A Ride A Day Keeps Insanity Away

Today is the Autumnal Equinox. I've always "celebrated" equinoxes to some degree. I'm not sure of the exact reason why, but I find the idea of balance fascinating. This one was a little extra special for me.

In an odd coincidence, I'm still holding on to my longest consecutive streak of riding a bike at least once a day (currently at 185 days), a streak that has nearly spanned the last two equinoxes. The Spring equinox had passed three days prior to March 22nd, the day when Ohio Governor Mike DeWine issued a shelter-in-place order due to COVID-19, the day when my life was first altered by the events of 2020.

It's been exactly 6 months since that day, and I've been on a bike for every day in those 6 months. For those of you who have regularly visited this blogspace, you may have noticed that I haven't actually checked in here in quite some time despite all that riding (stats may follow later if I feel up to it), and there are a couple reasons why:

1. Most of my rides aren't anything special. It could literally be a lap around the block in the morning or evening just to get my legs moving or to wind down at the end of the day. "Nothing to write home about" in the most literal sense of the phrase.
2. I'm not riding a bike to create content for the blog. In fact, I've rarely done that in the 5+ years I've kept this blog going.

So why have I kept on riding? Sanity. It's that simple. Even if I only get 5 minutes a day, 5 minutes of sanity is sometimes all I need. You could also call it balance. You might also know that I totally planned on hitting 6 months of consecutive riding on the equinox, the ultimate day of balance. OK, maybe not. Anyway...

As I mentioned above, most of my rides haven't been spectacular, but there have been some good moments. Rather than go through a lengthy photo stream of the past 6 months, I decided to pick my favourite photo from each month, plus a photo from this morning:

A beautiful, crisp late March morning in Grove City, several days after the streak started.

I stumbled upon this temporary plastic sheeting mural in the Hilltop area of Columbus on a ride home during 30 Days of Biking in April. Side note: this was the first 30DoB I've ever spent solely in one state.

Social gatherings were still limited in May, but since it's pretty easy to be socially distant on a bike, some friends and I decided to have a small group ride with a brief end stop for an outdoor adult beverage at Grove City Brewing.

In yet another 100% planned event, I found myself in Manhattan on day 100 of this streak. Thanks to CitiBike for helping me keep it alive through the end of June and into July.

I ended July with an all-day 60-mile solo adventure around Columbus. It was sorely needed on many levels.

I'd somehow visited three states during this streak before August rolled around, but I visited one of them again (Indiana) when my girlfriend and I decided to take a camping/float trip to our neighbor to the west. By the way, camping is another great socially distant activity.

Make that four states, as the family and I visited my hometown on Labor Day weekend after nearly 6 months away.

And finally, a view of my bike inside the warehouse after my morning commute. The sunrise was much more beautiful than the picture would indicate. An industrial park isn't necessarily the most photogenic of locations, but you get the point.

I'm not going to go too in-depth on riding stats because a) I don't feel like it. b) I'm not sure you actually care, and c) I'm not actually training for anything...but I did want to share one number with you: 200. Because of all of these mostly small rides adding up, I'm about 200 miles ahead of my distance from last year at this time, and just over 200 miles away from my total for all of last year (with thanks to Strava). Doing the littlest of things can make a big difference.

Beyond that, like I said before, it's about finding that peace of mind every single day, even if it's only for a few minutes. I still struggle to find that on a daily basis, as I'm sure many of you do. I encourage you to find a way, whatever that way is. And celebrate the smallest of victories when you find them. Riding a bike every day for 6 months may not mean much to anyone else, but on this day, I'm grateful that I've done it, and I see no end in sight. Happiest of Autumns to you.

I Needed This

A great man once said, "Something given has no value."

OK actually, it's a quote from one of my favourite bad movies. You can consider it a paraphrase of the "give a man a fish" axiom. I totally agree with the meaning behind it, but that doesn't mean that gifts can't be valuable.

