I’ve also written about Year one, Year two, and Year three.
So, I’ve made it to my fourth year of riding with Peloton. This last year was a year for changes.
My Peloton spin bike is now officially out of warranty and I have been really lucky with no mechanical issues with the bike. I have 983 rides on this bike, my last ride was Emma’s listening party where the music is all up and coming indie artists. Which, if you know me is right in my wheel house. Having a bike this long means that my screen is the first generation version. I did receive an email from Peloton saying they will no longer push software updates to this screen and offered a discount in upgrading the screen. I took advantage of the offer and swapped out the screens. I still have the old screen, and would love to mount it on a road bike as a joke. But, who has time for that?
In April of last year, I shut down my IT consulting business and started working as a full-time employee at Amazon Web Services as a Senior Solutions Architect. This was a huge change for me, after working as an independent contractor for 20 years, I no longer worked for myself and am now an employee. Turns out there are a lot of Peloton riders at Amazon and I joined an internal instant message channel where we share milestones and other encouraging items. I happened to be in NY this last year and was able to get to the studio for a live ride and a local Amazonian met me for the ride.
One outdoor riding highlight was being able to “Bike the Drive”, where they close down Lake Shore Drive in Chicago for a morning and allow bikes on the road. Was really cool to ride the whole 30 miles.
Last summer I was able to get a lot of outdoor riding in on the weekends. We somehow got really lucky with the weather where almost every weekend I was able to get a ride in. In August, I spent a week in Las Vegas for work and a few members of my team planned a mountain biking excursion in the desert on the last day. I passed on that experience, stating I would be the one who gets injured in the desert and would have to stay longer in Vegas. I got back home late Friday and the next morning went out for a ride. There was a little rain that morning, and it was expected to not rain for the rest of the day. I decided to go on the bike trails at Busse Woods. I was on my second lap of the trail and while going around a big curve, my back tire slipped out from under me. The next thing I knew I was sliding on the trail, and my head was bouncing on the ground like a basketball. My helmet took the brunt of the first hit, then shifted so that my head took a direct hit. I remember standing up and swearing while looking at the scrapes on my arm and legs. At first I was like, wow that doesn’t look that bad. And then the blood started pouring from my head like a river. Well, I had a huge cut on my head and was luckily next to a parking lot, where I tried to stop two cars driving by for help. They both kept going. Eventually a truck stopped and they were able to call an ambulance. It took 8 stitches and once the adrenaline wore out, I realized I also tore my groin and by the end of the day I could not even walk. It took about a week before I could walk again and I was back on my bike.
As with every other sane person that was in a bike accident, a month later I bought a new, lighter and faster bike. This road bike is amazing, being that the frame is carbon-fiber and weighs almost nothing and now refer to my old bike as the tank. It was fun riding this bike at the end of the summer and I’m really looking forward to longer distance rides this coming summer.
Peloton made some changes with instructors, with Jennifer Jacobs leaving and Kendall Toole and Tunde Oyeneyin coming on board as instructors. Kendall quickly became my go-to instructor (shhh Emma, it’s okay), I love her attitude. They also double downed on their Power Zone commitments by adding Olivia Amato and Christine D’Ercole as Power Zone instructors. I also decided to take on a Power Zone challenge for the first time. I used to ride the Power Zone rides when they first came out, so I retook my FTP test (adding 10 points to my zones) and I am currently going into the last week of the Power Zone challenge. These PZ rides really kicked my ass, I highly encourage everyone to try them out.
Back in December, after watching The Game Changers and Forks Over Knives documentaries I decided I would go vegetarian as an experiment for one month. The hardest part of this was finding new recipes. I cook a lot of Italian and French foods, which almost always has meat at the center of the meal. Three months later I am still a vegetarian, actually pescatarian, and have no regrets and do not miss meat. With Power Zones and a diet change, I’ve dropped about 10 pounds and hope it continues.
Ride number 1,000 is within sight for me, I was hoping to make a quick trip to NY to ride in studio, but work travel might make that hard to do. Here’s to another year!
