Your dude is pretty good about keeping the rubber side down. A recent exception to the rule deserves some ink. I’ve had a few days to think it over and for the pain to subside somewhat. The three ingredients that keep coming to mind that make this recipe for disaster are: 1) low headlight battery, 2) too much downhill speed, and 3) overconfidence that I knew the road. Do the opposite of those, and you might reduce your own chances of taking a spill. What’s done is done, but here’s how it happened… and the aftermath. (What was there before math, anyway? Lunch period, probably.)
Continue reading6/6/2024: And I Did Bike 1,000 Miles, And I Did Bike 1,000 More…
…just to be A Dude who biked 2,000 miles to be at your door. Those are paraphrased lyrics from The Proclaimers, a Scottish band’s big hit. And it’s a milestone I just passed. Well, yesterday. I added 20 miles tonight. Usually, I’ll get into my Strava statistics on the 11th, but five days early, so what?
Continue readingHabits: Hard to Make, Easy to Break
Unless you’re a nun, the word “habit”–like making going to the gym a habit–may send a chill down your spine, send you burrowing into your bedsheets, or make you want to throw up a little in your mouth. We may want to do something that we know is good for us but is hard and not fun. This dude has made much ado of making daily habits, particularly yoga, walking, and bicycling. I’ve been keeping those and several others every day for several years, and the yoga for over 10 years. I first alluded to these streaks with a mention of “Don’t Break the Chain” in a post referencing Jerry Seinfeld. Type “habits” in the Search bar of this blog, and you’ll easily find some helpful posts on the subject. The experiment to see how long I could keep things going has been interesting, and I continue with those three daily practices. But with other habits, it was only a matter of time before life intervened. It turns out that I’m only human, after all. Assuming you are too, I hope there’s something in here about habits that will resonate for you.
Continue reading5/5/24: It’s Bike Month (Again). Does It Matter?
It’s that time of year–May aka Bike Month–when we’re supposed to celebrate bicycles extra hard. Why? Because the League of American Cyclists and other groups say so. The other 11 months you can just fuggehaboudit. There’s Bike to School Day; Bike to Work Day with breakfast tacos, free swag, a self-congratulatory after-party; a Clinic on beginning City Cycling (not for the faint at heart); a Frankenbike sale; and so on. But we here at A Dude Abikes have to ask the hard-hitting questions that our award-unwinning journalistic reportage and yooge, bigly ethics require and wonder: Does Bike Month ever really accomplish its goals? Does it matter? To quote the great pop rock band Chicago’s question in a song: “Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?”
Continue readingTop 10 Tips for the Aging Cyclist
Hi. Your dude here. I recently griped again about that which ails me. I’m somehow but barely managing to keep biking each day, even when it’s slow to low mileage. It occurred to compile a list, a la Letterman (David), though not as amusing, but more useful. (No wives were cheated on my or interns schtupped in the making of this blog post, having neither, wife, intern, nor hit TV show.) Anyway, if you’re doing things right, you are currently still alive as you read this and so you’re aging, too. Very relatable. So, if you bike, walk, hike, run, swim, etc. you might resonate with the idea that the old bod is not able to do what it used to do (be do be do). Without further ado, and no doo doo, here’s…. Dudey!
Continue reading4.5 Years of Consecutive Daily Bicycling, and This Dude Is Pretty Damn Tired
“Everybody’s “got something.” That’s the title that Good Morning America host Robin Roberts gave to her book about fighting then recovering from cancer–twice. I’ve mentioned–okay, complained–about the various things that my body’s got plenty of times. I guess this is another one of those times. Because despite the milestone of daily riding my bicycle, my mileage is miserable, my Strava stats simply suck, and this dude’s definitely dealing with downright dullness. But for some perspective, the moon and sun achieved totality in eclipse the other day here in Central Texas. It was pretty cloudy and anticlimatic especialy for all of those who plunked down thousands to come see it. This dude, and the Earth, spin on.
Continue reading4/4/2024: Parking in Bike Lanes is Illegal; Austin City Council: “But We Really Mean It This Time!”
You’re not supposed to park in the bike lanes because it’s wrong. When drivers park in bike lanes, they endanger (and potentially kill) people on bikes because have to ride out into traffic. There are those drivers who don’t care (aka sociopaths), don’t understand (can’t read the signs), or are in a hurry/are lazy. For all of them, the motivation should be to avoid a ticket. We’ll see about that.
Continue readingPoem: Call Me Not Ismael, but Rather A Dude Atrikes!
This blog post takes the form of a poemContinue reading
Your feet, they're Longfellows
Alas, ye hardly know 'em
Yada yada, the punster bellows.
On St. Patrick’s Day, How the Bicycle Helped Bring Feminism, Freedom, and More to Ireland
Today is the holiday of St. Patrick’s Day which falls during International Women’s History Month, plus it’s been two weeks since my last post. Also, I’m a quarter Irish-American myself. All together, those are as good a reason as any to blog. But when it comes to bicycling and Ireland, I don’t know much. Sure, I’ve heard of famous Irish pro cyclists Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche, and Dan Martin (born in England but a dual national, given his mother is Irish and related to Roche). I enjoyed watching the latter back when I tuned into the Tour de France. Martin was a cheeky breakaway and mountain climbing specialist. Professional sports isn’t for 99.9% of people who bike, though. There’s also that Idlecyclist chap, the fellow blogger who’s doing more hiking these days. (No judgement, and it still rhymes). But it was fascinating to learn that the bicycle has an important role in Irish history.
Continue reading3/3/2024: Why I Hate E-Bikes / E-Bikes Might Also Be OK
I just wrote a post the other day, How Writing Has Helped My Bicycling, but the month and day numbers match again, so it’s already time for another post. As for a topic, I had a hard time choosing one. I was going to go with biking while sick, since I’ve been struggling with something for a few weeks now. A normal person would stop biking until they got better. But I’m in the capitol of Texas where one of our slogans is “Keep Austin Weird,” so in my case, I just have kept riding somehow. I do slower and thus fewer miles, which makes me sad not to meet my goal. There’s not much more to say on that subject, which is boring. I haven’t done an Austin Cycling News Roundup in a while, but I’ve not been very plugged into the bike scene lately, and that takes a little time to research. I considered reviewing the Reddit bicycle discussion, r/BikingATX, but also not much there. So, I landed on my hatred of electric bicycles aka e-bikes, otherwise known as motorcycles. Yeah, I said it.
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