For example, I was given a gift of alone time this weekend. Those of you who are family people can understand how uncommon it is to have such an occurrence. Rae was out of town visiting friends, and Faith is visiting her grandparents, so I had two nights in this house with just myself and the cats here in Grove City. I know some of you out there probably don't like the feeling of being by yourself, but I'm one to embrace it when I do experience it on the rare occasion. I do think a little "me" time is seriously undervalued in today's society.

Anyway, I chose to embrace this gift by using another gift that was given to me by my mother 4.5 years ago, my bike:

In case I haven't told you this story before, here's the Cliff Notes version: I had a bad crash in late 2015 that rendered my current bike mentally and physically incapable of being used by me. Mom picked out the Trek you see above and gave it to me as a Christmas/Birthday gift that Winter. To say she's gotten her money's worth would be an understatement. According to Strava, we've logged well over 8,000 miles together.

With favourable weather and not much else to do on Saturday, I decided to take a much-needed long adventure ride around the greater Columbus area. I had exactly one destination in mind, but the remainder of the trip would be seeing where my bike could take me. Initially, trails would be the theme of the day:

That's taken from a stretch of the Camp Chase Trail near Galloway, about 8 miles from my house. For those of you who know me, I'm not usually the type to drive to a trail head and take the bike from there - I prefer to start and finish from my house if at all possible. Sometimes that means adding 8 extra miles and a little bit of nerve-racking on the road but...it's usually worth it. Anyway, I decided to pause for a water break once I linked up with the Scioto Trail and reached downtown Columbus:

This is always one of my favourite views. It reminds me very much of the approach to Center City Philly from the SRT. I was about 14.5 miles out at this point, so it seemed like a good place to pause for a minute. From here, I headed east via the Downtown Connector, a trail that I'd not previously experienced even after living here for 2+ years:

That was hard for me to believe. I ride everywhere, right? In any case, it led to my only "real" destination, which was another trail I'd not yet experienced before yesterday, the Alum Creek Trail:

If you look closely, you can see the highway on the right of the above picture. This trail has been somewhat haunting me on an almost weekly basis, because I see it all the time while I'm driving around for work. I have been saying for a long time that I needed to get over there to ride it. Check.

The trail itself is much like any other rail trail, mostly paved with a few sections of gravel and boardwalk. It runs mostly parallel to the Alum Creek (hence the name) and winds its way through some woody terrain at parts:

I had to pause once again when I saw this sight to my left, about 20 miles into my ride at this point:

It happens to be the baseball field for Ohio Dominican University. I envision people running the trail during baseball season and stopping here to watch an inning before heading on their way. In a weird twist of normalcy, this field probably WOULDN'T be busy in July because College Baseball is well over by this time of year. But I digress...

Behind me, there stands a new-ish bridge that made me feel truly spoiled to be riding this trail. I don't think people acknowledge often enough how much work goes into making green spaces for us cyclists and outdoor enthusiasts:

After that, it was more woods and fresh air for a few gorgeous miles:

And eventually, 26 miles in, I reached what I had loosely determined to be my farthest point out, Forbidden Root Brewing in Easton:

Shocking, right? Steve goes on a bike ride and ends up at a brewery. I'd actually fully prepared myself NOT to make this my destination. Because of the recent unpleasantness, venturing to a destination only to find out it's closed is something that happens almost weekly to me. I guess I should learn to call ahead. In any case, my backup plan was all manner of trail snacks and a towel so I could have a pseudo picnic in the woods along the trail. It wouldn't have been the worst thing to happen, but this was definitely a better option:

I did sit outside, but around the corner in the shade. Common sense, right? It was about 12:30 and already approaching 90° at that point of the day.

I can never decide on beers when I go to a new brewery, so I grabbed a flight (and of course some food). It includes a beer named Snoochie Boochies. If you know, you know:

Not pictured: the 3 glasses of water I drank in addition to this. You can give me shit for ordering a grilled cheese at a restaurant, but it was exactly what I needed in that moment. Gruyere on sourdough? It was fantastic even if I knew it was unhealthy. I'd eventually burn it off, right? I had a long ride home ahead of me.

