fitness

10 Years Ago Today, I Returned from My Epic Trip North: Reflections

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 4 Comments

On September 19, 2016, I flew back from Denver, Colorado to Austin, Texas after a six-state, epic trip north (plus a quick stop across the border in Canada for duty-free souvenirs). Five days earlier, I wrote my only blog from that trip. Mountain Time:  Biking and Hiking the Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming. It would make sense for you to go read that first. I can wait. But either way, the lede is this: It was an awesome trip.

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From national parks and other cool monuments, cities and the woods, meeting some cool new people, taking planes, trains, and automobiles (hitchhiking even, plus buses), and renting bikes along the way, I covered a lot of ground in three weeks. There was a Texas acquaintance I stayed with to start the trip Fargo, ND. Glacier National Park and the continental divide in northern MT, plus a natural hot springs in Bozeman. The was incredible Devil’s Tower and Yellowstone in WY. Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse Monument in SD. Even the Minneapolis, MN airport and staying with some other friends in Denver as bookends were interesting and fun.

The down side of reflecting back on it now is that except for one other to the east coast a year later, the day after I was laid off an 11-year job in 2017, I have not been anywhere outside of Texas. I may have ridden my bike the equivalent mileage around the world–twice!–but I was recently reminded by some college friends in our annual Zoom reunion, and some other friends who have the luxury, time and money, that traveling to places is really cool. One guy went to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and pet cheetahs in its capital, Zanzibar! Another routinely flies to Germany and Argentina, and within California. Another stays every summer in a family house in Ireland. Others have a house in the Azores, or jet to Italy and Spain, and many other places. So while I have great memories about my trip, I’m pretty bummed that I’ve not been anywhere else nearly as exciting ever since.

Two quotes come to mind. The Buddha is alleged to have said, “Comparison is the death of joy.” (Easier said than done.) And Mr. William aka Billy Joel sang, “The good ol’ days weren’t always good, and tomorrow’s not as bad as it seems.” (Except sometimes they are.) Travel is a privilege, after all. I was lucky I had saved up the time and money from living in a literal utility room closet under the stairs so that I could take this trip. I do feel grateful. And yet it would be nice to

The other sad thing is I have a huge cache of photos from that trip, plus a bunch of GoPro videos I never learned to edit or adjust for the weird camera lens. When I look back at that dude, he was younger, thinner, and had a job. In other words, he was not if super happy he had a more stable life. He was also clueless about where he would be a decade later. Had I known back then what I know now, would I have done anything different? Probably not. But maybe I would have tried to make more money and go places.

But I sure did ride the hell out of my bike around here. And have begun doing so again out of the gym and on the road a bit after a forced month and more out of the saddle. But as mentioned in my last post, I’m not a prisoner of mileage goals. In fact, I don’t really care about my mileage, and might even skip today’s bike ride due to being tired. I started to swim two to three times a week and alternate that with biking. Eventually I may get back into some kind of decent shape, but it seems unlikely. Age, genes, and setbacks out of my control make it a struggle to do what I did back then. Plus, I was a decade younger. Aging sucks but they say it beats the alternative.

I’ll end by unearthing a bunch of photos. Enjoy this trip down memory lane with me. And if you have the time and money, I hope you get to travel and go on some adventures yourself. Maybe I’ll get to go on some other trips, some day. Let’s hope so. Because we all go on one last journey, to the undiscovered country called death. And speaking of that, while I’m not religious at all, but this tune just popped into my head. The haunting guitar is by the incredible Jeff Beck (who died recently, and is one of my favorite guitar heroes, possibly the best guitarist ever, even better than Texas-grown Stevie Ray Vaughn), and it is sung by the still-going Rod Stewart from 1985. It’s a cover of the Curtis Mayfield-penned original with The Impressions. People Get Ready.

People get ready
There’s a train a-coming
You don’t need no baggage
You just get on board
All you need is faith
To hear the diesels humming
Don’t need no ticket
You just thank the Lord

more photos being uploaded very soon!

9/9/2026:  5 Weeks of Daily Bike & Swim in the Gym + Strava Stats

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 2 Comments

Another annual awful August arrived and then announced adieu in Austin, Texas. We now have hit 100°F or more for 41 days. Meanwhile, my slow and unsteady comeback has also been heating up. A break put the brakes on my outdoor biking for just over a month, while I managed to maintain my yoga and missed only one walk. Strava the sports app kindly provided graphics for last month’s activities. Let’s look at the stats.

