Start Making Excuses

It's the season of giving thanks, which is always a good time to appreciate what you have and make improvements where you may be lacking. I've got a lot to be thankful for, but recently, I've been thankful for my ability to make excuses...

...to ride a bike. My grandfather lived to be 93 and rode a bike to get his mail every day until about 6 months before his death. He didn't have to, but he made a point to do it. I think making his daily routine active contributed to his longevity.

Since I've moved, things in my out-of-work routine have become a little less active, and I don't ride nearly as much as I used to. Living in a semi-suburban environment, it's easy sometimes to be lazy and decide to jump in the car for everyday errands. I've been better about this recently, but I still need to continue to "make excuses" to ride regularly. 

In the spirit of the season and not being much of a Black Friday shopper, I decided to create one of these excuses on Friday by biking four large bags of our daughter's lightly used clothes to a couple donation bins located less than a mile from our house. It took multiple trips, but it was worth it (of course), if for no other reason than to burn off all the extra calories I'd packed on the day before:

Perhaps I should also mention that I'm thankful for the boss giving us the day off on Friday. This whole thing took about 1.5 hours, and I'm really glad I had the time to do some good and enjoy some unseasonably warm weather in the process. Anyway...there are bins located on either end of our nearest Kroger parking lot, each supporting different organizations, so I split the donations just about evenly:

All told, she probably gave me 100 pounds of clothes to donate. Cleaning out a closet never felt so good. Mine is next up on the list, which will surely lead to several more excuse rides. For now, one of my ongoing favorite excuses to ride has become recycling drop-off, which I've lost count of how many times I've done in the last month or so. I made another trip on Saturday:

We always like to tell our children not to make excuses, but I found myself using our daughter for yet another excuse to ride on Sunday morning, as we all took the opportunity to enjoy a beautiful Autumn day to return her library books just down the road:

You may have seen that bike rack on this blog before. It's still one of my favorites around this area.

Not wanting to waste a beautiful day (they've been few and far between), we went further into the park connected to the library and sneaked in some extra family riding time:

Additionally, the girlfriend and I cleaned out a bunch of things while decorating the house for Christmas. I took them to our nearest thrift store on the back of my bike. No picture, but we have some more cleaning to do, so I'm sure I'll be back over there soon.

And finally, sometime yesterday evening, I rounded up some more recycling and hit up the grocery store on the way back:

Here's hoping someone comes to empty those recycling bins some time soon. As you can see, the weather was not as nice yesterday as it was over the weekend, and today is actually considerably colder and a tad snowier. Still, I plan to head out briefly for a bit later this evening. A light dusting of snow is no excuse not to ride. See what I did there?

Basically, sometimes making an excuse is a good thing. Do what makes you feel good, be thankful for it, and most importantly, keep riding!

The Joy of Commuting

Perhaps I haven't mentioned this here before, but I'm not the biggest fan of Daylight Saving Time. It throws me out of whack for a few weeks a year, among many other annoyances. And since I moved and started a new job with an earlier schedule, it's made commuting via bicycle a much more dangerous, arduous task.

It's not supposed to be like this. For those of you who know me, I'm at my best mentally and physically when I'm doing nearly everything on a bike. I've basically been forced to cut out commuting from that equation for the last couple months due to morning darkness on an un-lit section of the Scioto Trail that comprises about 1/4 of my ride to and from work. Of course, it doesn't look so bad during the day:

But at 6:15AM, even with a proper bike light, the tree cover on a moonless morning severely impairs your field of vision. This particular stretch of trail is also flanked by the Scioto River and one of its tributaries, with a rather steep drop on either side. Certainly not the place you'd accidentally want to run over a wayward squirrel, tree branch, or other obstruction. I did the ride a couple times in late September and even I was pretty terrified.

So, you can imagine how happy I was that Daylight Saving Time came to an end last weekend, and I'd be given some "extra" daylight to utilize in the morning. Unfortunately more heavy rains forecast for Monday and Tuesday mornings delayed my return to bicycle commuting until today. Better late than never, I rolled out bright and early at 5:45AM:

Pro tip: it's very important to select a coffee mug that fits in your bottle cage. Anyway, it was still dusk, so the lights were still in order:

Maybe it was because I'd waited more than a month between bike commutes, maybe it was the light Fall chill in the air, or maybe it was the smell of the leaves; whatever it was, today just seemed extra gorgeous, as seen first from the apex of the trail bridge over the Scioto River:

And once again on the return ride this afternoon:

My girlfriend actually told me today smelled good, and then asked if I thought that was weird. It's totally not weird if I agreed, right? I don't know what else to say except it felt good, like everything was returning to normal. I mean, gotta feel good about putting in 8 miles before 7AM, right?

So good riddance, Daylight Saving Time. I won't miss you. I also won't miss out on getting in as many of these commutes as I can before the shortest days of the year coming up in a few weeks, if you can believe it...

Roll Fall

Autumn is one of my two favorite times of year to ride (Spring being the other), but unfortunately both of those seasons seem to have been truncated this year. This has made opportunities to enjoy pleasant temperatures and gorgeous foliage on a ride at an extreme premium. Thankfully, a rather nasty rain system moved out just in time for one such opportunity on Friday afternoon, which just so happened to be the date of the last Roll: Bicycles Pub Ride of 2018.