Across the way, I spotted this neat little sculpture/archway in the commons area of the adjacent shopping center:

I have no other details about it. Just had to share because it made the destination seem all that much more "right." My only gripe with this experience is that I couldn't find any bike racks. That's probably the worst thing that happened yesterday, which is pretty amazing.

What followed wasn't necessarily a bad experience, but it was pretty stressful at times. Instead of backtracking, I decided to head west on Morse Road, which has a bike lane. I'll say this much, it's certainly a lane:

It reminded me of Delaware Avenue back in Philly. For those of you who haven't ever experienced that, picture cars regularly violating the 35 MPH speed limit next to an un-buffered unprotected bike lane. Not ideal. It probably wouldn't have been so stressful if I didn't also have 20+ pounds of cargo in my panniers (I decided to grab beer to go, which added to the weight of the extra water and supplies I was carrying).

Nonetheless, I am an experienced cyclist and I survived, eventually making it to Clintonville and opting to stop at one of my favourite bike-centric breweries here in Columbus, Lineage Brewing:

I actually had no intention of stopping here when I set out in the morning, but my route found its way just two blocks north of here and I couldn't NOT stop. I was 34.5 miles out at this point:

You can read the Lineage Brewer's cycling story on their website. They were one of the first breweries I visited when I traveled to Columbus more than three years ago, and I still own a pair of cycling socks I bought that day (also not pictured, but I did wear them yesterday in a strange foreshadowing).

I headed toward the Olentangy Trail from there to make my way closer to home. I ended up back on the Scioto Trail heading for downtown once again before I intended to head south back to Grove City. I ended up taking one of the best pictures of my day completely by accident as I was pulling my phone out to take a completely different picture:

Apparently I had left my phone in selfie mode, and I have my phone set to take a picture when touching the side volume buttons when the camera is open. As you can see, I was having a great time. I'd built an epic playlist for the ride and the right music on the open trail combined with the slight adrenaline-fueled euphoria was...I actually don't have a word. And what was I trying to take a picture of? Just the city, for whatever reason:

What a day so far. I bumped into a couple random people at Lineage and one of them said "Oh, so you're also a cycopath." I laughed, but they were totally correct. They said there's definitely a cycling high, similar to a runner's high. I get it.

I decided from there that I would make one more stop before a final push home, because I'd yet to stop in at Taft's Brewpourium since it opened in the Hilltop:

If you're concerned that I'm drinking a lot of beer throughout this process, know that I consumed more than twice the volume of water throughout the day as I did beer. It was so hot that I'm sure I sweated most of it out anyway. I had a small snack there too (tempura cauliflower - not pictured) before I headed for home.

This is definitely crazy, but once I'd arrived home, I realized I still wasn't completely satisfied with my day. I was somewhere close to 50 miles of biking at that point and I really felt like I could hit 60 (I didn't set a goal - I just felt like I could go further). So I did. After checking in on the cats and using the facility, I got back on the bike and pedaled around Grove City for a bit. The wind had started to pick up at this point, and I was finally starting to feel fatigue. I did make it to one of my regular stops for a quick Saturday night cap at Hop Yard 62:

I rounded out my day by heading briefly westward to take in the sunset at Breck Community Park:

And one final stop to pick up dinner at Grove City Brewing before finally heading home with 60 miles in the bag:

I titled my ride "I needed this," because I did. I'm not a cyclist training for a race or any goal really, but I love to see how far I can push myself. I don't set goals. I just love to ride. That said, I couldn't tell you the last time I've gone for more than 30 miles (even though I came close in New York earlier this month). There's just not enough time in most days for me to do it anymore. Long rides are very soothing to my soul for whatever reason, and I need them every now and then. To think. To appreciate. To literally "ride things out."

My girlfriend doesn't like to admit that we sometimes need some time apart, but she knows it's true. I walked in my house yesterday evening reeking to high heaven but ultimately a happier, more appreciative person for all of the things I have in this life. For example, Faith won't be home until next week and now I only have my girlfriend to play board games against until then. Haha! But seriously...

