I have a map neurosis when I travel. Even when navigating a straight line in a grid city, I must pause every few blocks to reorient myself. God help me in a non-grid city like Boston or London. The spines of my guidebooks crack, the corners and folds of my maps turn soft, and any time I save by not getting lost is negated by all the time I stand checking coordinates and scratching my head.

It's in that spirit of wayfinding that I've been re-reading lately, giving second and third reads to the books that on their first read promised to be my guidebooks. Over the years I have shuffled along and changed, so it makes sense to revisit them. (And why bother having a personal library if it is never drawn from?) In this double-checking I reorient myself according to where I've been, what landmarks are now in view and what roads are newly opened or closed.

(That said, I concede that I'm not sure where I'm going, but I'm nonetheless happy with how I'm getting there. Recall my experience in Yosemite: I wasn't lost. It was the goddamn path that didn't know its way.)

No surprise, media consumption this year waned whenever the cycling waxed. Even though I didn't race as much as others, I trained like a madman, and my heaviest months for movies were the winter months when I plowed through DVDs on the trainer. (Movies spiked in May, but six of the seven were from the "Star Wars" series in anticipation of and including Episode III.)

Here, then, are my 10 most-enjoyed books, movies and races of 2005*:

Books:

1. "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close," Jonathan Foer
   
2. "Ballad of the Whiskey Robber," Julian Rubinstein
   
3. "The Rider," Tim Krabbe
   
4. "Cloud Atlas," David Mitchell
   
5. "Slouching Toward Bethlehem," Joan Didion
   
6. "The Perfect Mile," Neal Bascomb
   
7. "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," Robert Pirsig
   
8. "Ravelstein" Saul Bellow
   
9. "Big Deal," Anthony Holden
   
10. "Chicago Noir," Neal Pollack ed.

Movies**:

1. "Brokeback Mountain"
2. "Annie Hall"
3. "Hell on Wheels"
4. "American Flyers"
5. "Adaptation"
6. "Syriana"
7. "Capote"
8. "Before Sunset"
9. "House of Flying Daggers"
10. "Shopgirl"

Races:

1. Circuit of Sauk
2. Fall Fling Criterium No. 1
3. Tour da Chicago (Tic Tac Toe)
4. Lakefront Road Race
5. Sherman Park Criterium
6. St. Charles Cycling Classic
7. Alpine Valley Road Race
8. Leland Grand Prix
9. Matteson Tuesday Series (June 28)
10. Tour da Chicago (Prologue)

* Not to be confused with "10 best."
** I saw only 17 theatrical releases, so big- and small-screen viewings are classed together.