30 Days of Biking Day 6: Sneaky Sneaky

It feels like I'm playing a broken record at this point, but I'll say it again: it was rainy on the 6th day of this challenge. Over the years of doing this, I've found that weather and scheduling are the two biggest obstacles to completing the challenge, which is why if I find myself taking a car ANYWHERE, I try to keep a bike in tow in case I happen upon good conditions for riding:

I was about to drive home from work when I noticed some rays of sunshine peeking through the clouds. That was a sign. I pulled the bike out and took to the trail near work for a brief 10 minutes before showers returned:

The showers returning was doubly disappointing because our kiddo had her first middle school track meet of the season that evening. She did fine and had a good time overall, but I wish she had better weather. It does appear this system we have been mired in for the last few days has finally started to break, so here's hoping for some brighter days ahead!

30 Days of Biking Day 5: Tread in Water

According to Weather.com, we're likely going to be mired in this rainy pattern for a few more days. One of the trade-offs of working outside is that I have to work in just about all weather. As I mentioned in my last post, commuting 5ish miles via bicycle both ways in the rain and working outside all day in the rain on top of that is not at all desirable. I've not had a great start to this month, but I have been able to get a ride in every day so far, including today:

During these dull times, it's nice to see the positive effects of all the riding (and blogging) I've done on nice days rubbing off on others. My sister posted this photo yesterday of my niece and nephew enjoying their balance bikes on a NICE day back home in PA:

Apparently this is all they want to do anymore on nice days. I can't say I disapprove. This was a welcome ray of sunshine in the midst of several very cloudy, rainy days. Can't wait to ride with these kiddos later this month!

30 Days of Biking Day 4: Do What You Can

The early part of this month has not been the greatest for my biking routines. I awoke Monday morning hoping that I could get a bike commute in, but the forecast had dramatically changed overnight to a near 100% chance of rain. Being that I work outside, the last thing I want to do is ride in the rain to then work outside all day in the rain. I took a bike in the car with me to sneak in a ride around the parking lot in the early morning:

...and when the weather finally broke in the evening, I was able to fit in 5 more miles:

Better than nothing, right?

30 Days of Biking Day 3: Errands

I had another relatively light day on the bike yesterday due in part to not feeling well and also having a bunch of other things to do. In addition to household chores that I put off on Saturday, I had to drop my car off for some work to be done today. I used it as an opportunity to take a bike with me to use for my return trip:

That multi-use path is not far from my house, and it's been a mildly annoying part of my cycling life over the past 6ish months. Grove City started working to add medians on the road you can see above right,  and said road was outfitted with some questionable bike lanes that have returned since the road was repaved:

These lanes are not buffered and the 35MPH speed limit on this 4-lane stretch of Southwest boulevard is often ignored, so they're not exactly what I would call "safe." The multi-use path is an improvement for sure as long as it's actually open (you can see the construction barrier above as well) when the city isn't working on the new buildings off to the left. It's going to take some time, but hopefully they finish work on time and will re-pave the damaged areas. I use this trail almost daily during the Summer to get to downtown Grove City...

30 Days of Biking Day 2: Crew With Boo

 Yesterday was this special lady's birthday:

So be sure to wish her a happy belated if you missed it! I spent 95% of my day celebrating with her and our good friend Cheryl:

The celebrating centered mostly around a Columbus Crew game and hanging around downtown Columbus:

"We" lost but had a good time nonetheless. As you can imagine, I didn't have a TON of time for riding yesterday, but I did get in a nice 5-mile ride in the morning before we headed out for the rest of the day:

Other than the chilly wind, it did turn out to be a pretty nice day. Sadly, this might be the nicest day of the next 7, but I suppose we'll see...

And that was pretty much it for day two. The bigger adventures will come later in the month. I promise. ;)

30 Days of Biking Day 1: Acting a Fool?

 If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen this photo today:

If you believed I was actually in Philly today, congratulations on forgetting what day it is. ;)

As has been the case in most years, day one of 30 Days of Biking was relatively low-key. Temps here in Columbus, OH hovered just above the freezing mark, and there was even some snow in the air depending on the exact location. Despite these factors, I did take a couple very short rides today, one around the block, and one around the parking lot at Columbus Brewing Company:

This has been a previous pint stop on the Roll Pub Ride. They were closed during the height of the pandemic but have returned since some time last Summer, and I'm happy to report that the beer quality has not suffered one bit. Also of note, the sixtel bike racks:

As for why I found myself there today, a few co-workers and I said farewell to another co-worker, who is heading back to his home in Alaska after much too short of a time working with us. A bittersweet way to begin this month, but enjoyable nonetheless. Here's hoping for warmer weather and longer rides for the rest of April!

Vacations, Hiatuses, Birthdays, and Thirty Days...

It's been just over two months since I've checked in here, so I'd like to say welcome back to you AND me. To be 100% honest, I haven't written here because I haven't been riding all that much! The family and I finally took a long-awaited trip to Disney that was delayed by this thing called "The Pandemic" you might have heard something about. We returned to several inches of snow that hung around through the Winter cold, so with those two factors combined, I ended up taking a few weeks off from the bike. I did stumble upon this in Disney:

We also averaged about 12 miles of walking a day while we were there...for 8 days. Despite whatever questionable culinary decisions we made, we were certainly not lacking in the exercise department. If you encounter me in a space that's NOT this blog, I have much more to say about the mostly fantastic - and dare I say, magical - experiences we had. But since this is NOT a Disney blog, I'll end this part of this post with this photo and move on (for now):

Oh and by the way, the kiddo had a birthday in that week. No big deal.

Anyway, as I mentioned I've been keeping mostly low-key on the bike riding for the last couple months, but I briefly suspended my hiatus for one glorious day on February 28th to celebrate my bike's 6th birthday. It was a perfectly timed rare Winter evening where the weather was actually quite pleasant:

Soon thereafter, our Spring work season began in earnest, and I found myself shifting my energy into a different gear. Now that we're off and running and into a rhythm, I will be riding more regularly again. As annoyed as I get with daylight saving time, it has provided some great riding evenings recently:

And just in time, because 30 Days of Biking starts tomorrow. For those of you who are unfamiliar, it's a challenge to ride a bike every day in April. There is no mileage requirement - all you have to do is get on a bike at least once a day for 30 consecutive days. Sounds easy, right? It can be, if you know what you're doing. I've successfully accomplished it every year since 2016, and I'm going for lucky number 7 this year. I have no big plans in store for it, but just like in years past, I do plan to write a blog post about whatever adventures I encounter every single day. I hope you'll join me for the ride!

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I'd like to leave you with a couple plugs that I alluded to above. My girlfriend Rae made our whole family custom bags for our Disney trip, and you can check out her work AND ORDER YOUR OWN on her website at VernaRae.com. If you're interested in more Disney-related info, check out Rae's sister Jackie's blog at JackAndBax.com, which is updated from time to time with various travels to ALL sorts of places. And lastly, one more photo of our whole group: