Dog but had no spirits left with me
Click to expand...
You've done it now….off to the fridge I go! :eek:Seriously though, my wife makes a pretty good batch of borsch made from organic veg grown in her own garden. She also adds grated carrots, shredded cabbage and dill to her version.

BTW, congrats on your achievement! You da man! 👍
 
David Berry said:
More opinions, please.
Click to expand...
I vote for a new thread - i think we've all got our stats stored locally so don't have to have them here to review. This IS an awfully big thread!

Also, it's been mentioned by admin troehrkasse (sorry, writing from - bad - memory) that picture-heavy posts are difficult to handle, so, for the new year, perhaps we can all really try to remember to use thumbnails instead 😉!
 
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Just to push this thread to the next page, I will point out that over here (years ago when we still had family bakers) the very best bakerys were run by Poles. I always thought it was because
1) they were the only ones crazy enough to get up and go to work at 3 or 4 in the morning and
2) there were no French people in this part of the US to compete with them.
😋
 
And two (properly thumbnailed) pictures from my rides that weren't very good, but I never got around to taking any better ones. These two pics are what I face coming home on every ride unless I want to venture out on the highway.
They are shot from about two thirds of the way up the hill when I ran out of gears and strength at the same time, and had to switch to walk mode. First is looking down at the easy part, the next one is looking up the rest of the way.

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My Most Memorable Rides of Year 2020

Thanks to mild winter, I started riding as early as on January 11th, 2020.

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2020 meant for me exploring local roads of my neighbourhood in the first place. Here, at a famous junkyard in Pruszków that also hosts the Museum of Steel Figures (30th of January). My winter clothing has not much changed since; I've only added new elements to make it more waterproof and even better visible. At that time, my Vado still had ill behaving and little configurable BLOKS display; it had a single battery (I got a spare after March 17th). For those reasons, I rode my Lovelec (with two batteries) more frequently.

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March 17th, 2020. My first metric century (with Lovelec e-bike). Exploring my neighbourhood westwards as far as Sochaczew. (I made the second metric century on April 8th)

March 20th meant the first lockdown for Poland. I never stopped riding though; on contrary, I had more time and more incentive to be riding! I only started wearing a thin, breathable balaclava, good for any season.

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My winter "spacesuit". No balaclava worn yet. March 21st, 2020. On the Palmiry ride.

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Thanks to this Forum, I got attracted to expressing my ride distances in miles. Major distances for me are: 50 miles, the metric century (100 km), 70, and 75 miles. I have never ridden the imperial century though. Here, on a 50-miler around the eastern part of the Kampinos National Park, March 30th, 2020. "April Is a Weaver" ride.

My 2020 longest rides:
  • Two 75-milers
  • Two 70-milers
  • Five metric centuries
  • Twenty-three 50-milers
May 2020: The turning point
The month was marked with three major events:
  1. Specialized overhauled my older EU Vado 5.0 electronics to the modern (TCD-W based) EU Vado 6.0 one. It created the E-Bike of My Dreams (a.k.a. Grizzle).
  2. I bought a Giant Trance E+ 2 Pro, a full-suspension e-MTB (dubbed Monster). It opened new riding capabilities for me
  3. I made my first cousin (a.k.a. brother) Jacek an e-biker. I started sharing my e-bikes with him. He taught me riding long rides, endurance, and how to achieve higher average trip speed.
Owning an e-MTB taught me a sad lesson: These bikes are made for off-road only. If you don't live close to the Nature then, well, you need to carry your e-MTB with a car to suitable terrain.

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May 17th, 2020. On a hilly ride with friends near Kraków. My First True MTB Ride Ever.

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Summer months meant too many exciting rides to show all of them here. One of memorable ones was a metric century around River Vistula (as far as to Płock, the former capital city of our Mazovia) and it was the first time I learned about the Hollanders, Dutch and German settlers, folk similar by origin to American Amish people. July 17th, 2020.

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Even earlier, on June 17th, I visited my friends in Kraków again to make a 70-mile ride over Lesser Poland province with my Vado.

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On 25th & 26th of July, I had an exciting trip to Kłodzko Basin in Lower Silesia. There's far more to see than just mountains there, as that part of the formerly German province is fully packed with tourist attractions. Enough to say I brought as many as 45 good photos from a single day's trip to Polish Table Mountains. My life in that National Park was in danger, as I rode with the Monster onto hiking-only trail! Seriously, that could end up badly for me...

