If a picture is worth a thousand words, here are 25,000 of them as I rode 53 miles on March 20, 2016. Click on the individual pictures to see the captions. Enjoy, I sure did!
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
1,000 miles: that’s how far my GPS app Strava tells me that I have bicycled in 2016 as of March 15. Not too shabby, if you ask me. If you’ve been reading this blog since the beginning (if you haven’t, you really ought to!), you know my first words were 3,000 miles. That is the distance I estimated biking in 2015. (Truth be told it was probably closer to 3,500, but that was pre-Strava.) So with 20% of the year gone, I’ve already achieved 25% of my goal of 4,000. At this pace, I will reach 5,000 miles. Whatever number I reach, I’m on track (so to speak) to bike pretty damn far for me. Continue reading
One of the local authors A Dude Abikes met at One Page Salon (see my last post) is Natalia Sylvester. I’ve just checked her book Chasing the Sun out from the Austin public library and look forward to reading it sometime I’m not working or biking. Not only was she brilliant of mind, beautiful of visage and generous with advice, she was kind. Clearly she has not hit the stereotypical writer’s bottle just yet. Here’s a blurb:
Andres suspects his wife has left him—again. Then he learns that the unthinkable has happened: she’s been kidnapped. Too much time and too many secrets have come between Andres and Marabela, but now that she’s gone, he’ll do anything to get her back. Or will he?
Nice, right? Tight, to the point, to the point. Taking a look at Natalia’s blog, I was struck by how economical she was with her words, something I have yet to master. But I know it’s the sign of a good writer. This is a rest day from the bike, after yesterday’s 24.9 miles (total for the day on Strava) – I missed 25 by that much, although that did not include my new short commute). So I thought I’d try to emulate that and just put pen to paper.
Riding, like writing, is another example where less is usually better. The fewer pedal strokes you take, the more energy is conserved. And the less energy wasted the better. A Dude is no athlete, not in perfect health, and is no spring chicken either, so he feels every mile. So constantly shifting gears help ascend the hills and descend the dales. Downshifting by not even biking for a day or two, or just going on a short recovery ride, is akin to shutting the hell up and being a good listener. To wit: sometimes the best answer to a stupid question is no words at all, just a wry smile. ;~}
“Regardless of how much money you have, your race, where you live, what religion you follow, you are going through something. Or you already have or you will. As momma always said, “Everybody’s got something.”
-Robin Roberts, Everybody’s Got Something
After a work retreat Monday, A Dude Abikes was at the top of this serious hill between Mesa and Loop 360. I’ve always feared it, and yet since becoming serious about biking, I’ve wondered if I could bike up it. It’s not called the Hill Country for nothing. So after bragging to some co-workers that I was going to do it, I went ahead and just did it. Without stretching, warming up, wearing my stretchy jeans with a full back-pack. I admit it was a little insane but as Helen Keller said (who was a good and actual socialist, by the way): “Life is a grand adventure or nothing at all.”
I don’t have any witnesses, and Strava didn’t record it right, but I achieved my top speed to date: 47 miles per hour. The downhill was awesome, and one missed rock or a wrong move and I would have been a bloody mess on the ground requiring an ambulance ride. But I made it down without incident — just alot of adrenaline — and then stopped to look up. I hoped the woman in the car stopped at the light would look at me like in a movie and say, “What, are you going to bike THAT? Are you nuts?!” But she didn’t notice I existed. This is my Little Engine that Could moment and you’re ignoring me? What a bee…yootiful day for a bike ride!
A Dude Abikes has not blogged for a while, but he’s back with a vengeance. He succumbed to Austin’s annual “Cedar Fever,” in which Hill Country juniper trees poison the Austin area air with a horrible cloud of yellow pollen which comes out of the body as green mucous. It envelopes the city and pollutes the lungs of its denizens like a big huge smelly fart that brings tears to the eyes and lingers — for three months. In addition, A Dude had to move due to rising rents without a similar increase in the filthy lucre from his daily labors. He’s looking for a new crib after his temporary place kicks him to the curb. So, he’s busy. To make up for it he’s including alot of photos from recent rides. Hopefully you’ll enjoy them.
Continue reading
The crash happened on January 25th, 2005, a sunny Tuesday in Austin, Texas. I was driving my 1995 red Honda Civic 2-door hatchback with almost 200,000 miles on it west on Bee Caves Road. A truck pulled in front of me and didn’t get out of the way in time, resulting in a “t-bone” accident. I survived, the car did not; it was the truck driver’s fault. That was the last day I owned a car for a decade and a year… and counting.
