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.
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12/12/2022: 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.
Continue reading8/8/2022: Biking While the Heat Is On in Austin
We’re on track to have the hottest summer EVER in Austin, Texas. (Climate science deniers ought to move along right now.) Texans are accustomed to the heat, but not like this. In 2011 we had 90 days over 100 F. So far in 2022, we’ve had 58 of those 100+ days. May, June, and July were record breaking hot. August is the worst month. Also, it’s barely rained, so we’re in an extreme drought. Many places from France and the UK to California are experiencing extra high temperatures. The hotness makes bicycling, as well as other important activities like standing up, breathing, and putting on pants a bit challenging.
Continue reading7/7/2022: 1,000 Days in a Row Bicycled, Humbly Submitted by A Dude Abikes
It began October 19, 2019 for no particular reason. The thousandth day was yesterday, July 6, 2022. Why I did it is still a mystery. How isn’t that hard to explain. I just kept at it every day for a few months shy of three years. What does it all mean? I really have no clue. I just ride, man.
Continue reading6/6/2022: What’s Been Going On, Dude?
I’m out of retirement, but I’m tired. Long story, but not time to tell it all. Let’s just say life has intervened and conspired to reduce my availability for kicking ass, taking names, and doing chores. So a short monthly post is all I can and care to must for now. A little dab o’ Dude’ll do ya, right?
Continue reading5/5/2022: James Clear Is Killing Me With His Atomic Habits
At the end of last’s month’s post, Blog Post #666: The Blog In Which I Announce My Retirement from Blogging*, was a little-noticed * aka asterisk. Only one astute reader followed that to the denouement and figured out the meaning in these words, hidden in plain view: “Respectfully submitted on 01.04.22*, ADAB.” That’s European formatting, day first, month second. That reader was the ever-sharp Half Fast Cycling Club (say it out loud — it’s a fun pun) up in Wisconsin. Not only has he (I’m deducing that’s his pronoun) ridden his bicycle across most of the US (and he’ll correct me in the comments if I’m wrong about that), he’s fixin’ to do it again — at almost 70 years of age. Oh yeah, to do the trip, he’s resigning his hospital job as a literal lifesaver of COVID patients (mostly the ignorant “I did my own research on Facebook” variety). So kudos to Half Fast, and to the rest of you (except if you are in other countries where this peculiar American prank day is not celebrated), I say this: APRIL FOOLS, suckahs! Strap in, it’s going to be a long post.
Continue readingSOPHIE STOLEN! Beloved Bicycle Boosted by Brazen Burglar! (+ How You Can Help!)
The evening of Saturday, January 8, 2022, I was inside a big box store talking to a clerk about replacing my over four-year-old cell phone. I had parked Sophie, the Fairdale Weekender Archer, a bicycle who has been my trusty sidekick since I won her in a Bike Austin raffle in 2017, a mere 10 feet away in the small vestibule for shopping carts. Since I was so close and regularly looking right at her, I did not use my u-lock and cable lock — a fatal mistake I’ll never make again. At 6:30 pm, a brazen thief walked into the little lobby, stood there for 20 seconds, then walked out with my bicycle while I wasn’t looking. The next time I looked up, Sophie was gone, and with her, a piece of my soul.
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