1,662

Hey,

It's November 2nd and I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to tell you about October.

It was one of those months where not much happened and everything happened at the same time, you know? The kind where you get to the end and think "wait, where did that go?" and also "fuck, that felt long."

We barely rode. Work was busy in that good-but-draining way. Jana and I both got knocked on our asses by illness at different points. The weather was shit when we had energy, and when the weather was decent, we couldn't get our asses moving.

And then yesterday, November 1st, we finally got back on the bikes together for the first time since late August.

Two months.

When we got home, I made the mistake of checking Strava. Not to log the ride, that was already done. But to see how many kilometers we'd actually managed to ride this year.

The number hit different than I expected.

So here's what October looked like, and what that number means, and why I'm telling you about it even though it's not exactly a victory lap.

1,662

Yesterday was the first time Jana and I rode together since late August.

Two months.

It wasn't planned as some grand comeback. We just... finally got our shit together, got on the bikes, and went. The weather cooperated for once. Jana's still recovering from weeks of that brutal cough that wouldn't fuck off, but she was game. We pointed ourselves toward Fischbeker Heide, rolled through Wulmstorf, looped back through Harburg.

It felt good. Really good. The kind of good that reminds you why you do this in the first place.

When we got home, I did something stupid. I opened Strava.

Not to log the ride. That was already done. But out of curiosity. Or masochism. Hard to tell the difference sometimes.

I wanted to see how many kilometers we'd ridden this year. Then I made it worse by comparing it to previous years.

Here's what I found:

2020: 3,603km
2021: 2,683km
2022: 3,725km
2023: 3,958km
2024: 4,259km
2025: 1,662km

Yeah.

1,662 kilometers.

As of November 1st.

Look, I know. I know. It's not about the numbers. We don't ride for Strava. We don't ride to hit arbitrary distance goals or prove anything to anyone. We ride because it clears our heads, because it feels like freedom, because it's one of the few things that makes sense when everything else is noise.

But fuck, those numbers still sting.

Because they're not just numbers. They're a map of a year where the thing that's supposed to save us became... unreachable.

Here's what happened:

I got sick in late August. Then Jana got sick. Then I was traveling for work. Weddings, shoots, the stuff that pays the bills and actually went well this year, which should be a good thing, right? But it drained me in ways I didn't expect.

Then the weather turned to shit. And on the rare days it wasn't shit, we couldn't get our asses out the door.

Week after week, we'd talk about riding. We'd look at the forecast. We'd half-plan a route. And then... nothing.

Part of it was the eternal question: Where do we even ride?

I became the brake. I didn't want to ride the same routes we've done a thousand times. Those loops where you're on autopilot, where nothing surprises you anymore. But I also didn't have the energy to plan something new, something that required taking a train somewhere first, dealing with logistics, making it a whole thing.

So we did nothing.

Jana wanted to go. I said no. Or I said yes but with zero enthusiasm, which is basically the same thing. And then the moment passed, and another week slipped by.

Here's the part that fucks with me the most: I know cycling helps. I know it balances me out. I know that when I'm stressed or spinning out or just heavy with all the everything, getting on the bike is the answer.

But this year, that answer felt too far away.

The thing that's supposed to be the escape route... got blocked. Not by external stuff. By me. By the weight of it all. By motivation going AWOL. By not being able to answer the simple question of "where do we ride today?"

So yesterday, we rode.

We pointed ourselves toward Fischbeker Heide and just went. No big plan. No grand ambitions. Just: let's ride.

And you know what? The Heide in autumn is fucking beautiful. Golden light through the trees, that particular crunch of gravel under tires, the kind of quiet that makes you remember why this matters.

We realized we don't go there enough. We've been chasing new routes, longer trips, bigger adventures. And we've been skipping the good stuff that's right here.

Jana was slower than usual, still recovering, her lungs not quite back to full capacity yet. But she was there. We were there. Together.

It felt like coming home.

What we're actually doing

While we weren't riding, we've been doing what any responsible adults do when recovering from illness and low motivation: watching Gilmore Girls.

Second time through. We're somewhere around the end of season 3 now.

I introduced Jana to it years ago, but this rewatch? She started it without me while I was in Copenhagen shooting a wedding for Hafenliebe. Came home to find her three episodes deep and fully committed.

Now we're in it together.

Is it peak television? No. Is it exactly what we needed while our bodies recovered and our energy was shit? Absolutely.

Sometimes the answer isn't getting back on the bike. Sometimes it's Stars Hollow and terrible coffee jokes and just... being still for a minute.

Gear that doesn't suck

We switched our bikes over to the new Schwalbe Quick Valves a few weeks back. So far? Solid choice. Makes dealing with tubeless so much less of a pain in the ass.

Also picked up a Makita DMP180Z compressor. Not one of those tiny hyped ones you take on rides. The full-size, battery-driven beast. Because standing there with a hand pump trying to seat a tubeless tire is nobody's idea of a good time.

If you're running tubeless and tired of the hassle, these two things together make life noticeably better.

The trip that didn't happen

We were supposed to go to Denmark in October. Henne Strand Resort. The plan was solid, the dates were set, and then... I got sick.

So we didn't go.

Instead, we rescheduled it for April 2026. Sometimes the only thing you can do is push it forward and hope next time works out better.

April feels far away right now. But also close enough to look forward to.

I don't have a neat conclusion for you.

I can't tell you that everything's fixed now, that motivation is back, that we're suddenly going to crush the last two months of 2025 and make up for lost time.

Maybe we will. Maybe we won't.

But yesterday happened.

1,662 kilometers. For now.

The year isn't over. Neither are we.

Björn

P.S. If you've had an off year, where the thing that usually saves you felt just out of reach, you're not alone. Hit reply and tell me about it. I'd love to hear your story.