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A Fellow Blogger Interviewed Me! And What Shall I Do After 10 Years and 52,000 Miles Bicycled?

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 14 Comments

I’m super stoked to be the latest blogger to be featured on another blog! Ortensia is the voice behind Truly Madly Ordinary, Diary of a “Not So Desperate Housewife.” I’m featured in her series Chats With Bloggers Episode 7. Lucky number seven. Check out the interview, and her other charming, relatable, funny, and interesting posts at https://trulymadlyordinary.com. Did I mention she’s an Italian who has lived for quite a while in Ireland? Or that she’s a published author, prodigious blogger, mother, among many other things. I want to thank her for her interest and graciousness. I’m not one for the limelight, but if I get a few more butts on bikes, or folks get a chuckle, then it was worth it. Meanwhile below, I’ll delve into what the road ahead holds for A Dude Abikes after my epic velocimania and reaching that literal milestone of 52,000.

Read more: A Fellow Blogger Interviewed Me! And What Shall I Do After 10 Years and 52,000 Miles Bicycled?

This month I have managed to do what I set out to: reduce my bicycling. Gasp! I mean, my body is going to make me take a break sooner than later. Whereas in 2025 I had a weekly goal of 100 (5,200 for the year) which I just missed by 200, for 2026 I set my Strava goal on 7.5 hours per week. I managed one 100 mile week in January, but otherwise I will just barely make it past the 333 needed to make 4,000 for the year. Which again, no one really cares about.

Numerous factors have gone into this decision beyond reaching that decade-long goal. First, I’m just tired, and I deserve a break today. Second, I never intended to have this 10-year goal anyway. I reached the point where there was no more point to continuing at the same pace. Third, it’s winter, and even the milder ones we get here in Central Texas are still cold and not always fun to bike in. Case in point, we had a weekend ice storm that shut the streets down for several days. And fourth, I started a new full-time job, which truly sucks the life energy and time out of the weekdays.

A sign of the times.

Overall, I’m okay with it. It’s a paradox, but less mileage = more health. I’m still keeping my daily streak alive (6 years, 4 months, 21 days), but that will end at some point. (As I’ve said before, a forced break is coming.) My commute is pretty short, but it counts. The week I did 100 miles was by biking 10 miles per night on my home trainer, and then two 25-milers on the weekend. Part of me wants to keep it up, but another part knows it’s better if I don’t. Also, I am slowly other taking steps to improve my overall health, partially because I have no choice. That means diversifying my exercise, improving my sleep, and making better choices about what I eat. Biking will always be by jam, until I’m unable to do it, but there are in fact other things in life. Another gasp! I mean, “Biking is life,” to paraphrase Dani Rojas said in Ted Lasso. And yet it isn’t. Scandalous and blasphemous, I know. So sue me! (Please don’t.)

Stickers I saw in Toy Joy.

Being freed from the 14.5-miles per day every day regimen, I have noticed my legs are less tight, my body and mind are less exhausted, and I’m sleeping more, at least some nights. Those are all positives. Getting to the gym to swim and doing more challenging yoga and resistance bands at home will take some effort at the end of a long work day. But one must pay the bills, so while I was rich in time, I can afford to be poor no more in terms of bills. I owe, I owe, so off to work I go for the next few months and hopefully beyond, because it’s a temporary gig. But isn’t everything in life?

While my daily half hours walks and yoga practice continue, I don’t always read for 30′, and writing is far less often than when I was doing it daily. Certainly with this blog, and since losing my writing buddy, I’ve slacked off the novella. Perhaps Ortensia’s interview and example will lead me back to more frequent writing. I do journal sometimes. I also volunteer on a bike-related project, so that takes time and involves some writing too, be it email messages to fellow volunteers, a flier for event outreach, etc. I also have the chores and errands of daily life to contend with like everyone else, and now that incudes sometimes going to protests. Somewhere in there should be time for naps and a little enjoyment of the filmed entertainments, right? Right!

Bike scenes

In the end, I’m getting older, slowing down, and have to do better at managing my health, which is no small task. Riding solo as I do means no wife or kids to support or to support me. (That I know about! There were a few crazy lost weekends in Las Vegas…. Just kidding!) Life goes on, and so does A Dude, at least until he doesn’t.