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The next day meant another exciting trip: Climbing onto Great Owl Mountain with sight-seeing from the top of historical observation tower. I destroyed my Pentax DSLR camera on that trip (repaired at high cost after many months...) The descent from Great Owl was marked with the highest speed I ever rode on a bike :)

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The 2020 best of the best trip was one taken with Jacek: Around Jizera Mountains in Czech Republic and Poland, Lower Silesia province. It was a 50 mile trip with over 1500 m elevation gain (close to 5000 ft). Some descents of ours were just epic there! 8th of August 2020.

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The next day (August 9th) was marked with our "Karpacz Quickie, Quickie!" trip to see the Vang temple in Karpacz (Karkonosze Mts in Sudety Mts, Lower Silesia). Our goal was to make the mountain ride as fast as possible to be able to return home (by car) on the same day. We were flying uphill while competing with a young roadie -- all on a segment of the Road Cycling Championship of Poland :D We were beating the guy uphill, and he was winning on descents :) We averaged some 20 mph. In mountains! Haha!

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Another "best of the best" was a month-long stay with my gf @Brix. We drove to the Tuczno area in West Pomerania province to see her Grandma there. The area is one of few true wilderness areas left in Poland. Again, exciting trip. We were riding e-bikes with Brix, and I'll never forget our night return to the pension over dark, wild forest, with total lighting power of 3300 lumen: We were so happy, we lost our way in the wilderness... The next day meant my long lone trip off-road with the tubeless tyre puncture... All ended up well!

It is impossible to describe the whole year but my rides started on January 11th and continued by December 30th, 2020.

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I want to thank you, all members of EBR Forums participating in this thread for the year together. You have been an inspiration and motivation for me! KUDOS to you! I wish all of us the "pest" finally ended and also many exciting & happy miles/kilometres in 2021!
 
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@Stefan Mikes You should be immensely proud of your achievements this year, you have the heart of a lion! :) Congratulations on hitting your goal for the year, I knew you had it in you!

I vote for a new thread also, almost 200 pages is amazing but it should end now! This thread has kept me going through truly awful times this year so I would like to thank everybody who has contributed, lets hope 2021 will be a better year and we can continue to enjoy this wonderful sport!

Any hopes I had of getting another ride in this year were dashed when I woke to yet more snow, it looks like it is here for the day with little or no wind to blow it away!

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I have had many wonderful rides this year but my 100 miler stands out, with scenes like this it really was a spectacular trip! What I would give to have this weather right now;)

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I wish everyone a Happy New Year and look forward to another year of amazing stories and photos!
 
Stefan Mikes said:
My Most Memorable Rides of Year 2020



I want to thank you, all members of EBR Forums participating in this thread for the year together. You have been an inspiration and motivation for me! KUDOS to you! I wish all of us the "pest" finally ended and also many exciting & happy miles/kilometres in 2021!
Click to expand...
For your convenience, I added links to the stories mentioned in the post :)
 
RabH said:
I vote for a new thread also, almost 200 pages is amazing but it should end now! This thread has kept me going through truly awful times…

I wish everyone a Happy New Year and look forward to another year of amazing stories and photos!
Click to expand...
The consensus seems to be 'Let's start a new thread for 2021!'

My suggestions…
  • There'll be a new thread titled 2021 : Our Rides in Words, Photos, Videos & Maps which will appear approximately when the bells ring in 2021 across Europe.
  • Post #1 : It's 2021… (or similar).
  • Post #2 : Table of Contents providing links to the first post of each month or special occasions (equinox, solstice, or whatever).
Of course, the Table of Contents will be little more than a placeholder until we have some contents!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
David Berry said:
The consensus seems to be 'Let's start a new thread for 2021!'

My suggestions…
  • There'll be a new thread titled 2021 : Our Rides in Words, Photos, Videos & Maps (link to be inserted) which will appear approximately when the bells ring in 2021 across Europe.
  • Post #1 : It's 2021… (or similar).
  • Post #2 : Table of Contents providing links to the first post of each month or special occasions (equinox, solstice, or whatever).
I think Post #2 will be important, so please allow a few moments for it to appear. Of course, the Table of Contents will be little more than a placeholder until we have some contents!
Click to expand...
Sounds good to me, David!
 
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