One of the most difficult things that has arisen out of the COVID situation is that we've not really been able to take time away from each other to spend by ourselves. When the opportunity presents itself, I will encourage everyone to take advantage of it. It's that whole "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" thing, right? We all need to miss each other every now and then, and we all need time to re-charge ourselves. I'm happy I was given the gift to do so this weekend, and there's no way to put a value on that.

Have a fantastic week, everyone. Be safe and be healthy.

100 Days of Cycling for Sanity

Think about where you were or what you were doing in your life 100 days ago. Things certainly look a lot different today, don't they?

Your timeline may be a little different than mine. On March 22nd (which is actually 103 days ago as of this writing), Ohio residents were ordered to shelter in place due to Coronavirus implications, and many businesses were forced to make dramatic changes to their operations or temporarily close altogether. Sensing challenging times ahead, I began a streak of riding a bike every day that I've still kept going through this morning.

Why? The simplest explanation is because it keeps me sane in these very insane times. As I posited in the first sentence of this post: sit back and really think about what your life was like 3 and a half months ago. Think about how different it is today. How are you feeling? How have you managed to keep yourself going through all of this?

I'm going to keep this as short and sweet as possible. This year has been a roller coaster, speaking from my own personal experiences. The one thing that I've kept consistent is riding a bike every single day, if only for a 5-10 minute lap around the block to clear my mind or keep my legs moving forward. If you want a (hopefully) productive exercise, try to list all of the things that you've experienced already this year, and be prepared to be impressed with yourself for making it to today.

We owe it to ourselves to celebrate ourselves every so often. On Monday morning, my 100th consecutive day of cycling, I celebrated by biking 20 miles around Lower Manhattan. The family and I will be here for another few days while our daughter recovers from a minor surgical procedure she had on Tuesday (the whole reason we are here, actually - we've celebrated her as well). I plan on keeping this going as long as possible. In the mean time, enjoy some beautiful yet haunting pictures I took to mark my occasion, and remember to celebrate even the smallest of victories:

A Man on Amish-ion

Patience pays off. It's an old cliché that often proves to be true.

Several months ago, Rae and I were looking to sell a piece of furniture that had been left behind in our house by the previous owners. We couldn't find many interested buyers for several months, and almost considered keeping it. Then one day not too long after the COVID-19 pandemic had induced temporary lock downs of many businesses, a manager from the Hotel Millersburg reached out with interest. For obvious reasons, they were pretty short on cash at the time, but he had an intriguing proposal: he would take our furniture in exchange for a two-night stay at their hotel, located in the heart of Ohio Amish Country.

I probably know what you're thinking. Who would want to go visit Amish country? Although I consider myself most comfortable in an urban setting, I'm never afraid to venture outside of my comfort zone. I also grew up about an hour away from Pennsylvania Amish Country, home to such unique town names as Intercourse, Blue Ball, and Bird-In-Hand, among many others. To me, the occasional trip to Amish country is like taking a trip back in time, somewhat literally.

So that's how the two of us found ourselves in Millersburg, OH this past weekend. What is there to do in a small town of only about 3,000? Well for starters, there's a fantastic brewery in the downtown area (makes me think my home town could use one). The town thrives on locally made goods and food, and there are plenty of shopping options available. And of course, there's the 23-mile Holmes County Trail that runs along the creek at the west side of town:

After enjoying a well-made local breakfast and perusing a few shops and a farmer's market in the downtown area, we decided to spend the majority of our Saturday afternoon on the trail. It's typical Rail Trail that makes use of the old Cleveland-Pittsburgh railroad pathway:

As you can see above, it's a segment of the Ohio-to-Erie Trail, which is very much still on my non-existent to-do list (more on that later). I knew we wouldn't have the time to ride the complete trail, but tackling the south section would be very do-able. I wanted to head that way partly to stop at a natural food store that was not too far off the trail so we could pick up some snacks on our way:

I'm not saying they were healthy snacks, but I've made worse decisions. As for the trail itself, it was a pretty nice ride. Not really much scenery to speak of, but the majority of it was shaded under some thick foliage that made conditions rather pleasant, so there's that. There were a few unique signs on the way:

Share the trail, amirite? Anywho, after about 45 minutes of riding or thereabouts, we'd reached our midway point in Killbuck, where we decided to pause for some locally made Amish ice cream:

Like I said above, not necessarily a healthy decision, but it was totally necessary. I mean, you can't fake smiles like this:

I'm not shaving my beard any time soon, by the way.

