walking

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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3.5 Years of Daily Cycling & 2023 1st Quarterly Report

~ A Dude Abikes ~ Leave a comment

Way back B.P. (Before Pandemic), I started riding my bicycle every day. Today marks three and a half years, or 42 months, or 182 weeks and five days, or 1,278 days in a row. Also, I’ve walked daily with very few misses and many extra miles in five plus years, and I’ve done yoga daily (moreso nightly) over nine years. I continue to reflect on that, and it’s time to review my Strava activity stats for January-March 2023. Let’s take a look.

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9/9/2022: Sookie Shares with Sonnie; Autumn Approacheth; Failing Fast Forward

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 2 Comments

In this installment I’ll try and fail again to summarize what I’ve been up to for the last month. There’s too much to pack into one post. It seems the more I work on my book, and read other books, the more I realize that the art of writing is as much about what gets left in as what gets taken out. In his intriguing novel John Woman, Walter Mosley touches on this idea by having his eponymous protagonist (a professor with a checkered past and a troubled present), explore the deconstruction of history. His professor believes many things about his field, the main one as I understand it so far, is that it is not absolute. We are constantly creating history, our own and the larger world’s, Professor Woman teaches his students.

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Blog Post #666:  The Blog in Which I Announce My Retirement from Blogging*

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 36 Comments

Welp, after almost two-thirds of 1,000 blog posts, it seems like a good time to take the pause that refreshes. Which the astute observer would have noticed that I’ve been sorta doing for the last couple of months already, anyway. Spring has sprung in Central Texas, so it’s a good time to examine where I’ve been, and where I’m going, not just with blogging, or biking, yoga-ing, walking, reading, fluting, etc., but life. A little metaphorical housecleaning, so to speak. (Actually clean house? Pshaw! That’s for suckers.) And who could begrudge a dude the chance to step back after six years and six hundreds of blogs? So forthwith, posthaste, and inmediatamente, let’s get skippy with it. (By the way, after this mention, this post will be Will Smith and slap-free. I’m Team Chris Rock all the way. Fuck you for ruining the Oscars, Little Willie. Get your face offa my TV and movie screens and go for some goddam anger management!)

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Herculean Habits: Regular Routines or the Struggle of Streaks?

~ A Dude Abikes ~ Leave a comment

This is one of those nights when a sensible blogger who is not feeling well skips writing; instead, she/he/they takes a bath, drinks some sleepy tea and reads, or gets under the covers early. Lucky for you, I never claimed to be sensible. (I also didn’t say whether that is good or bad luck. It’s your call if you’re feeling lucky, punk. Well, are you?) Anyway, I’ve been writing daily since January 1, 2018, either in this blog, a journal, or my memoir. It would be easy, but not at all simple, for me to just skip a night. But so far, no matter how badly I might feel, I write. So, here goes un poquito blogito.

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October 2021 Strava Stats

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 4 Comments

Somehow, summarizing September Strava statistics seems skipped since… Sorry! I just ran out of “s” words. But I bet you haven’t seen a whole sentence, fragmented as it was, starting with the same letter lately. So, points to me. I guess I get a little tired of reporting my fitness activity numbers, and more than one reader does, too. Yet, this is (predominantly) a blog about bicycling, so producing posts pertinent to that topic is important, I suppose. Some people claim that if it’s not on Strava, it didn’t happen. And since Strava’s colors are black and orange, just like Halloween, it seems like a good time to start doing this report again. So, posthaste and forthwith is all the data you’re dying to digest about how much I walked, yoga-ed, and bicycled last month. Shall seeing said stats satisfy some subconscious salaciousness ?

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Some Notes About My Daily Walking Practice

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 9 Comments

It’s been bikes, bikes, bikes at A Dude Abikes lately, and well, that tracks, because that’s the main pillar of this blog. For a change of pace, let’s talk about walk(ing). I’d love to be talken about Walken (as in Christopher), but I got nuthin’ to say about him except I like his acting. But yes, walking. I’ve been doing it regularly with only a few days missed for almost four years now. I don’t do power walking, hiking, or any crazy stuff like that. I just get out there, rain or shine, and perambulate for 30 minutes a day. That’s not too remarkable; many, many people walk daily, and for many, many more miles. Even having a streak isn’t that big a deal. But comparing myself to me, it’s an important thing to do. You might assume it’s an easy thing for me to do, but you’d be wrong. So I’m going to talk the walk.

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Q3 2021: Third Quarterly Report of My Bicycling and Other Habits

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 3 Comments

Now that we’re 90 days from the end of 2021, it’s time for my third quarterly report. July, August and September are the hottest months in Texas, and that heat and stupidity tend to slow most dudes and dudettes down. (I meant humidity, which with the heat tends to make one stupid.) But, I never claimed to be smart, so I have gone on a bicycle ride every single day of the pandemic (and for a while before that). Regular readers know I’m like only 50% of that Cake lyric: “He’s going for distance, he’s (not) going for speed.” On top of that, I take a walk, do yoga, and got myself into some other daily activities, practices aka habits. Sure, it was stupid hot (though not as bad as last year), and I do not bike fast. However, although I don’t get a cent from it, you could say I’m in the bicycle riding business. And business is good.

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Autumn Has Fallen: 100 Days to Go in 2021

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 12 Comments

September 22 was the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s the first day of the coolest, if not the coldest, season. That’s because leaves turn colors and fall off the trees, my birthday falls within it, not to mention Halloween, Thanksgiving, and things like the Texas Book Festival, Austin City Limits Festival (too expensive but still cool), and the Moontower Comedy Festival. The latter began tonight and I was there to volunteer, as I did at this past weekend’s Writers League of Texas Agents & Editors Conference, which I wrapped up in this post.

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