#charityride

11 Years of Sonnie the GT Arette Bicycle

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 12 Comments

In my recent post about my first charity ride a decade ago, I mentioned Sonnie the GT Arette. She was a gift to me from my former reflexologist sometime in 2014. Richard the Lionhearted, I called him. He took pity on me because of  the 2013 Christmas morning theft of the first bike I bought for myself, a smoke grey KHS Urban Xpress (with no name) which I had unmindfully left locked with only a cable on the front porch. (What I rode in the interim, I don’t recall. Probably, I just walked and bused.) Sonnie became my main squeeze for a while, but she’s still here as a trusty backup. Today she gets the spotlight she deserves.

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Mamma Jamma Ride to Beat Breast Cancer Happy Hour

~ A Dude Abikes ~ Leave a comment

Last night I biked out to one of Austin, Texas’s brew pubs, where they make their own beer.  Cold but dry after rain early in the day, it was not long but I had the bike rack all to myself.  Riders from the recent Mamma Jamma Ride which I was part of on September 22, 2018 were invited to have a free cold one, socialize with others, and pick up their gift bags or some extra goodies.  I decided to ride over and join in.  And you can join me for this little night cap.  I mean recap.  Tee many martoonis, sorry!  Just kidding.

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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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