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.

On October 30, I biked 57 miles for my belated birthday ride. On November 1, I passed 4,000 miles in 10 months and a day. So, my point is, if you bike every day for three years and decide that stopping would be stupid, all that riding does add up. It takes a toll. Kinda like roads that used to be free but now collect. Which is also is certainly a topic that is a trigger for taking a siesta. Sleep is important for recovery yet the stress of the world makes it hard for many people to get a full quality eight hours. We’re all in this together. Hopefully this post doesn’t put you to sleep.

As most return readers know, I’ve been working on re-re-revising my bicycle memoir, so I’m down to just one blog post a month. But I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this important Austin bicycling news story. In The New Yorker magazine on 11/7/2022, Ian Parker wrote an excellent, lengthy, and disturbing article about it titled “A Murder Roils the Cycling World.” Subtitled “In gravel racing—the sport’s hottest category—the killing has exposed a lot of dirt,” Parker delves deeply into the love triangle, toxic masculinity, and culture of the sport.

The result was tragedy for Moriah “Mo” Wilson, the victim, her family, friends, fans, and the gravel racing community. It ruined the career of her former short-term lover, Colin Strickland, a once-dominant gravel racer who lost all his sponsors and is now basically in hiding. Then there’s the alleged murderer, Kristen Armstrong, a realtor, yoga teacher, and super-jealous live-in girlfriend of Strickland, who — wait for the irony — bought her the gun she probably used to kill Wilson. (She’s not related to disgraced former road racer Lance.) I won’t get into it further, but when you’re done here I recommend it.

As for my activities for the month, it was a tough one because I was working, then I got sick, was tired, and had to get back to work. I still eked out 451 miles, mostly on Sonnie the GT Arette. I covered almost 12,000 feet of elevation, which is interesting since I tend to avoid hills most of the time these days. It took over 44 hours of moving time and 64 hours of elapsed time (which includes 20 hours of stops and breaks). Here’s a shot of my month on Strava, the fitness app. Basically it was one whole work week of riding or three whole days including stops. That’s an average of 14.55 miles a day and 101.85 miles per week. So I might not hit my annual goal of 5,200, but I’m not doing too badly, either.

That’s on top of my daily practices of walking, yoga, reading books, writing/revising my book, practicing my flute, eating a salad and no grain flour products. Oh, don’t forget the television, though some days I don’t look at it. Anyway, in order to tell the story further, here are some photos from my outings. All photos are by me. © 2022 A Dude Abikes. All rights reserved.

Nice rain, with a bow on it; new Pearl Izumi shoes with clip-ins; rusted cartridge bottom bracket I replaced at Yellow Bike Project.

Lion outside neighborhood library; longhorn cattle, mascot of the University of Texas at Austin; a friendly orange tabby says hi.

Public art mural by UT; a VW Beetle decked out as a spider for Halloween; a cool moving projected news text display at UT.

The loaner bike at sunset at the Southern Walnut Creek Trail, which I like to call “The ‘Nut.”

More sunset shots at The ‘Nut, and your blogger dude repping Sun & Ski Sports with sunshine on his shoulder.

Texas capitol rotunda looking up; one of my latest reads; and Texas Book Festival tents.

That’s all for this time. Check back on, you guessed it, 12/12/2022.

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© 2022 A Dude Abikes. All rights reserved.