When we arrived back at the trail head, we stopped to enjoy some more refreshments when two riders pedaled up on this amazing tandem rig:

If you look closely, you can see camping gear and many other supplies indicative of a long bike tour. After speaking with the couple, they were in the process of riding the length of the Ohio-to-Erie trail in support of the Pan Ohio Hope Ride. It's a ride that garners donations for the American Cancer Society. The large ride they were going to take part in has basically been shelved because of the pandemic, but they are doing it anyway because people donated to their team and they felt they owed it to them. I appreciate the effort so much, and it's rekindled my desire to do the whole trail start-to-finish one day.

That said, on our way in and out of Millersburg, we happened to drive down a small portion of the Ohio-to-Erie trail that's on-road, and it did not appear to be safe for cyclists. No shoulder or berm, and sharing the road with a 55-MPH automobile speed limit, among other hazards. It appears I need to do some scouting.

At any rate, we had entertained the hope of doing the northern section of the trail on Sunday, but decided to head back to Columbus instead. I'm not at all disappointed by this, as we thoroughly enjoyed our small exploration of Ohio's Amish Country this weekend. We'll absolutely return some day in the near future.

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I'd like to close this out by throwing out a few random mentions:

• First, happy belated Father's Day to all of the Dads out there, and a very belated happy Mother's Day to all of the Moms out there (I haven't posted on here in quite a while - appreciate your parents every day just to be safe).
• Second, I wrote a tribute to our dearly departed cat Marvin on my other blog, and if you care to stop in and read his story, I'd really appreciate it. I hope it will inspire you to care lovingly for the animals in our lives and try to help other animals in need of good, loving homes.
• Third and finally, I've now reached 93 consecutive days of riding a bike at least once a day, even if just for a short lap around the block. Amidst all the chaos in our world today and in my own personal life, it's been one of my sources of sanity, and I hope you have been able to find something like that in your own life. Regardless of your opinion of what's been going on lately, I hope you've been taking some time to care for yourself and care for others in the process. The best defense against illness and suffering is living well (and eating healthy!), and that helps us make the world around us a better place.

One week until 100. Can I make it? Sure I can. Happy riding, everyone.

We Can Ride Through This...Together

Traveling can take you places, and not just physically. After more than 2 months of not going anywhere, my life has begun to feel even more bizarre of late: I've now traveled out of state twice in two consecutive weeks. I'm a bit floored by that last sentence.

Before you lecture me for being too cavalier during an ongoing pandemic, let me reassure you that I don't view myself as truly fortunate for having taken these excursions. Both trips were not for pleasure.

That's not to say that I didn't try to find blessings in the midst of these trips, namely in the form of my spirit animal, the bike. Last week, I was in Indianapolis for a few days of work and managed to sneak in a few socially-distanced bike rides. For three days this week, I found myself in New York City and did the same:

This trip was family-related, even though we have no family living in NYC. For those of you who don't know, Faith (our daughter) was born with hemifacial microsomia and has been undergoing reconstructive surgeries for basically her entire life. Her surgeon is based in NYC and we were well overdue for a follow-up consultation, hence why we were there this week. Believe me, we wouldn't have ventured up there without a good reason.

With that, we as a family remain ever grateful for the MyFace Foundation, who provides lodging, travel aid, and other assistance for people like Faith and their families. Without them, trips like this wouldn't be possible at all. I'm happy to report in brief that she's progressing as expected, though we will likely be returning in the near future. Let's hope the global situation improves by then.

I mentioned that this wasn't a pleasure trip, and that's the truth. While we were there, we were required to abide strictly to the CDC guidelines, maintaining social distance and wearing masks in public places. We were also extra diligent about overall cleanliness, which included washing hands extremely often, using sanitizer whenever possible, and washing our clothes every day.

