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This year I set a goal to learn how to manual on my mountain bike… but admittedly, I didn’t make it happen. I did, however, learn to bunny hop without the use of clipless pedals which was something I always wanted to do, so that’s my consolation I guess. 🙂
Anyway, in 2017 I’m hoping to explore more trails here along the east coast, including checking off a few more iconic Pisgah rides like Farlow Gap. Also hoping to make it to Eurobike in Germany.
Is anyone else setting MTB-specific goals for themselves in 2017?
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4 of 5 of my 2017 goals are related to MTB:
1. to finish network of singletracks I’m worinkg on
2. to start my own outdoor agency (specialized for MTB tours)
3. to ride Mustang Valley in Nepal
4. to get Jefssy AL-2 YT industries
5. not related to MTB -
1. Ride more
2. Ride more with the kids
3. Try DH
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<b>Arkinet hit the nail on the head. I’m adding increase my “my trails” list to the goals as well</b>
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My goals are:
1. learn how to hold a manuel for more than five seconds [I feel ya Jeff!]
2. do a 20 foot gap
3. do a suicide no hander clap
4. race an Enduro race
5. race an XC race without embarrassing myself with my lack of endurance
6. do a tailwhip and/or 360 .
Those are my bike related New Year goals.
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I want to:
1- Mountain bike more often, see more trails around Utah
2- Gain confidence in areas I struggle (steep switchbacks)
3- Teach my older brother how to ride and successfully ride a full trail with him
4- Not quite mountain bike, but I want to participate in the last leg in an office relay for LOTOJA this summer
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Go Joel. Cool stuff. You are an emerging stud. Keep us up to date on your progress this year. Here are my goals for 2017:
1.) Buy a second bike so I have one in the US and one in Mongolia; I don’t want to continue traveling back and forth between countries with my bike.
2.) Find at least 10 new trails in Mongolia and record them on the Singletracks database. I posted nine in 2016.
3.) Ride at least 3 times per week on average (12 per month) between March and October for 100 rides and 1000+ miles (1600 km). Any rides in Jan, Feb, Nov & Dec will be gravy.
4.) Do a remote multi-day bike-packing ride either through the Hentii Mountains of Mongolia or circumnavigate Hovsgol Lake on the Mongolian Siberian (Russian) border (biking & kayaking required). This was a goal I had for 2016 but didn’t happen; none of my buddies were up to it.
5.) Do some trail work on a couple of my favorite rides in Mongolia. Mostly I just need to cut away some large trees that have fallen across the trails. -
and will add:
4. enroll in a skills clinic
5. join a race, maybe xc 🙂
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For me the very last day of 2016 influenced my 2017 goals a bit:
1) Install a trailer hitch and rack on my new car. ( No trunk racks as I actually have good paint now.)
2) Teach my son how to build and ride dirt jumps (we found a badly decayed jump on our ride around town and we tried it out a dozen times but my son wrecked after each attempt. Pulling on the bars rather than throwing his weight)
3) Add at least 3 new trials to “my trails”
4) More rides with my kids
5) Get my hands on a DJ bike so I can dedicate my MTB to trail riding and not thrash it on the street rides.
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Great topic! I just spent some time digging through my statistics from 2016 yesterday. Here’s what I found.
One of my personal goals for 2016 was to consciously place value on all of the adventures that I partake in–not just the two-wheeled variety–and to diversify the sports that I participate in. While obviously most of my adventuring was still on my mountain bike, I started an adventure journal to log all of my adventures and give them an equal footing in my statistical analyses (I love nerding out over stats).
As I look back on the year, I’m happy to say that I’ve really diversified my adventuring into many different sports, and despite having ACL repair surgery and months of rehab, I embarked on 159 distinct adventures! Not only that, 2016 was up by 23 adventures over 2015. (I retroactively went through my Strava data to pull adventure numbers going back to 2012, when I began using Strava. My record year during that time was 173 adventures in 2014.)
As far as new exploration, across all my adventures I explored MORE THAN 211 new-to-me trails, and adventured in 28 new towns and 4 new countries (plus traveled through 2 new countries with no adventures in those countries).
Besides all of the obvious mountain bike adventures across the US and all throughout Europe, one of the highlights of the year was my first backpacking trip in 8 years, summiting three 14ers in the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness!
For the curious type, here’s how I personally defined an “adventure”:
-Any time I got on a singletrack trail, even if it was a short hike.
