"It's the time of year that the apps on my phone reduce hopes and dreams into statistics"

The Doc compiles his own unique year-in-numbers

- Michael Hutchinson

Christmas is almost here.

It’s the time of year that most of the apps on my phone attempt to reduce all the hopes, dreams, achievements and guilty pleasures of 2025 to a handful of statistics, and in one case a projected “listening-age” that, after thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided to take as a compliment rather than a joke.

So I thought I'd strike back against the machines by compiling my own personal year-in-numbers.

8,526.4 Number of kilometres covered. A little disappointing, to be honest. If I'd done it all in a straight line it would have taken me, by an odd coincidence, to a friend's house in San Francisco, and been accurate almost to the metre. If I'd done that, of course, that would have counted as quite an adventure. As it is, if you put it all on the map at once it just looks like an enraged toddler has scribbled all over East Anglia.

847 My Zwift score. It's out of 1000, but other than that, I don't really know what this means.

HOW TO... KEEP MOTIVATED

If you're the sort of rider who sticks to a training programme, who gets out for rides bang on time and loves every minute of it, and whose zest for long hard rides in the rain is like a force of nature, well, congratulations. And you should know that the rest of us would very much enjoy watching you be struck by lightning.