2014 Recap

I just wanted to post to the website and give a quick update of what has been happening in Dortmund.  Basically, I moved to Dortmund from Essen in early 2014 and immediately began a whirlwind of work, finishing a National Science Foundation grant with Kansas State University studying the effects of political fragmentation, land cover changes, and water quality and quantity across the USA in February; Spent several months preparing methods and work assignments for an intern from University of Toronto I hosted at TU Dortmund to collect data for my PhD project via the DAAD RISE scholarship; My wife and I had a baby, Jason Philip; and I prepared and delivered a curriculum for Landscape Ecology and Urban Planning as well as am advising a course on sound pollution in the landscape here at TU Dortmund.  In between all of this, I am still charging ahead on my PhD project and hope to complete it by end of the summer semester 2015…because I really need to get a job and make some money now that the funding is dried up!

I did get the chance to do some great rides, because it is the only way to say sane with such a schedule and often occurred in the middle of the day on my city-bike in normal clothes when the weather gave a nice window, but the frequency simply wasn’t there to be in any kind of racing condition this season.  My sports-tracker account I use for recording pleasure/training rides says I rode 790 kms in 2014, but I use that app infrequently, so I did maybe 3x that amount.  I also don’t have a car and use bike as my only transport with my school and back trip right at 10 kms per day (50km per week), and I estimate I rode 70% of possible work weeks last year.  So I would put a crude estimate on last year’s riding at 4100km.  Not enough to race and be competitive, but enough to keep me skinny and fit enough to do the 3-5 hour rides when I had time and to keep the pilot light on so that I can get back to it in 2015.  I have planned a 2 week base-training block in Greece this March, which by then I hope the weather here will turn and I can go back to real training rides and make a competitive showing at SIS.  I am really hoping to travel down there this year with my wife and (will-be) 1-year old and have our first family camp out.

Here are a few photos of my favorite rides this past year..It really is great riding in Germany, as I’m sure all the folks living in Germany already know!