-Any time I got out on the snow, ex. skiing.
-If I rode the road bike but took it onto dirt, that also qualified.
-Other obvious adventures, like rock climbing and whitewater rafting, although I don’t think I got in any of those in in 2016.What I didn’t count as an adventure:
-Road rides 100% on pavement.
-Road runs, even if on dirt roads.
-Dog walks, unless it included singletrack hiking.
-Other general exercise, like calisthenics.
-100% motorized excursions, ex. riding four wheelers.As to your original question, while it’s entirely too early to forecast what 2017 has in store, fingers crossed that it’ll have even more adventures than 2016!
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Good reminder Arkinet, I need to add riding goals for my kids. 🙂
– Get the boy riding a pedal bike (he got one for Christmas, already kills it on the Strider)
– Get the girl a bike with gears and teach her to use it. That way, maybe we can start riding places that aren’t completely flat–ha!
Onefastfattie, you going to install the hitch yourself? I did this a few years back and it was pretty satisfying!
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the only MTB goals I have are the same as I have had, ride as much as spare time and my old body will allow.
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I’m completely new to riding, so:
– Ride 50 miles/week (minimum of 2 short rides during the week, and 1 long ride on weekends. 2 kids under 3 yrs at home means i have to be realistic about my mileage – at least until it’s light for more than 8 hours a day…)
– figure out what’s wrong with my knee, and what needs to be done to fix it (MCL pain …I think)
– Get my fitness up to a point where I can complete a 50-mile offroad ride without worrying about injuring myself, etc.
– Have fun.
I’d like to get into racing, and I have a fat-tire snow ‘race’ on my schedule for 1/28/17 already, but that’s just to keep me motivated and remind me how much harder I have to work to really be in shape. I’m sure I won’t be very competitive in XC events on a fat-tire bike, but there’s a fat-tire division for the fall CX races, and if I do all 9 or 10 rounds of my local series. If I’m happy enough with my progress during that series, I will rationalize a CX bike and/or a hardtail for the 2018 season 🙂
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Started Mountain biking in May 2016. Been having a blast riding trails. My goals for 2017 are
1. Ride at a new location and new trails at least once a month.
2. Enter my first cross country race!
3. Learn to manual, bunny hop and wheelie on flat pedals.
4. Not get poison ivy! ????
5. Volunteer at my local MTB club and help with trail grooming in the winter and builds in the summer ensuring goal 4 is met!
6. Do one road trip. Bentonville, AR would be a great one!
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@JoelDH do you want to “hold a manual” or “hold a Manuel”? Because those are two very different things! 😉
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Wouldn’t that be “Hold Emanuel”?
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4. Not get poison ivy! ????
Haha, that’s a great goal! Not sure it’s achievable for me, but a good goal nonetheless. 🙂
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@Mobettah Totally!! i hate getting poison oak (we don’t have poison ivy on the west coast) That is definitely a goal..
1: Ride more
2: Ride as many new trails as possible!
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Considering that of my and my husband’s goals this year was to find a joint hobby that we both could enjoy annnnnd that led to us deciding to give mountain biking a go… we bought our bikes over the weekend. These are my goals:
1: Get out on trails once a week.
3: Ride the roads 2xs a week.
4: Focus on strengthening my core
5: Go bike packing once a season.
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I’m really very new to mountain biking, so goals are pretty basic:
- grow a pair
- learn to manual – then actually use to unweight front wheel over obstacles
- learn to bunny hop – then employ on a trail to avoid obstacles
- use even 10% of my bike’s potential!
And a stretch goal… just how hard is it to do an endo?
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1. Stay upright. Seriously not ashamed to say I don’t like falling at my age.
2. Ride often. Have to sometimes force myself to not ride as much to prevent repetitive injuries.
3. Ride more with my wife, she enjoys it a lot. Makes my experience better as well.
4. Ride trails while traveling. Already have plans for trips to Colorado, Indiana, Switzerland, Italy and Germany this summer.
5. Stud my fat bike tires. Love winter riding in snow!
6. Stay upright, really I hate wiping out!
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Somehow I missed this one.
My goals are similar to many of yours above which might be boring to a lot. lol
1 – Ride 100 miles/month or 1200 for the year. In some fashion or another. (MTB only)
2 – Try to find a new trail often to ride just for the adventure and newness so that I can grow in MTB riding.
3 – Volunteer with my local SORBA chapter and help keep the trails maintained so we all can have fun.