Skip ahead to today, January 26th, 2016, when I celebrated, silently to myself save for you, dear reader, 11 years of biking, busing, walking, and yes, sometimes driving an employer’s for work or that of a friend, but essentially being car-free. I was carless for many other years, too. So yay me for my little statement, victory, accomplishment or whatever you want to call it. Some might say it’s a failure to make enough money to buy a new car, and they might be partially right about that. So buy me a car, already! I’m not against cars, just the accidents, pollution, congestion and isolation they promote.
But it’s mostly been a choice. It means little to anyone but me, and even less the tens of people who may see this blog, but it’s still another accomplishment in my story as a bicyclist. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a huge deal. Millions of people around the world don’t have cars, due to poverty or better mass transit options. But in the U.S., particularly a state like Texas, being carless is an anomaly.
So A Dude treated himself with what else? A bike ride. And also a movie, but not one about the Civil War as referenced in the title to this post (if you’re a human person, especially a white one, and haven’t seen 12 Years a Slave, please do). I finally went to see Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens two days before its run ends at the huge Bob Bullock Museum IMAX 3-D screen. There is one slight spoiler below but a month after the film came out, that’s on you.
So many sights, sounds and stories occur over the course of a ride they cannot all be encapsulated. Three deer staring at me from the Southern Walnut Creek Trail (my home turf, stomping on the pedals grounds). I came upon two fellow bicyclists, Chad and Joey, fixing a tire. They were fine, but asked about my awesome bright yellow visor with the words BIKE AUSTIN emblazoned on it. (Bike Austin is a great bicycling advocacy organization I finally joined as a member — you can and should too! — and for whom I began volunteering a couple of months ago; I’ve been on some of their social rides, too.) Another rider had asked me while I was seated, putting on more clothes, if I “had all I needed.” (As a matter of fact, A Dude was without back-up tubes, a risky no-no). So, instant karma. There was the awesome sunset pictured above. And so on. The wonders never cease. Here’s the link to today’s map, data and other cool stuff on Strava (bicycling app).
I began the day by attending Quaker aka Friends Meeting, which is a generally silent meditation, though if people are so led they may stand and speak, as two elders did. A Dude has been meditating daily half an hour for almost a year, so this was a good way to check that off today’s to-do list whilst in the supportive company of others. Not unlike bicycling, while also purely an individual effort, when practiced in a group setting, meditation is just easier, somehow. Amidst the backdrop of traffic noise, a fussy baby, the occasional coughs and creaking building, I found a bit of peace and stillness that I tried to carry with me on the bike the rest of the day. Quakers are also into peace and simplicity, and biking certainly supports those values. If more people biked instead of drove a car, the U.S. military would have less need to invade countries for their oil, and there’d be less pollution, too. It’s certainly simpler and cheaper to bike than maintain and operate a car. (About $8,000 a year according to a local biking guru.)
A Dude Abikes and keeps on riding, even when he doesn’t have time to be writing. Between his job, life, and of course biking, there’s simply not time to set down in internet ink every ride and every story. Perhaps someday when his lottery ticket stops saying “Not a Winner.” A Dude knows he’s a winner inside, no matter what the haters at the lottery commission say.
Tonight I went for a ride to check out some new places to live. One was a dump and the dog was whining the whole time. She has a greeting disorder. The other is possible, we’ll see. So with that and rides to and from work, I put in a 10-mile day. Not really remarkable. But it was T.I.T.S. (Time In The Saddle) nonetheless (see my previous post for more on that).
The latest “ride” (defined by me as over 20 miles requiring some exertion) was this past lazy Sunday. The riding pal and I went for a nice but chilly ride to Northwest Austin to visit a friend. He was super late as he often is so we missed the friend. But aside from that it was pleasant. Nothing crazy, numerous stops, low wind, sunny, no mishaps, 25 miles. Nice. Here’s the scoop: January 10 ride on Strava
But a funny thing happened, as things are wont to do while bike-riding. We stopped at a sub shop (yeah, that’s how we roll sometimes, pun not intended but we’ll take the ugh anyway), and we had delicious Philly cheesesteaks. The guy there was all about triathalon training, and he was also on Strava. He was playing a video to keep himself and his co-worker from getting too bored. It ended and he put in another DVD.
