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A Walk a Day for Almost Two Years

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 7 Comments

My daily walking habit began on January 1, 2018, and I haven’t looked back since. I may have missed one day but I often do more than the allotted 30 minutes. I make sure I hit 1.5 miles, and some days it’s 2.0 or more miles, or even two walks. I don’t write about it much because it’s not that remarkable, but to me it’s a good habit for life that I wish I’d established many years ago. It’s not easy when you’re busy, sick, tired, injured, it’s cold, windy and wet outside. Somehow, I have found the discipline. And what the rewards are subtle, they are worth considering starting your own walking practice if you don’t have one.

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Stuff I Did: Dayum It Feels Good to Be a Bikestah!

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 5 Comments

I did some stuff. Maybe it’s a lot, maybe not but it’s hard to say. Everyone’s stuff is different. So if it’s okay, I’d like to tell you about my stuff. I guess that’s why you’re here. “What’s that? It’s fine.” you say. “Great, thank you, that’s very kind of you,” is my reply. Most of the stuff I did and which I’m going to tell you about has to do with bicycling. Other stuff is more tangential but still, I either went places on a bicycle or I talked about bicycling, so it counts. Without delay, here’s the stuff.

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Photographs and Memories: A Weekend in the Biking Life in Austin, Texas

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 5 Comments

Like many people in the modern era who are privileged enough to have a smart phone, electricity and mobility, I take a lot of pictures. Some good, some not, a few great. Who’s to say, though? If you like them, great. If not, move along. Trouble is, I don’t use that photo platform named after your grandmother, so when I’m riding my bicycle and take a pic, it goes either here, on my Strava fitness app (follow me there if you’re a bikester) or doesn’t see the light of day. Occasionally I post a blog with a lot of photos and some words to explain them. This is one of those times. Enjoy the whole “picture paints a thousand words” thing, yada yada.

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2,191 Days (6 Years) of Daily Yoga Practice 12/6/19: Let’s Twist Again, Like We Did Last Summer

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 5 Comments

December 6 may be the most special day of the year for me, right after my birthday and of course Festivus. But seriously, it’s very important, because it’s when I celebrate my yogaversary. My as yet unbroken daily yoga habit started as a challenge from my sister-in-law in 2013. Then it became a test to see if I could keep going. In turn it transmogrified into a streak (as in #DontBreakTheChain). Now it’s a non-negotiable. But there’s really just one basic point: I just do yoga every day.

Pretty simple. All the other words I have, could and will say about it pale in comparison to that simple phrase. The additional descriptions are so much chatter in the mind. And maybe therein lies a deeper truth about the practice: it changes you, but in subtle ways, and at a body level so that talking about it doesn’t even really get to the point. It’s a feeling. If you do it you know, but if you don’t, you ought to try it – you might like it, even if it’s not daily.

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A Class About Upwork, a Platform for Freelancers

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 16 Comments

Tonight I biked eight miles down to a co-working warehouse space in trendy South Austin. (A real bumper sticker I’ve seen says this: “78704: We’re all here because we’re not all there.”) I attended my second class about the freelance website Upwork. As one of if not the largest websites of its kind, and having an interest in freelancing, I was encouraged to sign up a year ago. I did so and listed the title of a job I don’t really want to do. Since I never spent much time becoming familiar with how it works, nothing happened. Some time last year I attended a class, which didn’t impress so I promptly forgot about it. The other day an email appeared inviting me to a presentation about setting rates in Upwork. Now that I’m identifying myself more as a (non-technical!) writer, obviously I need to redo my profile and learn how to use the system. Here is some information I learned for those who might be interested.

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November 2019 Strava Stats: 581 Miles on My Bicycle

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 2 Comments

After another 20-mile day today getting disc brake pads for Sophie the Fairdale, and then putting them on at Yellow Bike Project, I thought I’d write about that. But it seemed somewhat familiar, so guess what? It turns out I already did a post about brakes for Sookie the Fuji. So I’ll write about the month that just passed instead, which means eleven months down, one to go. I didn’t take a day off as I certainly have earned, because, goals. (Though a couple of days I only biked a mile or two, I’ve been riding daily since my birthday October 11.)

I also continued my habits of doing yoga and walking as well as of course writing this blog or editing and revising my book daily. As for all the biking, it was to make up time from this summer (presents are still accepted). Anyway, 581 miles is very good for me, especially with an injury that really slowed me down. So I had a good month on the bicycle despite of that. Herewith are the numbers for your reading pleasure.

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Attracting Abundance: Absurd, or an Art?

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 5 Comments

Recently I was reading something that suggested the reason most people are not wealthy was really our own damn fault for having negative subconscious thoughts about money, usually from growing up. Change your thinking about money, the mantra goes, and you’ll magically remove those obstacles. Of course that’s just pure illogical bunk and New Age hooey, right? There are real world factors like education, disability, corporate capitalism, class, sex, racial and other forms of discrimination, lack of access to resources and connections and more that all work to keep most of the 99% of people down.

Attracting abundance is an idea that’s not new to popular culture and the self-help world. Remember The Secret? Even though just wishing for more loot and stuff and having it show up seems ridiculous, I decided I would give it a try. What do I have to lose, right? Well, within 30 minutes of telling a friend about it, I had a half-day paying gig watching a TV show. Just for watching three episodes of a show that I hadn’t heard of but would like to see, I was going to be paid the tidy sum of $100. It was the best job I ever had. Did I get it because I had already signed up on the mailing list with the market research study? Or because I was intentionally telling the universe I was available? Who knows? But it isn’t the only time. It keeps happening!

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North East Austin Texas Bike Group Ride #3 to Find Bad Bike Infrastructure

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 4 Comments

Dear Austin, Texas: We know, you’re the Live Music Capital of the World. You like to Keep it Weird. You’re the People’s Republic of Austin. You got a Gold rating from the League of American Cyclists in 2015. And yes, you are making some improvements with Mobility Bond money. To be sure, you are way ahead of Dallas or Laredo or many other places. But you can’t sit on your laurels. So, A Dude respectfully disagrees about the bike lanes being paved with gold. That’s because I ride your streets practically every day, and from where I sit (on my bike seat), you have a LONG way to go. Let’s talk about one small step we in the tiny but mighty North East  Austin Texas Bicycle Group took for bicycling kind.

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Bike Lanes on Cameron & Dessau Roads – City of Austin Listening Session

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 9 Comments

This past Thursday the City of Austin (Texas) Active Transportation Department had a gathering for interested citizens to come give their input about bike lanes. These roads are really the same, they just change names. After passing one highway, it becomes a six-lane death trap from hell, if you’re on a bicycle. As a cyclist who volunteered numerous times on a committee for just this cause, I was keen to go and see this project finally start to come to life. It’s always interesting to participate in the process of something that could save your own life and that of friends and neighbors. Isn’t that something every bike rider should get behind?

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