After last month’s crippling ice storm, and some 90 degree days, winter has reasserted itself in Central Texas. After a cold front with some rain, it’s cooled off a fair bit, is sunny, with little wind. In other words, it’s just about perfect for biking and all manner of outdoor activities. Things are already starting to bloom, spring break is coming and with it the South by Southwest juggernaut, March madness basketball if you’re into that sort of thing, and just lots of stuff going on outside before it gets too hot and humid and then just hot. For A Dude, that means ditching the home trainer and getting out there more on Sommar the Fuji Finest bike.
Continue readingThe Rest of 2022: Besides Walk and Bike, What Else Did A Dude Do?
As I wrote in the post 1/1/23: 5,008 Bicycled + 536 Walked = 5,544 Miles in 2022, I did some those miles on my bicycle and walking. But what about the rest of my activities? Today is 2/23/23, serendipitously. Let us review, but not vigorously. For I am weary, you see. What will A Dude’s next rhyme be? Well, now I’m out, fortuitously. To the next paragraph, shall we? Oops, he spoke (wrote) prematurely. One may make the letter e sound go with most English words. Obviously.
Continue reading2/2/23: Ice Is Not Nice for Bicycling; It’s Winter in America Again
The worst ice storm to hit Austin since 2007 has plunged a third of the city’s utility customers into darkness. Sure, it’s an act of nature, and 2/3 of an inch of ice weighs hundreds of pounds, crews are working as fast as they can, yada yada. Thanks to an inept City government that cannot keep the trees trimmed and the lights on, we have days if not many days more to go. Yeah, life without cold showers, lights, refrigeration, heating, cooking, the internet, or streaming, is not exactly suffering–that’s what hundreds of millions if not a few billion on earth endure daily–and worse.
Continue readingThis Is Not My Beautiful House: A Meditation on Home
Wales. Besides the large sea mammals, what comes to mind when I hear the word Wales are three things: Welsh rarebit, Welsh cyclist and one-time Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas, and Welsh Corgi dogs. I’ve never had the first one, I’ve never met the second, but I’m looking at one of the third. I’m pet and housesitting while the owner is away. And what comes to mind from that is the Talking Heads song, “Once in a Lifetime”: “This is not my beautiful house.” Maybe you know the song, which was a big hit on the radio, and it was on first day MTV appeared on the airwaves back in 1981. It makes me think of that time, Ronald Reagan, the Cold War, Wall Street excess (“greed is good”), the American Dream of owning a home, among other things. So, behold a brief blog ’bout… all that jazz.
Continue readingA Year Since Sophie Was Stolen, Meet My Sexy Cycle Sommar (Fuji Finest)
A year and a day ago, on January 8, 2021, Sophie the Fairdale Weekender Archer was shockingly stolen. Sad times for sure. Read that sob story here… (and weep.) After a few months of test cycling, some adjustments with seats and stems and such, hemming and hawing, and typical Libran weighing of the pros and cons, I have a new (to me) bicycle, a Fuji Finest. I’m calling her Sommar (some MAHR), which is Swedish for “summer’. That’s because she’s a lightweight cro-moly steel vintage racing bike with skinny tires that just feels like you must go riding on a warm day, wind in your face, sun on your skin… Toes in the sand, drink in your hand. All you need… is the woman,” as Van Halen sang. But it’s a bike.
Continue reading1/1/23: 5,008 Bicycled + 536 Walked = 5,544 Miles in 2022
Well, another year is in the books; 2022 is history (or herstory), and here it is 2023. The changing of the calendar is always a shock to the system, but also has the hope of doing better. Before we can move forward with resolutions, goals, and the like, it’s helpful to look back. While in many ways it was not a good year for A Dude Abikes due to illness, work, and life conspiring against me, I still managed to get out there* every single day, still streaking, and string together some solid Strava stats. Let’s go to the numbers.
Continue reading12/12/2022: Slow, but Still I Go — Biking, Walking, Etc.
Another month has gone by since my last post, and just a few weeks are left in the year. As the weather cools and holidays and a new year approach, thoughts turn inward, toward retrospection, and to the future. There’ll be time for a review of the year come January, though. For now, what has gone on since 11/11? Work, for one. It has involved a lot of walking, which has been surprisingly exhausting. Seven or eight miles when you’re used to the equivalent steps of three miles, and standing for long hours in between, is a change. Other things like rain, health stuff, and perhaps some existential ennui have slowed me down, too. In the past month, I’ve alternated between 80-110 miles per week riding my bicycle. Not great, but not horrible.
Continue reading11/11/2022: 4,000 Miles + Longest Ride of the Year = Tired, But Still Pedaling
As silly season, aka the US election drama (or trauma, depending on your point of view) continues, I vote for something all Americans can get behind: a nap. That’s because I’m bushed from bicycling a lot. (Insert a joke about everyone in the US being tired after George Sr. was elected and then his son the Shrub also became president, tired, aka bushed.) Read on, it gets better.
Continue reading10/10/2022: Sonnie Has a Surprising Adventure; 3 Years of Daily Cycling
“Live and learn,” said Frederick Douglass. I say, “Live, learn, forget, and have to learn again.” As you may recall, Sophie the Fairdale, who was 10 feet away from me but not locked, was stolen out from under my nose back on January 8th. That’s what happened again late last month with Sonnie the GT bicycle when I entered a convenience store for a drink, came out, and re-entered to fill my water bottle. When I was done, I came out to find Sonnie was gone. But, wait for it… I got her back! A story with a mostly happy ending is better than the alternative. Read on for the details of this strange adventure.
Continue reading9/9/2022: Sookie Shares with Sonnie; Autumn Approacheth; Failing Fast Forward
In this installment I’ll try and fail again to summarize what I’ve been up to for the last month. There’s too much to pack into one post. It seems the more I work on my book, and read other books, the more I realize that the art of writing is as much about what gets left in as what gets taken out. In his intriguing novel John Woman, Walter Mosley touches on this idea by having his eponymous protagonist (a professor with a checkered past and a troubled present), explore the deconstruction of history. His professor believes many things about his field, the main one as I understand it so far, is that it is not absolute. We are constantly creating history, our own and the larger world’s, Professor Woman teaches his students.
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A Dude Abikes 