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

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!

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

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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Habits: Hard to Make, Easy to Break

Unless you’re a nun, the word “habit”–like making going to the gym a habit–may send a chill down your spine, send you burrowing into your bedsheets, or make you want to throw up a little in your mouth. We may want to do something that we know is good for us but is hard and not fun. This dude has made much ado of making daily habits, particularly yoga, walking, and bicycling. I’ve been keeping those and several others every day for several years, and the yoga for over 10 years. I first alluded to these streaks with a mention of “Don’t Break the Chain” in a post referencing Jerry Seinfeld. Type “habits” in the Search bar of this blog, and you’ll easily find some helpful posts on the subject. The experiment to see how long I could keep things going has been interesting, and I continue with those three daily practices. But with other habits, it was only a matter of time before life intervened. It turns out that I’m only human, after all. Assuming you are too, I hope there’s something in here about habits that will resonate for you.

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

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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4.5 Years of Consecutive Daily Bicycling, and This Dude Is Pretty Damn Tired

“Everybody’s “got something.” That’s the title that Good Morning America host Robin Roberts gave to her book about fighting then recovering from cancer–twice. I’ve mentioned–okay, complained–about the various things that my body’s got plenty of times. I guess this is another one of those times. Because despite the milestone of daily riding my bicycle, my mileage is miserable, my Strava stats simply suck, and this dude’s definitely dealing with downright dullness. But for some perspective, the moon and sun achieved totality in eclipse the other day here in Central Texas. It was pretty cloudy and anticlimatic especialy for all of those who plunked down thousands to come see it. This dude, and the Earth, spin on.

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1/1/24: 5,308 Bicycled + 496 Walked = 5,804 Miles in 2023

Year Eight of my journey since I began this blog is in the books. This annual post looks at the statistics recorded by my Garmin vivoactive 3 watch and Strava fitness tracking app. They show the numbers of what I did bicycling, walking, and doing yoga (with a few swims). Beyond the data, it tells a story of being active as I age and despite my efforts, remain a fathlete. Let’s take a look at how I did whe compared to 2022 (which you can read about in this blog post). Spoiler alert, I beat every year except 2020 and 2021. Not too bad, comparing myself to me, which is the only way to really do it.

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December: The Last Month to Work on Your Goals for This Year

‘Tis the season, it’s that time of year. For some, the hap-hap-happiest. For others, a terrifying hellscape of war, poverty, and all the rest of humanity’s ills. For the fortunate, life goes on without as much suffering. For the able-bodied, it’s the last 31 days to strive toward whatever fitness goals you may have. That includes this dude, for whom it’s time to put the hammer down and finish what he started. (Seriously, why am I holding this hammer?) After the holidays, another new year is looming. When the tidings of comfort and joy, forced capitalist present-buying and the same old songs are over, there will pressure to make another batch of New Years resolutions. With all that is going on in this out of control world, maybe all that one has control over is moving your body, even if it’s in small ways. How have you been moving and grooving yours?

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