4 – Meet new friends along the way.
5 – My son son just retired (at an early age) from Pro baseball so I’d love to recapture our Father-Son relationship by getting him out on some trails with me.
6 – And since heart disease is rampant in my family, stay heart healthy while having fun on my bike so that I can live a healthy, fun, MTB riding life!
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-ride more
– learn to manual
– get better with long climbs
– learn more about the maintenance of my bike
Other than that always exploring new places to ride and having a great time being outdoors…
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1. Do a bikepacking trip out west.
2. Ride singletrack in Germany and Switzerland this year.
3. Avoid injury / stay upright. Always a concern when your north of 50.
4. Introduce people to mountain biking.
5. Take my grown kids on some trails this year.
6. Help out at my local bike groups trail building.
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Mine are pretty simple.
- Get back into MTB – Did that with a Canyon Spectral 6EX (which I love)
- Get my MTB fitness levels back up. – WIP
- Race a Superflow event (like an Enduro but not) by June and not come last
- Improve on Superflow placement (ie from 2nd last to 3rd last)
- MTB in Queenstown NZ (im in Aus so not too far)
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1. Teach more friends how to ride for more fun times.
2. Bike 1200 miles for the year. I work a full time job and commute 3 hours on top of that. Big challenge but, I’m up for it!
3. Learn how to use clipless pedals on the trails. Nervous yet excited to how much more this will add to my rides.
4. Once and for all buy my last (dream) bike or one that lasts for years!
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3500 miles
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9 weeks left to reach my goal—and just 400 miles left to ride!
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1. Improve my place in the overall standings at the end of the race season(7th in Expert in the Bike the Wilds series last year)
2. Podium
3. Ride as much as possible
4. Workout and train as much as possible
5. Keep a healthy balanced diet.
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Here are my goals for 2017:
1) Buy my first bike . Actually, I already did it five days ago. I bought good-quality and durable mountain bike. This bike fits any body size and makes users feel comfortable. I’m very happy with my purchase . I found it here .There are a lot of information about mountain bike and intresting articles about riding.
2) Learn how to ride and successfully ride a full trail .
3) Ride at least 3 times per week on average or even ride as much as spare time .
I wish everyone and me achieving all goals this year. -
Yea.. Newbie here. Goals for this year.
1. Figure out how to use this site.
2. Update the known trails in this area so at least they are complete and accurate.
3. Push my skill level forward enough so that technical singletrack with jumps at high speed is not limited by my fear
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It seems pretty pedestrian, but my biggest goal is just to ride more frequently; make more time for riding. Of course the usual about bike handling and clearing obstacles, but my biggest issue in the past two years has just been about time.
That, and, to hit up Ellijay, GA for a week this summer to check out the riding.
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In October, there is a 33 mile race I want to do. Starts out at 4900′ goes up to 7400′, then down to 4000′ in a small town. It’s the Silver Peak or Bust event. People get sponsors to donate money to the school for after school activities.
It’s always been a hike, but last year started the first MTB to do it. So, I want to continue it on MTB.
Google Silver Peak or Bust, you’ll find the info on Facebook.
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My big moment of 2017 was not about a pursuing a goal but was instead an achievement. The achievement was reaching the limitations of my bike because my skill level and fitness has increased. This is something i always thought would not happen. At some point i noticed certain things were holding me back such as lack of proper rear suspension, brakes not powerful enough, lack of dropper post, fork can’t keep up, out of date bike geometry. I am now considering a new bike. Overall this has been a good year!
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Definitely want to learn how to bunny hop on a consistent basis-
To successfully navigate and speed through technical areas without mishap by finding the correct line-
To jump ok without freakin out (not even trying the high jumps lol; leaving that for the professionals!)-
To be finally able to go through a ride without cramping up at the end of it (it happens from time to time it sucks) -
I see you posting on here quite a bit Jeff. Where do you ride normally on the east coast? We go to NC quite a bit, never brought a bike out there with me though. Considering it next summer when we head east for vacation.
Kinda off topic there…
I set a goal to ride at least 100 miles a month this year. Hit it every month weather permitting except for June and July. Vacation played a factor there.
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Get a mountain bike.
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Year’s almost gone, but I did accomplish 1 of my goal: to ride more. 1,500 miles to date, maybe add 100 more before the year ends. Though I didn’t get into racing, I’m happy my son is now a member of his HS mtb team(I pushed a li’l bit 🙂 ).
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