I usually take "My Therapist" on any rides that will be longer than 10 miles, but I decided to take my trusty old "The Bike With No Name" out to enjoy the beauty of the season for a few hours. I also knew I'd be kicking up plenty of leaves and mud, and I don't mind if the older bike gets a little dirty:

Beautiful, right? That was taken up near the house, nearly 11 miles from the start point. It took me about an hour to ride there, and I was running late, so unfortunately I didn't stop for any other pictures, but the ride featured much more of the same. My reward for hauling ass was that the ride organizers gave early arrivals some nifty spoke cards to decorate our bikes:

Probably owing to the cooler temperatures and earlier darkness, the crowd was noticeably smaller this time around, but still of good size. I think we ended up with about 30 by the time we got ready to roll out:

In addition to the actual ride and meeting up with new and old friends, my favorite part of these rides is experiencing new (to me) neighborhoods and businesses. Our first stop was The Olde Oak in Olde Town East, a place I'd never been, in a neighborhood I've barely seen:

As you'd expect, it features an extensive selection of craft beer on draft, many of which are local. I opted for Batch 300 from Land Grant, one of my favorite Columbus breweries:

They also have a decently-sized food menu, and a shoe shine if that's your thing:

No shoes were harmed in the writing of this blog post. After a short break, we headed northward to a brewery I have previously visited (but not since I moved here), Wolf's Ridge Brewing in Downtown:

I would put them among my top 5 Columbus breweries for beer, but I've never been here without almost having a panic attack because of how crowded it tends to get:

I guess this should be expected. They've won a shit ton of beer awards, and for good reason:

Because of the crowd, our group got a little split up on the inside, but we did get back together and headed back towards the Olentangy Trail together toward our next stop. As you probably noticed, it was long past dark by this time. We had a tube casualty due to reduced vision (even with adequate lighting, it's still impossible to see every obstacle), so we all pulled over to help out with the fix, even if it was just for moral support:

That's another cool thing about these rides (and most every ride I've been on). They hold ardently to a "no rider left behind" policy. After a brief 10-15 minute delay, she was patched up and ready to roll on. We eventually arrived at our third stop, Endeavor Brewing in Grandview Heights, safe and sound:

Most of the riders continued on with the ride to its completion, but I decided to turn my pedals towards home at this point for a few reasons. The last stop was in the opposite direction by about 2 miles, and unlike the last ride, I didn't have my car parked near the end point, so I'd have to ride all the way home regardless. A light rain was also moving into the area, and even though I'd packed rain gear, avoiding having to wear it is always preferable. I arrived home before the worst of it, but I still picked up a good bit of moisture along the way:

The old boy did well in his return to "distance" riding, and with 25 more miles under his belt, he's now well over 6,000 in his short but eventful life. I dried him off a bit before turning in for the evening:

And here's what it looked like on a map:

With that, Roll's Pub Rides have wrapped up for the year. I'm glad I got to sneak in two before the dead of Winter. I'm told there will be some smaller rides in the cold months, so we'll see where this goes...

Recycle, Replenish, Respect

Life has been pretty hectic around these parts lately, and mostly for all the right reasons. A trip home to visit family and celebrate a marriage, concerts, hockey games, and visits from friends on top of my usual day-to-day routine has left little time for leisure in the last few weeks. I ended up unintentionally taking a week off from riding.

In some cases, errands had also been temporarily thrown by the wayside. I attempted to get back on track last Sunday by finally biking two weeks' worth of recycling to the center near our neighborhood:

That much recycling required two trips. You may ask, "Why didn't you just load it in your car and do it in one trip?" You know me better than that by now. Even though it may take a little longer at times, I'll always prefer bike transportation if it's at all viable.

That particular trip took even longer because I decided to do some maintenance in between trips, as I noticed my bike wasn't pedaling nearly as easily as it should have been. For one, the tires really needed air:

Since the last time I pulled this bike out (which again, had only been inside for a week or so), temperatures had taken a serious dive, and that can have some serious effects on tire pressure even with indoor bike storage. Colder temperatures can lower pressure, and lower pressure can add rolling resistance, so that was a no-brainer to fix. I also lubricated my chain and some other moving parts.

The second trip went much smoother as a result. For good measure, I did the same things on my girlfriend's and daughter's bikes (and they may not even know it) after I returned home. This small little event was a good reminder to myself to keep up with regular maintenance even if I'm not using my bike as often as I used to.

On a related note, I made an unofficial pledge to myself that day to make it a point to get back into a regular riding routine, even if just to drop off more recycling. Even the shortest of rides every day makes me feel more complete:

This pledge yielded dividends a couple days later, when I "stumbled" upon a new microbrewery that opened 5 minutes' riding distance from our house. Yet another thing that makes me feel whole:

It's called Somewhere in Particular, formerly known as Nowhere in Particular due to the owner/operator's habit of nomadic brewing (if that's actually a thing). Amazing beer and a small yet tasty food menu to boot. Also known as another place for me to blow my money without traveling far. ANYwho...

I've kept good on my pledge, riding almost daily save for the last couple days, when we were greeted with torrential downpours and gale force winds. They're gone now, and I'm getting ready to head out for this month's installment of the Roll: Pub Ride (the last of the year).

Cheers and have a lovely weekend, everyone. Remember as we head towards Winter to give your bike some love too.