Cycles of Change: Part ? Of ¿

This month has been a crazy one...but before I write the bulk of this post, I want to thank Facebook for reminding me that exactly one year ago today, I took The Bike With No Name out for her maiden voyage. Approximately 3,000 miles later, you can literally see what kind of a difference a year makes:

That's actually the under side of my handlebar grip, which I flipped around some time ago because I had already worn out the top half. That also kinda ties into why I haven't been blogging lately, even though I have been biking. Lookit:

Those of you closest to me know this already, and maybe I mentioned this on here before, but this hobby blog has actually been a great contributor to my personal and professional progress. In the first 2 months of this year, it's really moved me further than I'd ever imagined.

My higher ups (including my amazing former director of marketing) noticed this special space I've carved out in cyber space some time back in 2015 and offered me an opportunity to do part-time marketing work at Wash Cycle Laundry. As the saying goes, the rest is history.

I spent the next year-ish learning on the job, and when my supervisor left for her own bigger dreams back in December, the door opened for me to step into a larger role in marketing and sales. I've been away from the blog for the last month or so as I trained a replacement for my commercial route. Happy to say, my replacement is doing awesome, and I'm expecting big things from the both of us. Let's just say we both had good trainers (I promise no more shameless self promotions).

Nearly 2 years to the day that we opened our North Philly plant, it was tough to let go of my route this past Monday - much tougher than I thought it would be - but riding onward to bigger and better things is also exciting for sure. What a difference a year makes, indeed...

So that's it. Sort of. I'm off the bike for work-related purposes, but just because that was a major reason why I started this blog doesn't mean it's going anywhere. I've got some big plans for the remainder of 2017, of course. Remember, 30 Days of Biking is just around the corner in April.

With continued thanks for all of your support on this ride we call life, let's ride on...

Down With the Sickness

Down, as in, actually down. Not in the good kind of "down" way.

Anywho, I get sick usually once a year. Last week happened to be that once a year, and let me tell ya, it sucked horribly. I was all but forced to take 2 days off from work-related cycling and 3 total cycling days last week because I literally couldn't breathe. Sickness aside, taking any sort of absence from riding kills me more than anything.

So, with a relatively mild forecast on tap (pun intended) for Super Bowl Sunday, I decided I had to venture at least a little bit, if for no other reason than to "sweat it out." I wanted something only mildly challenging, so I decided to keep it to about 5 miles one way. As usual, my midpoint would be a brewery/brewpub, in this case, the recently opened Flying Fish Crafthouse in Brewerytown. Some of you already know this, but in case you don't, it's a resurgent area that's still in transition:

Not sure what's going in that empty lot, most likely more dime-a-dozen condos, but who cares about that? The abandoned Red Bell Brewing Company building in the background is the real story here. Much like its Brewerytown brethren, it's been left to rot for decades, yet still stands because back in the day, they used to build things to last. It's been recently purchased and will likely be redeveloped in the near future. Across the street, that's already happened:

That's the Crafthouse, which looks rather unassuming from first glance. In fact, I drove by here a few weeks ago and almost didn't notice it. What was once a decaying factory is now a large brewpub, which makes me hoppy. See what I did there?

The place is yuge. I'm excited to come back for the various events they have talked about hosting (live music, game night, etc). I mean, anything to give me an excuse to go on a medium-length bike ride. There's also a full menu but not many vegetarian options, so I decided to skip the food side of the equation for now. I got there in the middle of the day and wasn't really hungry anyway. Besides, you go to a brewpub for beer, right?

And plenty of it. 5 samples for $12 is a steal. Just enough to get you feelin' good, but not too much that you can't ride home. Speaking of which, I did eventually make it back to South Philly:

The ride was decent, nothing epic to report, so I post that pic only because of the mileage total. Combined with my ride to and from my friend's house for the Super Bowl, I logged more miles on Sunday than I did the entire rest of the week combined. You can definitely tell I was in rough shape earlier in the week. Anyway, I'm going to try to get back into my Sunday Cycling Series routine once the weather gets 100% nicer, but this was a good start. Of course, if you have any recommendations for future Sunday rides, please let me know.