Cycling Adventures with Brian Toone

Cycling Adventures with Brian Toone

2024 statistics and maps

I used to call this post my “season statistics” or “season summary” in reference to the cycling racing season. I would calculate all my statistics from December 1 of the prior year to November 30th of the current year. This was based on the Eddie Borysewicz cycling training book called “Bicycle Road Racing”, from which…

January 11, 2025
A weather adventure commute to Virginia

Intended route – 885 miles from Hoover, AL to Staunton, VA w/ ~50k ft climbingActual route – 760 miles from Hoover to Staunton w/ 44k ft climbing At the end of September, Hurricane Helene strengthened rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico and then came ashore in a rural part of the gulf coast of Florida…

December 21, 2024
Finishing Arkansas

After 22 rides covering 4,347 miles and 173,193 feet of climbing across 130 counties in 10 different states, I have finished riding in all the counties in Arkansas! Just under 2,500 miles of those rides was within the state of Arkansas. Yes, that’s right, I did 22 rides that had at least some small part…

October 20, 2024
The Rift 2024

What an amazing experience this race was. I came into the race doing it mostly to have a reason to visit Iceland. I was surprised by how challenging and perfect and awesome the race itself actually was. There is a reason why more and more people keep signing up for this race with this year’s…

July 26, 2024
Riding from Birmingham to the Chief Ladiga Trail

This is mostly just a place to document some of the options. But I would like to also state that people who don’t ride 20,000 miles on a bicycle every year don’t have a good perspective on the hierarchy of dangers in cycling. For example, riding a two-lane county road with a speed limit of…

March 18, 2024
A tale of weather, Sir Arthur Eddington, counties, and Pike’s Peak

TLDR Adventure 1 – Thanksgiving – I attempted a 550 mile out/back-ish (tight loop) from Birmingham to Panama City Beach and back to record my own GPS data for Washington and Bay counties in Florida. The ride was going to be split into 265 miles there and 285 miles back for back-to-back Eddington 256 rides.…

December 12, 2023
Paris-Brest-Paris 2023

TLDR – It was tough I had imagined this as being a slightly faster, slightly longer version of my normal multi-day adventures around the South. What I hadn’t counted on was how exhilarating it would actually be to do the ride and how I would overextend myself early in all the excitement. They had great…

October 14, 2023
The Road to Paris

I had intended to document my training and everything leading up to my Paris Brest Paris (PBP) adventure a bit more, but life has gotten so busy. I’m going to use this post as a “reverse order” summary of the journey leading up to PBP. TLDR Paris Brest Paris is only held once every four…

July 23, 2023
2023 Skyway Epic

Another year, another skyway. This is the life. This was my 11th year racing the skyway. It would be one of the few races I’ve ever had the opportunity to do every single edition … except for getting hit by a car and spending the week of the race in the hospital in 2014. This…

June 21, 2023
Six State Graceland 600k++

This ride started and ended in the land of the delta blues with a lot of delta blues in the middle, too — but no pouring rain. Instead, it was beautiful dry weather with a wind blowing pretty strong behind me as I headed north. Unfortunately, the wind did not die down much during the…

October 22, 2022