4,714 Miles Bicycled in 2017 = 10,000 in 2 Years! A Recap of My “Epic Velocimania” (Day 1)

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 23 Comments

Whole Lotta Bikin’ Goin’ On

2017 Strava stats4,714 miles in 2017 and 5,306 in 2016 total 10,020 miles — that’s what A Dude Abikes bicycled in two years.  The numbers don’t lie (if you believe my Garmin vivoactive hr, Strava and GeoPositioning Satellites, that is).  But I don’t need technology to tell you that I definitely biked 40% around the equator (all the way is 24,901 miles).  Any way you look at it, it’a alot of damn miles.  Not easy with my various challenges.  But I did it.

So what, you might ask?  Lots of people ride farther and faster.  True, but I ain’t them, and they can get their own damn blog.  I often wonder why, too.  In one sense, it’s just what I do.  Also, I’m approaching 13 years of being car-free.  (Not care-free — I wish!)  So if I want to go anywhere, biking is usually the most efficient way.  Cars are expensive and pollute.  Lastly, the only race I’m in is the human one. Continue reading →

Distracted Biking: When Life Gets in the Way, Finding Ways to Just. Keep. Pedaling.

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 1 Comment

Full Catastrophe Biking

Wrecks, injury and fatigue are just some of the distractions that have kept A Dude Abikes from biking and blogging as much as he would like since his personal best doing the MS 150 back in April.  There have been devastating hurricanes and other natural disasters, the unnatural disaster of a president stoking things like possible nuclear war, elimination of health care benefits for millions of people, arrest and deportation of many immigrants who came here as children, and plenty more scandals.  The shooting in Las Vegas.  Bombings all over the place.  The never-ending parade of humanity in all its sick splendor and glory gory.  Of course good things happen all the time too.  Riding my bike with a few hundred others, in my case 65 miles, to raise almost $1,000 for breast cancer charities is a positive contribution.  You can and should make such a contribution yourself here:  http://Fundraisers.MammaJammaRide.Org/ADudeAbikes.

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My Texas Mamma Jamma jersey.  I’m not a Top Fundraiser yet!  Help me get there by donating!

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My New Custom Jerseys Are Here! Just In Time for the Mamma Jamma Breast Cancer Bike Ride. Order & Donate Today!

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 3 Comments

Here’s my link to donate.  Please give as much as you can.  Thanks!

http://Fundraisers.MammaJammaRide.Org/ADudeAbikes

Origins:  A Dude Walks Into His Doctor’s Office…

One day A Dude Abikes was sitting in a doctor’s office (ear, nose and throat Doc Slaughter, as I recall). We’re talking bikes, since he rides a bit.  Apologetically, he leans in, with a whisper, and says, “This is gonna sound a little wrong, but it’s a good thing.  It’s when you ride your bike alot, it’s called ‘Time In The Saddle.'”  I must have cocked my head to the side with a quizzical look on my face like some befuddled beagle.  He grinned conspiratorially, and said, “Think about the acronym.”  He waited a second for me to figure it out.  I must have grinned back a little, because he relaxed when I realized what it spelled and wasn’t going to nail him for being a MCP (Male Chauvinist Pig).  (Remember that phrase?) 

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Thanks to All My MS 150 Donors; Please Give NOW to My Texas Mamma Jamma Ride to Treat Breast Cancer Survivors!

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 1 Comment
MS150 progress final
My final tally from the BP MS 150 ride from Houston to Austin – 202 miles in 2 days!

We Raised $2,167 for MS Treatment and Research!

A Dude Abikes would like to give his whole-hearted thanks to the following for their magnificent donations, large, medium or small.  It’s the act of giving as much as the actual amount that made my supreme effort of 202 miles in two days on the bike back on April 29-30 have any meaning.  With the 9,000+ other riders, we raised over $13,000,000 for the cause:  for the  National MS Society to treat people with Multiple Sclerosis and drive research into better treatments and someday, a cure.  Here are the beautiful souls:

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202 Miles in 2 Days: How I Bicycled from Houston to Austin & Raised $2,000 for MS

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 15 Comments

The short answer is this:  I don’t know.  That’s the first thing that comes to mind a month after my personal best on a bike.  It was definitely a peak life experience.  But it sometimes seems like I imagined the whole thing.  I mean, who does that distance in a car or motorcycle on an average weekend, much less on a friggin’ bicycle?  There was wind, heat, hills on day one, and wind, cold, rain, and hills on day two — repeat riders say it was the hardest in a decade.  There were 9,000 other people out there (I never claimed to be special.)  Yet there are GPS maps proving I did it, and well, Strava doesn’t lie.  So when I think back to the entire experience – the rolling community of all kinds of people with all kinds of bodies on all kinds of bikes, the lush, rolling, green countryside, and of course, the sweaty, serene and sometimes serious suffering – it seems surreal.  But I definitely, most certainly, indubitably did it.  I have witnesses.  Here’s how I did it.  And many of you can too.

