bike goals

Summer with Sommar: Bicycling in the Hottest Season Ever in Austin

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 13 Comments

“Hot times, summer in the city,” indeed. Mother Earth hates humans for polluting her earth, sea, skies, and creatures great and small. She’s getting payback with wildfires in Hawaii, tropical storms in “It never rains in” Southern California, hurricanes in Florida, and incessant, exhausting, and murderous heat waves worldwide, including here in Central Texas, USA.

Your dude has been either doing 10-mile rides outside late at night on Sonnie the GT Arette, or hiding out indoors in the life-saving air conditioning riding on Sommar the Fuji Finest with the occasional venture out. Today it wasn’t quite so hot, so I braved the elements mid-morning and survived a 33.47-mile ride. So, here’s my biking story lately, told mostly in pictures, because a third of a century takes a lot out of a dude even after a shower and nap.

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A Third Chat with Sophie the Fairdale Who Turned 15(,000 Miles) on Jan. 15th with a 15-Mile Ride

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 2 Comments

Back on April 14, 2020, I wrote a post I called “Another Chat with Sophie the Fairdale, Who Just Turned 10(,000 Miles).” Well, as you can see, we’ve just hit 15,000. So that’s worth a third chat, wouldn’t you agree? Good, I’m glad. Yes, I know you can’t really talk to bicycles. Well, you can, but they don’t answer. If they do, that would be news. Just play along, it’ll be fine, I promise. Jeez, so literal! By the way, Fairdale Bikes are an Austin company and I have to thank Fairdale Bikes, Bike Austin and Hill Abell with Bicycle Sport Shop for gifting me with Sophie in a raffle back in 2017. Be sure to check out my first post about Sophie: The Fairdale Weekender Archer: A Review of My New Bicycle I Won in a Raffle!

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124 Consecutive Days of Bicycling… and Counting

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 12 Comments

After a couple of days off the bicycle, I began riding daily on October 11, 2019. Every day since then, I’ve mounted my trusty steel steed Sophie, the Fairdale Weekender Archer to go places. Some days just a few miles were traversed; most days it’s closer to 20 miles, and a few even more. There have been no true rest days, as I am still walking and doing yoga daily, and now I’ve added an occasional lap swimming into the mix. It’s all rather exhausting, even if a particular ride isn’t taxing. The cumulative effect seems to be taking its toll. What’s A Dude with no car and #BikeGoals to do? Take the bus? Pshaw!

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