I haven’t posted much of anything in 2025.
Not really sure why, other than… life, I guess.
It’s been busy. Some challenges. Honestly, mostly first-world problems, but things nonetheless — the kind that don’t seem like much until you stack enough of them together and realize they’ve been quietly taking up all the space.
From a riding standpoint, the year was a mixed bag. PMBaR actually went well and was a lot of fun. The rest of the year didn’t quite go the way I had hoped. Portugal probably deserved more intention than it got, Monstercross was a mess. Swank felt like a bit of redemption, or at least proof that there’s still something there if I don’t screw it up too badly. Not exactly what I had pictured, but fun, and maybe a small springboard into 2026.
A lot of this was on me. I didn’t really have a marquee event the way I did with Switzerland last year. Portugal probably should have been that event and deserved to be — something to actually aim at and prepare for — but instead I sort of drifted. When I’m left to my own devices, I tend to ride a lot and ride harder than I should more often than I should. It’s fun and it feels good, but it turns out that without some structure you don’t move the needle much, and when you show up to race you end up kind of flat and worse…your expectations are high because you’ve been riding. That one’s on me. Which is annoying, because it also makes it hard to complain about.
There was also just… life. The kids are at amazing ages right now — super fun, hilarious, growing fast — and it’s genuinely hard to be gone for too long, even when I want to ride and race. There’s always that tug between wanting to do big bike things and wanting to be home, and I don’t think that tension is going away anytime soon.
Work hasn’t really been high pressure so much as self-inflicted busy. I like doing things, learning things, taking things on, and that tends to add up faster than I realize. Add in some spotty sleep, getting sick more often thanks to the kids, cutting back on alcohol, and trying most of the usual sleep “fixes” with mixed results, and it was harder than I expected to find time — or maybe headspace — to write. Even though I kept coming back to old posts, and people mentioned them from time to time, and the reasons I started this whole thing in the first place kept showing up.
All that said, it was still a good year. Not the one I drew up, but a useful one. There was a lot of learning, some humbling moments, and still plenty of fun on the bike. I want to get a few posts out from this year — PMBaR, Portugal, Swank — and maybe pull together a broader recap too, if for no
other reason than to make sense of it for myself.
Sorry for the rambling.
Thanks for playing along.