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Do It for Doug, Who’s Living with Multiple Sclerosis:  How to Support My MS 150 Ride from Houston to Austin

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 2 Comments

Please click to donate to A Dude Abikes MS 150 page:  http://Main.NationalMSSociety.org/GoTo/ADudeAbikes

We Are the Champions, My Friend

The MS 150 bike ride is here!  It’s April 29-30, 2017, from Houston to Austin, Texas. I On a bike.  Without a motor.  Unless you count my legs.  Which I do.   Anyhoo, it’s first about the fundraising:   last year, 13,000 cyclists inspired donations of over $16 million dollars for research and treatment.  But it also promotes awareness of Multiple Sclerosis.  I first signed up for this ride as a logical next step in my amateur bicycle riding journey, and because a fellow rider Bill offered to donate since he couldn’t ride.  But I wanted to learn more about the cause, so I became connected with a Bike MS Champion.

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Doug, pointing out his  own featured Bike MS Champion bio

The Champions program aims to communicate “why we ride” by highlighting the many different faces of MS and the different ways the National MS Society meets the needs of individuals living with MS through the generous support of Bike MS participants and fundraisers.  So A Dude Abikes was connected with Doug.  Here is the first message he sent me: Continue reading →

Why I’m Biking the MS 150 from Houston to Austin: Multiple Sclerosis Treatment & Research (P.S. SHOW ME THE MONEY!)

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 3 Comments

*** To skip right to my donation page, click on this link:

       http://Main.NationalMSSociety.org/GoTo/ADudeAbikes

Make The Miles Meaningful, Man

Previous readers (but old and new are all welcome) know that in 2016 I biked 5,306 miles, which was nothing short of incredible, especially to me.  That’s because I’m not a young, thin, professional cyclist.  (Or use PED’s [performance enhancing drugs], although I do take my share of vitamins and supplements to get me through the rides.)  But more than a few people say I’ve inspired them.  Like my good buddy from high school Jeff, who’s no slouch and climbs rocks, plus donates money.   There’s a guy on Strava in Florida I’ve never met.  My dear lunkhead brother said he began walking more on account of all my bicycling.  Co-workers, friends, family, and strangers on line in the grocery store have in various ways said my efforts were, well, to paraphrase my fellow Jewish brohim Adam Sandler’s The Hanukah Song — “not too shabby”.  So when I decided to retire from long-distance cycling, especially the charity fundraising rides, I thought I would go back to my car-free life and do more walking, swimming and weight-lifting.  No more 10 hours a week getting my 100 miles. Not having to ask for money.

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New Jersey for the MS 150

But then Bill (there’s always a Bill in these sort of stories, isn’t there?), an inline skate marathoner (!), fellow bike rider and nice guy who helped me get through a tough patch in the Mamma Jamma Breast Cancer Ride in 2015 and then donated to both my AIDS rides, said he couldn’t do the MS 150, but if I did, he would donate.  Then I won the new bike (see my previous blog post), the weather got warmer, I found myself riding more, so I said yes:  I would bike from Houston to Austin April 29th and 30th to inspire people to donate to help sufferers of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) with treatment and research for a cure.

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The Fairdale Weekender Archer: A Review of My New Bicycle I Won in a Raffle!

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 22 Comments


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Strava

A Dude Abikes on Strava

Fortune Favors the Bold

This super-exciting event started with a routine administrative procedure.  Last November I renewed my membership to Austin’s biggest advocacy and educational bicycle organization, Bike Austin.  A merger of the former League of Bicycling Voters and Austin Cycling Association, BA came to my attention due to a past landlord (who shall remain nameless and faceless, at least until I can unearth a photo he okays).  I finally joined, began volunteering, entered a raffle and voila!  I won a BRAND… NEW… BIKE! Continue reading →

12 Years (NOT) a Slave to Cars

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 4 Comments

One year ago I wrote about my anniversary of not owning a car when my car was hit on January 25, 2005.  So now it’s another year, and I suppose A Dude Abikes is a little bit proud about that accomplishment.  In last year’s post, I referenced Trump’s hair, Star Wars, real war, the environment, love and of course, bicycling.  Well, what a year it’s been!  Yes, the nightmare of a proto-fascist becoming president has come true.  But so has resistance come alive; A Dude Abikes attended the March on Austin with 50,000 friends, where he experienced a great deal of hope.  We’ve had another Star Wars movie, Rogue One, which if you think about it was about suicide bombers.  War in Syria and other places, probably some love somewhere, the hottest year on record, threats to re-open pipelines, etc. ad nauseam.  But most interesting to me, the biking.  So much biking.  ALL THE BIKING!  Did I mention I biked 5,306 miles in 2016?  I’m STILL sore!

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A Dude Abikes attended the March on Austin with up to 50,000 people, including that guy with his bike in the photo

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5,306 Miles in 2016:  A Dude Abikes’ Year of Bicycling Vigorously

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 8 Comments

Mission Accomplished. (Unlike That President)

Well, A Dude Abikes did it!  He not only met his original goal of bicycling 4,000 miles for the year (or almost 77 per week); he totally crushed it by 1,300 miles, finishing at 5,306, averaging 102 per week.  He (OK, I) bicycled the equivalent of going from Key West, Florida to the edge of Mount Denali park in Alaska.  Here’s my Strava summary chart to prove it to the doubting Thomases out there.  (NOTE:  Pictures forthcoming.)

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