Hopefully you enjoyed my interview with Truly Madly Ordinary and this post, too. Adios January, here comes February! Time to reset those New Year’s Resolutions (or not).

Rosie, nice
Frankie, asshole
Scout, sweet. Three cats I pet at a week.

Copyright 2026 A Dude Abikes. All rights reserved.

12/12/2025:  52,000 MILES BICYCLED IN 519 WEEKS!!!

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 14 Comments

A Dude Abikes has done it! I AVERAGED 100 MILES PER WEEK FOR A DECADE! I started tracking my miles on the Strava sports app on 12/19/2015, so I actually completed this monstrous achievement a few weeks early, on 11/28/25. This converts to 9 years, 49 weeks, and 2 days. It was all done on regular bicycles and trainer bikes under my own power (no e-bikes aka motor-cycles here!). My “epic velocimania” has reached its zenith, finally. What a lengthy, weird journey it has been!

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Dude, Come to the Dark Side of E-Bikes

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 20 Comments

After years of pedaling a person-powered bicycle, and complaining all that time about the physical difficulties of the same, I have relented. I got an electric bike. It’s April in Austin, and the weather is by turns, rainy, cool, hot, humid, or windy. But overall, it’s nice, and spring is in the air, perfect for hopping on a pedal-assisted machine and ambling about town on errands or just for a recreational ride. So has A Dude really gone to the dark side?

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A Return to Be Car-Free for Me:  Pros & Cons

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 7 Comments

Twenty years ago today, on January 25, 2005, my car was totaled in a crash thanks to a truck t-boning me (pulling out before I had time to stop aka they were at fault). It was a return to be car-free for me. For 15.75 years, I did not own a car. In January of 2016, weeks after starting this blog, I began a series of annual posts with 11 Years not a Slave to Cars. Then, in August of 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I was gifted a car, which I wrote about January of 2021 in Come to the Dark Side, Dude: Where’s My Car?.

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11/11/2024: A Month After My 59-Mile Ride and 5-Year Daily Bicycling Streak, I’m Still At It

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 10 Comments

If you missed the belated edits to my last post, 10/10/2024:  What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been:  5 Years of Consecutive Daily Cycling Tomorrow, please go check it out first. I’ll wait. (Cue the Jeopardy theme music.) It was written the day before my big annual ride. The spoiler version is that I managed my 59.59-mile bike ride, and I’m still doing the deed daily. Although I’m biking slower for various reasons. Extra weight from high stress and low sleep and also after stopping a gig where I walked five to seven miles a day. Biking 100+ miles a week might have something to do with being tired. Whatever, each mile counts. And the only race I’m in is against myself. Or maybe Death. And we all lose that one, eventually. But not today, Death. Not today.

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5/5/24: It’s Bike Month (Again). Does It Matter?

~ A Dude Abikes ~ Leave a comment

It’s that time of year–May aka Bike Month–when we’re supposed to celebrate bicycles extra hard. Why? Because the League of American Cyclists and other groups say so. The other 11 months you can just fuggehaboudit. There’s Bike to School Day; Bike to Work Day with breakfast tacos, free swag, a self-congratulatory after-party; a Clinic on beginning City Cycling (not for the faint at heart); a Frankenbike sale; and so on. But we here at A Dude Abikes have to ask the hard-hitting questions that our award-unwinning journalistic reportage and yooge, bigly ethics require and wonder:  Does Bike Month ever really accomplish its goals? Does it matter? To quote the great pop rock band Chicago’s question in a song: “Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?”

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Top 10 Tips for the Aging Cyclist

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 4 Comments

Hi. Your dude here. I recently griped again about that which ails me. I’m somehow but barely managing to keep biking each day, even when it’s slow to low mileage. It occurred to compile a list, a la Letterman (David), though not as amusing, but more useful. (No wives were cheated on my or interns schtupped in the making of this blog post, having neither, wife, intern, nor hit TV show.) Anyway, if you’re doing things right, you are currently still alive as you read this and so you’re aging, too. Very relatable. So, if you bike, walk, hike, run, swim, etc. you might resonate with the idea that the old bod is not able to do what it used to do (be do be do). Without further ado, and no doo doo, here’s…. Dudey!

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