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Un-Lazy Sunny Sunday 2: Anatomy of My 42-Mile Bike Ride

~ A Dude Abikes ~ Leave a comment

At 5:47 PM on Sunday, August 2, 2020, I headed out on Sophie my trusty Fairdale after an appointment I had ridden six miles to get to. I thought I’d put in another 14 miles to make it another 20 for the day. But in the back of my mind was the thought, “I’ve got several 150-mile weeks in a row under my belt. If I stop now, I’ll break that chain.” And if you know A Dude, you konw he likes to #DontBreakTheChain (first noted in Jerry Seinfeld & The Juiceman Can Teach Us About Making Healthy Choices (Day 2). There had been a little rain to cool things down, I was feeling a little better, and as the title says, I found my 40-miler legs. Sounds easy right? Maybe I make it seem that way, but nope, it’s never easy. Allow me to explain.

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622 Miles Biked in July 2020: This Dude Is on Fiyah!

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 6 Comments

Alright, alright, alright. I don’t literally mean on fire. But it is a quote from Matthew McConaghey as Woody Wooderson in the Austin-area film Dazed and Confused. Matt is apparently one hell of a dude, citizen, University of Texas at Austin professor (really!), and he happens to live up the highway from me. Oh yeah, I guess he won an Oscar or something for acting in Dallas Buyers Club. That’s all a seque, because alright is how I performed on the bicycle in July of 2020.

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Garmin Is Down – How to Upload Your Bike Rides to Strava

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 2 Comments

I’m not retracting my recent rave review about my Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music smart watch. On tonight’s 26-mile ride, it told me how far away I was from home, mere seconds after I was asking myself that very question. How cool is that? Maybe a little spooky, too. However, Garmin.com and Garmin Connect, the app that syncs with your phone and uploads your activities to Strava the bike and fitness tracker, are down. The word is Garmin were the target of a ransomware attack on Thursday. It’s now early Saturday. If you’re like A Dude, whose goals are tied to tracking data points (especially miles), it’s a big deal. Assuming Garmin fixes things, those activities will be uploaded then. But if you don’t want to wait for Garmin to get its act together, Strava has come to the rescue with an easy way to get your data transferred. Courtesy of A Dude Abikes. You’re most welcome.

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Book ‘Em Dude-O! I Completed Editing My Bike Memoir. Now What?

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 5 Comments

Just a little over 11 months ago, I wrote a post titled I Finished My Book, but It’s Far from Over. Now, I’ve finished editing it. Well, you’re never really finished editing until it’s published. Even then, there may be future editions. Point is, I’ve come to a place where I need to find some other eyeballs. For my collection of eyeballs. Just kidding! I mean having other people read it. Particularly an editor. Therein lies the rub. Because editors are like unicorns – a few people claim to have seen them, but they’re extremely rare. And they possess some powerful magic:  they’re able to get your book published — or not. So I’m looking for my unicorn. Or eyeballs. Or unicorns with eyeballs. I mean magical unicorns with eyeballs. Yeah, let’s go with that last one.

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“Wassup, Killah?” and Other Random $hit People Say to Me on My Bicycle

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 16 Comments

Last night I was putting in some late night miles — 16.5 to be exact — to beat the heat and keep my stats up, you know, like I do. I approached a red light and came to a stop. Here’s what I wrote in my Strava ride summary: “Wassup, Killah?” Said the man at the bus stop, a descendant of Africa, pleasantly and with no malice, to the dude on the bicycle who is of the Caucasian persuasion. “I’m good, thanks. How ’bout you?” Also good. They then discussed how the weather wasn’t as hot as last night. The light changed, adieus were bid, and the dude rode on, an otherwise lackluster day made. “Huh, I guess I am kinda a killah on a bike!” He pedaled a little harder, his mph a bit faster. So yeah, that happened.

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REVIEW: Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music Watch

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 12 Comments

As I wrote recently, my Garmin activity tracker watch stopped allowing me to record bike rides and walks. Those are my two main activit-ease, so I had to do something besides record everything as a run then edit it. My Strava friends were beginning to think I had taken up running. A Dude Don’t run. I can’t have people believing that! I have a reputation to ruin, sully, destroy, etc. So, after much Libra back-and-forthing it, I couldn’t pass up the steep discount offered for an upgrade. And voila! (or as we say in Tejas “voy-luh”) the new watch arrived. And it is GOOD!

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Why Are Exercises Called Activit-Ease When They’re So Hard?

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 8 Comments

I joke, but it’s true. Exercise is work. That’s why it’s called a work out. Used to be, you could only do it outside. Then some lazy people said let’s invent air conditioning, and then the exercise fanatics said let’s work in. But that term never caught on so they called them Jim Nayseeums. To not embarrass their founder, they spelled it differently, to make people think it was the Greeks. Oh, I’m just being told that is really was the Greeks. Never mind.

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Bike Brakes, Gears, Tires and Watch Problems – Ka-ching!

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 15 Comments

In the last week or so, I’ve had a bunch of things go wrong with Sophie the Fairdale. Several flats required professional intervention. Now I’m having to get more puncture-resistant tires and they’er not cheap. Ka-ching. My trusty Garmin watch has finally begun to give out because I basically broke the walk and bike functions by using it so much. I’m able to upgrade it even though the warranty is out. More ka-ching. The bike also needed adjustment to the gearing and brakes needed new pads. The Sun & Ski Sports bike shop mechanics say I ride a lot. Apparently I’m in the 90th percentile of people biking. I suppose I do, but I always thought they were being nice, since I know there are plenty of people doing more. One of my mantras is “Comparison is the death of joy,” said the Buddha, but sometimes that’s hard to follow. Anyway, if you ride your bike, repairs and replacement of parts are inevitable.

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Job Sucks Soul Out of Cyclist; A Dude (and World) Keep Spinning

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 1 Comment

It’s been two days on my new temporary job and my body is already exhausted and my spirit crushed. After a fairly good amount of time off, now it’s the moment for making money. I owe, I owe, so off to work I go. The average Joe or Jo would probably give up or severely curtail her or his extracurricular activities. But I’ve never been called average, mediocre perhaps, so I keep on walking, yoga-ing, writing and the big time suck, biking. I’ve been watching my programs, too — and currently it’s the last six stages of last year’s Tour de France. That counts as bike-related education, right?

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The Heat Is On, Again

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 8 Comments

Summer again approaches Austin, America and well the northern hemisphere. With a 100 degree day forecast, the heat is on, again. It’s been almost a year since my post Surviving the Summer Heat on a Bicycle. While full of useful advice about not just hydration but acclimation and other stuff, there’s no need to repeat it, but feel free check it out. Even knowing what to do to minimize the effects doesn’t change the fact that it’s just sweaty and uncomfortable. In addition, I’ve attended several protests and demonstrations for Black Lives Matter (see posts here and here). One involved a march that was in the hottest part of the day. People were ducking into the shade, and numerous volunteers were handing out water. Add into that the increasing temperatures from global warming, and it’s that least wonderful time of year: summer. How can we make it less of a bummer?

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