Rustcycles: Broad & Locust

I was on a walk right across the street from my office yesterday when I saw this. I'm sure this old bike frame is rusty, even though I can't see the whole thing...

Kind of fitting that it's rusting away across the street from the old Perch Pub. Sad, too, because I used to love going to that place right after work, and the story behind its demise isn't pretty, either.

This Time, It's Personal

Daylight Savings Time began on Sunday, and the week following has been nothing short of odd.

One of the reasons I really grew to love my job at Wash Cycle Laundry was that I got to be outside and be active every day (and get paid for it, of course). In recent months as I've been transitioning into the office, it's been a little tough to let go of that. So, even in the face of near-freezing temperatures, you can imagine I was a bit excited to return to the cycling side of things on Monday afternoon, filling in as a personal customer cyclist:

The calm before the storm, or something

Having been on the commercial delivery side of our business in North Philly for the last 2 years, delivering in Center City/South Philly was a nice trip down memory lane. It was weird not to know exactly who I was going to see or what kind of personality I would encounter with each appointment, because I've grown so used to the longstanding relationships I had with my customers. It was also a much smoother ride than I'm used to, as my terrain in the North is much more hilly and plagued with other obstacles (broken glass, etc). All told, my route that day was only 11 miles, but considering most of it was with a considerable amount of laundry in tow, it was still a solid 11-mile workout:

Personal appointments are also spread further apart, so it tends to make for a much more zig-zaggy route. Looks neat, eh? I'm even happier I got more than 15 miles in on Monday (including commutes) because I logged absolutely ZERO on Tuesday, and not much more on Wednesday and Thursday:

Bike Ice

I was in workforce training most of Wednesday and Thursday. I didn't get much of anything done otherwise on the work spectrum, but all things considered, I didn't mind being inside. Getting to and from the office was treacherous at best. There's rain in the forecast for this weekend, which could be a positive as long as it doesn't lead to flooding...I'm just hoping it will clear out the ice so I can get back to a normal commute and my normal weekend adventures.

By the way, 30 Days of Biking is coming...

Parallel Universe

I got to the office the other day and noticed a bike that looked just like mine. Because it is:

Well, aside from the color

I'm not gonna lie, I accidentally tried to unlock their bike instead of mine. I kinda wish I could have. Theirs is newer. :P

I've been in the office with some regularity for the last 2 weeks. Tonite, I'll be called into action as a residential delivery cyclist for the first time in more than 2 years. The joys of upper management - whatever is needed, whenever it's needed. Hopefully tonite isn't a storm before the storm...

The Water Cycle

This is a garbage post, but trust me, it's a worthwhile garbage post.

I've encountered my fair share of interesting folks and businesses since I started working at Wash Cycle 2+ years ago, and the list keeps growing, which of course lends itself to more new experiences.  Through them, I met the folks at United by Blue, who are not only clients, but also really awesome people.  More on them later.

Yesterday, I signed up to volunteer on a clean up they had organized.  They conduct these on the first Tuesday of every month.  This month's Philly edition was held at Bartram's Garden, which gave me an excuse to ride 5 miles out to Southwest Philly:

I was singing Octopus' Garden the whole ride there for some reason...

The ride was a bit scary at times.  I took Vare Ave. for part of the ride, which parallels the Schuylkill Expressway, leading people to exceed the 35 MPH speed limit quite often.  Even on a 3-lane wide avenue, it's still scary.  Shortly thereafter, I turned onto the Grays Ferry Bridge, which sits right next to a trash transfer station (I told you this was a garbage post).  After successfully dodging all manner of debris on the bridge, I found myself in the urban wasteland of abandoned row homes and delinquent factories that plague the Southwest.  Not the prettiest ride, hence the lack of pictures.

Bartram's Garden, on the other hand, is a beautiful place that's been preserved and operated (in varying capacities) since 1893, and is one of the oldest in the country.  It's also terribly fallen victim to littering and drifting garbage over the years, which is probably why UBB decides to hold a clean up here every late Winter.  From despair comes inspiration, though, as about 100 people showed up to help.  Believe it or not, I was the only person who rode a bike:

Maybe it's because there's not much bike parking there...

