7/7/2023: Forget France! Ride The Tour de YOU & Fight Climate Change

It’s July and sunflower season, so that means it’s Tour Time. That is, Le Tour de France, that grueling 3,000-kilometer bike race and tourist advert. Sure, there are two other grand tours: the Giro d’Italia in June and La Vuelta de Espana later in summer. But France is the big dance. I used to be an avid watcher of it, then stopped for a while due to a certain disgraced US rider who was based here in Austin, Texas. I began watching it again, and then stopped again. Mostly because of the huge time suck involved watching andn not knowng many of the new crop of riders. I kinda miss it, but I’m just trying to make sure I get on my own bike every day. The spectacle of the Tour is captivating and the stories are interesting. But what if we got curious and made our own stories more interesting? What if we could find fascination in our short rides to the store, or the commute to work, the weekend jaunts on the trail, and more?

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AROUND THE WORLD IN 1,770 DAYS (24,901 MILES): 5-YEAR GOAL ACCOMPLISHED !!!

*NEWER POSTS ARE BELOW.* Yes. I did it. I finally finished the equivalent of bicycling one lap of Planet Earth at the equator. Pretty awesome, if you ask me. Or even if you didn’t ask. Let me tell you about it. You’re already here, right? May as well keep reading. It’s a lot easier than biking around the world, I can assure you of that!

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In a World, Not Too Far Away…

A mysterious disease has ravaged Planet Earth’s once-dominant species, Homo sapiens, wiping out hundreds of millions. Survivors pick up the pieces and begin a movement for a new society. Fossil fuels and internal combustion engines ceased to exist. Even electric cars were no more. The much vaunted high technology — which many people worshiped as an omnipotent deity — mostly failed. A huge electromagnetic pulse triggered by financial and staffing meltdowns decimated the electrical grid.

Humans had no choice but to return to a mostly agrarian existence, as nature began to reclaim the silent concrete in cities. Park land, rooftops and abandoned big box stores were harnessed to grow food. In order to survive, humans had to unlearn many of their modern, urban bad habits. They learned how to live in harmony with the land, sea and skies which they had raped, pillaged and burned for so long in a greedy chase of profits and wealth. Cooperation and collaboration were the new ethos. Unsurprising to those who had been riding them, bicycles became the primary form of transport.

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