Guess what he played? It was none other than the muppet fantasy movie Labyrinth, starring David Bowie as the Goblin King. Hours later over in England, Bowie died. Oooh. Weird coincidence. Sad. A Dude was once in a high school garage band that played “Suffragette City.” So he loved the guy’s music too. Rock on, wherever you are David Robert Jones. Here are two fun clips from HBO, one of him skewering Ricky Gervais in song on the latter’s show Extras called “The Little Fat Man With The Pug Nosed Face.” (Bowie enters at 5’40”). The other is from Flight of the Conchords’ called “Bowie’s in Space.” Hilarious tributes.
Time has passed and the details of the day are fading, but I remembered I needed to get some more natural unflavored whey protein. A Dude prefers Biochem Natural Flavor 100% Whey Protein. This is much better tasting and a more complete product than the unnamed vegan pea protein I previously tried. It’s like sucking on dirty socks, really. (Er, I imagine.) If you watch the ads, you can get it for 25% off at Sprouts during their quarterly health and beauty sale.
Passing by an Asian shopping center, the co-rider went inside for some spicy sauce. I got this photo above of a marble dragon and koi in a brick pond, with my Fuji bike in the background. Pretty cool work for a shopping center. The last year of the dragon in the Chinese astrological realm was 2012 (black water dragon, to be precise). That New Year approaching February 8th (red fire monkey, if you’re curious).
That’s apropos of nothing except that with a new year, there are new challenges. I signed up for Distance and Climbing challenges on Strava. Not to race others, just to see how I’m doing. So far, I’m on track for a 4,000-mile year. That’s worth writing about, but first I have to do the riding. I wonder if Bowie ever bicycled. Turns out, he’s inspired a big ride in Portland called Bowie v. Prince.
David Bowie has done so much in his life’s work, but one of the lesser-known things is getting more people in Portland to ride bikes, even if just one day of the year.
Pretty cool. On a much, Much, MUCH smaller scale, perhaps I will inspire someone to bike too. Like another British glam artist named Freddie Mercury of Queen once sang:
I like to ride my bicycle / I like to ride my bike / I like to ride my bicycle / I like to ride it where I like.
Time. In. The. Saddle. What did you think it meant? A doctor who bikes told me this, so it’s okay. And he’s right. Spending alot of time sitting on a bike seat, legs spinning out the miles while time goes by, is what one needs to do to feel comfortable on long bike rides. A Dude enjoys alot of T.I.T.S, going 10-miles an hour average with stops as he does.
So Tuesday night, feeling tired, not having a riding buddy, but knowing it would rain the next day, and as Monday was mostly a rest day, I suited up and got back in the saddle. Because that’s what A Dude does, even when he doesn’t particularly feel like it. Instead of puttin’ on the ritz, he’s puttin’ in the T.I.T.S. Here’s my 33.5-mile ride results on Strava.
It was a chilly night, but eventually I had to remove my hat with nose and mouth cover, outer gloves, and unzip jacket and jersey. I had a fun thought and did a fly by of the residences of one riding partner and then the place of another friend. Strava isn’t 100% accurate, but it shows I was there, for sure. But I didn’t stop, because that would mean less T.I.T.S. Still, good times.
Winding my way back north from nearly to the Austin airport, I found myself on my old friend, the Southern Walnut Creek Trail. Riding it at night is fun, now that I know the way well, plus with my super-bright rechargeable Serfas Thunderbolt lights that I lucked upon at the Bike Farm and a freebie orange and yellow safety vest I got lucky and got for free at the Yellow Bike Project, I feel alot more comfortable. (How’s that for name-dropping?) Saw a cottontail rabbit who almost ran in front of me, and then nearly hit a possum. The three wild boar I saw previously were not there. Five guys having a party were the only humans I passed.
Time is short and A Dude is tired, so I’ll say that at one point I heard coyotes. People in cars yielded the right of way. My knees hurt. So did other things I won’t go into. Nothing happened, and yet everything happened: life, going by quickly. I had seen my friend’s riding on Strava, so I set out with a goal to bike more than my riding buddy did. The rain only fell in sprinkles, and I did not fall off the bicycle, get hit by a car, or receive a ticket. I simply put in the time in the Saddle, and that is it’s own reward.
Of course having the ability to spend hours biking and thinking of something else is a bit of a luxury. But one with blood, swear and tears, too. More to come but I welcome your invitation. Keep on reading, and I’ll keep on writing.
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Thanks! A Dude Abikes
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A Dude Abikes 