Exciting stuff, though.  OK, picking up trash is not really anyone's idea of exciting, but doing it for the best of causes and meeting some great people in the process makes it seem more like a party than a chore.  It also helps when the organizers provide free stuff like Clif Bars (one of my favorite guilty pleasures):

Where are the Steve bars?

Inspired Brews' kombucha on tap (if that's your thing):

I prefer beer

And local/organic fruit cups from Honeygrow:

Those who arrived late still got fruit cup

United by Blue is an outdoor apparel company that organizes these cleanups because their co-mission (in addition to profit) is to remove one pound of trash from the oceans for every item that they sell in their stores or online.  Basically, water connects everything, everything is united by blue.  Cue the hippy picture where I tell you why it's important not to litter:

Bonus preservation tip: don't be an idiot that throws trash out your window on the expressway

After the intro to what we were doing and why we were here, it was time to get to work.  Groups of about 15 scattered throughout the gardens and picked up and sorted trash and recyclables for about 2 hours.  I paused briefly to admire this view, which will probably be gorgeous once the trees bloom:

It already looks better with less trash

This is another place I'll come back to explore once the weather turns nicer and I have a free day.  Big picture-wise, the Gardens are eventually going to be connected to Center City and beyond via the Schuylkill Banks trail.  So basically, you'll be able to ride from Southwest Philly up to Manayunk and further without ever having to get on a major road.  Righteous, no?

After cleanup, we lugged our trash & recycling bags back to the meetup point.  Blue is for recycling, white is for trash:

My bike is going to be re-cycled. See what I did there?

Our group got back at about 5:45, and some groups that were further down the river didn't get back until closer to 6, so that's just a small portion of what we collected.  Amazingly, we collected over 1,900 pounds of discarded items, and about 70% of that will be able to be recycled.  UBB also provided us gloves to use during cleanup, and guess who's going to be washing them:

Well, obviously someone that's not me...

In case you didn't notice, that's a Wash Cycle Laundry bag.  :D  UBB awarded 2 people after all had returned: the person who guessed closest to how many pounds we picked up, and the person who found the weirdest item.  I wasn't one of them.  Meh.  I still had fun, and so did everyone else:

Photo Courtesy: Honeygrow

The rain held off just long enough for me to ride there, help with the cleanup, and ride home before dinner.

All in all, picking up trash yesterday was pretty flippin' awesome.  It would be even better if we didn't have to do it at all though...

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.

Laying Low

I've been devoid of much activity on this here blog, and maybe that's because these days I'm not doing all that much biking, relatively speaking.  I've not moved my car in more than three weeks, and my bike has clearly seen more miles.  It's a strange month to be a cyclist, where things can range from sunny to rainy to snowy all within a couple days, and usually it's cold to boot.  I bike in any weather, but the pleasure biking definitely takes a bit of a hiatus this time of year.  That said, I have sneaked in some fun rides every now and then:

This was from about 2 weeks ago, when I joined for a small portion of the monthly Full Moon Ride.  I branched off and headed towards home while listening to the Flyers on the radio.  They went to a shootout and actually won (!), at which point I was passing by the arena and could hear the goal horn from well over a quarter mile away.  Some have told me they can hear it from their houses that are actually much further away.  Still pretty neat.

A little more than a week later, I joined my first Night Cycle ride.  Also pretty damn fun, especially the campfire at the midpoint:

Again, I had to leave a little early, but I got in a solid 14 miles on a Friday night nonetheless.  The next day, I was supposed to cat-sit for a friend all the way out in West Philly.  This prophecy appeared to me on her fridge:

That day happened to be a historic day across the globe, as hundreds of millions of people joined the Women's March. Philly was no exception, and I joined for the early part of the day, via bicycle of course on my ride home:

You can see from the above that the weather was threatening.  That continued through Sunday and it broke on Monday, so much so that I was forced to take the train home from the office.  I don't like it any more than you:

Though less than ideal, I'm always glad I got out and did something, even if it's just biking a mile down the street.  I get really bad cabin fever.  Apparently it's rubbing off on the cats, too:

Tomorrow promises to be much better, so we'll see what happens.  January is a strange month for another reason.  Even though I bike every day, I'm just not that motivated to write about it.  You might call it a holiday/birthday hangover, or something.  At any rate, it's already almost over.  Can you believe it?