That last line is actually what granted me a little time to ride on our first morning. I was on laundry duty, so while the clothes were in the washer, I bought a CitiBike day pass and took a brief ride around the Kips Bay area:

We were only a couple blocks from the East River Greenway, and that seemed like a good direction to head. Let me tell you, this was one of the most unique rides I've ever taken. This regularly crowded trail was mostly desolate:

On a regular day, even I might find this trail to be a bit much to navigate. On Wednesday morning, it was quite easy. I'm not recommending everyone go out and clog up the trails. What I do agree with is regular outdoor activity while practicing appropriate social distancing. If I had encountered a full house, I would have turned back and headed back to the apartment. When I did head back, I washed up immediately upon return and changed clothes. In fact, I did this just about every time any of us left the apartment. Overkill? Maybe. Better safe than sorry? Of course.

Speaking of, for safety reasons, Rae and Faith agreed not to participate in renting the bike share bikes. Even I find them a bit cumbersome, and even with the lack of traffic on the streets, I'd never want to put either of them in a compromising situation. We still felt it important to get outside for a little bit each day we were there, so we took a few walks when time permitted. On one of these, we decided to pass through Times Square. It looked truly surreal:

We did have a bit of an ulterior motive with that decision in that we were hoping it would help Faith to appreciate just how big this event is in human history. She's been to Times Square during "normal" times, and I think once she saw that all of the famous stores and theatres were closed, it resonated. I know it struck me pretty hard, even though I was expecting it.

I did try to work a little more "formal" education into one of our walks. Since we couldn't go to any real historical exhibits, I decided we should take a short walk to Stuyvesant Square Park to teach some history. Stuyvesant wasn't a great guy, but he was pretty important to the history of New York City back when it was called New Amsterdam. When I told this to Faith, her first response was "Is that why you always sing that song?" (referring to the catchy tune by They Might Be Giants) and she learned a bonus music lesson too. We also got a good chuckle out of the Stuyvesant statue that had been adorned with a mask:

On our last day, I decided I wanted to get up early and take a nice long ride perhaps down to the southern tip of Manhattan. I figured it would be relatively easy from looking at the cycling routes, and also because most of them looked like this one in the Lower East Side on Chrystie Street:

I either overestimated myself or underestimated the map, because about 25 minutes in, I was still about 2 miles from the World Trade Center:

Knowing we had a full day of cleaning up the apartment and travel ahead of us, I decided to head back to the north. It was around 7:30AM by now, and once again, I was amazed by how little traffic I encountered on my way:

It was around this time I started thinking about us heading back to Ohio, to our town that we felt had been so drastically affected by the events of the world today, that I couldn't get out of my own head. I started thinking about how dramatically different New York seemed today as compared to how it appeared when we visited two years ago. I started thinking about how different we were as a family two years ago, when I hadn't even moved to Ohio yet. I started thinking about all that we've built and worked for, and how all of that was able to be permanently altered in what feels like an instant. And then, on the flip side, I started thinking about how a week prior, I was deep in the midwest, drinking a beer outside at a restaurant and feeling somewhat normal. I must have been having a really good bike ride, because I was all over the place, and not in a literal sense. But maybe we all are, and that's OK as long as we help each other to get through this.

On that note, I noticed on this trip that the stereotypical aggressive New Yorker attitude was mostly absent. I noticed a lot of people - I'd say 99.9% - doing everything they can to be safe and help others. People have asked me about my trip since I got back, and I gotta say, it wasn't so bad. I'd like to say it's because of people helping people. So whether you think this thing is serious or not (I usually tend to think the truth lies somewhere in the middle of the extremes), just do the right things. Wear a mask because it's really not that difficult. Wash your damn hands because you should have been doing that in the first place. Eat well and be active in your daily life. It's kindergarten stuff.

Obviously, we have arrived home safely, and I, for one, am much richer because of the travel. I can't lie to you and tell you I'll never take going places for granted again, but I can hope that I'll appreciate it more...and I hope you will too. Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend, as safely as possible.