drought

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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Raining, Riding, Ruminating

~ A Dude Abikes ~ Leave a comment

The rain, absent for weeks, began slowly. Forecasts seemed unreal; the wishful thinking of bored meteorologists. Heat can be somewhat managed on a bicycle, but the rain is much trickier. I thought I could beat it before it began, but I couldn’t, so I joined it. With shoe covers, bib shorts, white t-shirt, dayglo orange safety vest I found under a cheap yellow poncho, my cell phone in a plastic bag ensconced in my hip pouch, and the willingness to get wet, I set out on my trusty Fairdale Weekender Archer. Just a short bike ride in the rain, not my first rodeo, y’all.

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