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11/11/2026:  Austin, Texas Bicycle News Roundup

~ A Dude Abikes ~ Leave a comment

Austin, Texas has a vibrant cultural scene, and bicycle people are one small but not insignificant part of the whole. Here are some recent and upcoming happenings that might interest you to know about, whether you live here or not.

Read more: 11/11/2026:  Austin, Texas Bicycle News Roundup

Ciclovia ATX

This free event just happened November 7, 2026. It was modeled on a movement that started in Bogotá, Colombia in 1970, where cyclists could and still do ride in streets shut down to cars, usually on a weekend day. In the US, it has been more of an open streets type festival event. In Central Texas,

Quoting and paraphrasing from Wikipedia, “Austin’s first Ciclovía took place on May 20, 2012 under the name Viva! Streets Austin. Produced through a partnership between the City of Austin, local businesses, and nonprofits, that inaugural car-free street event closed down a stretch of East 6th Street for cyclists, pedestrians, and community activities. It ran for four years. In 2025, Ghisallo Cycling Initiative renewed the event, and this was its second year.”

GCI says, “Cyclovia ATX is a free open to the public all-ages, all-abilities, family-friendly Living Streets event produced by GCI. While the event has a focus on bicycling, it includes a wide range of activities, performances, and showcases involving mobility, sustainability, and community. Think of it as a festival of human-powered transportation with lots of other fun activities and community focused engagements mixed in… the event includes half a mile of Living Streets (closed to motorized vehicles), a 1 mile Bike Parade, live music, and food trucks.”

Sources say it was well attended and a good time. The list of participating groups was long, about 50, many not bike-related. It included some names that may be familiar to repeat readers of this blog:  ATX Bicycle Meals, Safe Streets Austin, UT Orange Bike Project, Yellow Bike Project, Austin Ghost Bike Project, Bike Story Night.

Basically it’s a huge, free, educational, fun event backed by the weight and money of some corporate entities and government agencies that sponsor it. But anything that leads to putting more butts on bikes is mostly fine with me, though. Look for the third annual repeat of the event early next November.

Learn more at https://CicloviaATX.org

Bike Story Night

This free event just happened tonight, 11/11/2026. Like it sounds, it brings people together to hear stories from bike riders. I enjoyed  the event and hearing from different types of bike riders when I attended. See my review from then: 4/4/2025:  Bike Story Night in Austin, Texas.

Since founding this event in 2021, BNS has happened mostly here and in a few in other cities. They have also held several bike rides to go on camp outs, which are perfect for sitting around the fire and telling… yep, you guessed it! More bike stories!

Learn more at https://www.bikestorynight.com

Safe Streets Austin

This one is Friday, November 13th (ooh — spooky!), from 7:00-9:30 pm, so you may still be able to get your ticket. Safe Streets Austin, the merger of Bike Austin, Walk Austin, and Central Texas Families for Safe Streets will have another fundraiser and party.

Food and drink will be served, music will happen, and there will be schmoozing amongst the bicycle intelligentsia, transportation nerds, government workers, and well-connected allegedly bike-friendly big wigs. The no-doubt rousing keynote speech will be made by City Councilmember Chito Vela. Executive Director Adam Greenfield will give a state of the nonprofit, and maybe talk about how safe it is (or isn’t, if we’re really being honest) to bike in Austin.

Tickets are a mere $100 buckaroos, but you get to bring a guest for nada and did I mention the free food and drink? Dine first though. (Parking not included, natch). If you’re a member of SSA, your ticket is 70% off. Cool factor: It’s on the rooftop of the award-winning Austin Public Library. Hot tip: If you bike there, lock it very, very well, but be forewarned, bikes DO get stolen there.

Learn more at https://SafeStreetsAustin.org

Frankenbikes & a Bike Show

“FrankenBike:  A free bicycle swap meet held once a month in select U.S. cities that is open to anyone who wants to buy, sell or trade bicycles and bicycle related gear or parts. FrankenBike was founded in Austin, Texas in June 2005.”

It is having 3 local shows before the end of the year. The first is in combination with the Tacos & Tires bike show on November 14 from 10am-4pm with the swap meet and sale held next to it. San Antonio also gets a sale.

The second is its usual swap meet and sale on November 28, 10am-2pm at Central Texas Cyclery.

And the third is also a regular swap meet and sale on December 26, 11am – 2pm at the Crown and Anchor Pub. See the images for details.

Learn more at https://frankenbike.net

That’s All, Folks!

Of course there are all the social and club rides, and occasional races nearby. But given how Google et al. are NOT sponsoring A Dude Abikes, it’s time for me to sign off. So, there you have it. I hope you learned some cool stuff about the Austin bike scene. Tune in next time for this once in a while series.

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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50,000 Miles Bicycled! A Dude Abikes Did It!

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 13 Comments

I begin this blog like I did my journey on December 19, 2015: One step / pedal / word at a time. It took nine years, six months, and eight days, but I did it! I rode bicycles for 50,000 miles. That means I have now traveled the distance of the equator TWICE. (You may recall my October 23, 2020 blog, AROUND THE WORLD IN 1,770 DAYS (24,901 MILES): 5-YEAR GOAL ACCOMPLISHED !!!) When I reached that goal, I titled my Strava ride “Planet Earth: Lap 2, Day 1?” Similarly, I titled my first ride after the goal, “The Start of Another 50,000 Miles? Just Be Here Now, A Dude. One Pedal Crank at a Time.” That’s all to say that there’s a lot to say about this. I’ll try to be brief.

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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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4/4/2025: Bike Story Night in Austin, Texas

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 4 Comments

As a dude who’s been telling bits of his bike story here for going on a decade, I was curious to check it out an event called Bike Story Night. The stars aligned, meaning I heard about it in time and wasn’t busy. So, last Saturday I pedaled Soqi the Cannondale over to the University of Texas at Austin, commonly known as UT (you tee). (Check out my post about UT: The University of Texas and Me:  A Short Autobiography.) There I saw a few familiar faces and a few dozen new ones. The premise  is fairly straightforward:  people come together to tell and hear stories about bikes. Here’s a short report.

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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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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?

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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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On St. Patrick’s Day, How the Bicycle Helped Bring Feminism, Freedom, and More to Ireland

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 4 Comments

Today is the holiday of St. Patrick’s Day which falls during International Women’s History Month, plus it’s been two weeks since my last post. Also, I’m a quarter Irish-American myself. All together, those are as good a reason as any to blog. But when it comes to bicycling and Ireland, I don’t know much. Sure, I’ve heard of famous Irish pro cyclists Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche, and Dan Martin (born in England but a dual national, given his mother is Irish and related to Roche). I enjoyed watching the latter back when I tuned into the Tour de France. Martin was a cheeky breakaway and mountain climbing specialist. Professional sports isn’t for 99.9% of people who bike, though. There’s also that Idlecyclist chap, the fellow blogger who’s doing more hiking these days. (No judgement, and it still rhymes). But it was fascinating to learn that the bicycle has an important role in Irish history.

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