May Daze

While April is the month of 30 Days of Biking, May is designated as National Bike Month. I don't usually get as "into" the latter as much as the former, but I did want to do my due diligence as a cyclist who tends to blog and offer up a brief summary of my last month on a bike.

I'll start by mentioning that the weather was much more pleasant and predictable than it was in April. As a result, I was able to commute via bicycle on most days. I was treated to some beautiful morning views too:

It was so pleasant that at least one co-worker decided to join me too:

I also spotted some things I hadn't noticed before, including this historical marker on the National Road in western Columbus:

Next time I have an extra few moments on this route, I'll make sure to take a picture of the front side of the sign, too. 😉

At any rate, I did like this old mile marker, and I did get a good pic of it:

These morning rides really are a great way to start the day. Even though I'm using more energy, I always find that I have more energy throughout the day when I'm able to start the morning on a bike.

The Grove City Farmer's Market opened for the season as well this month. Not much produce to see at this time of year, but I did ride my bike to pick up a couple vegan pastries and some local coffee as per usual on one Saturday morning:

The next day, the Columbus Ale Trail officially kicked off for the year 2022, and I celebrated by riding to the first stop to pick up books for my girlfriend and I at Wolf's Ridge Brewing in downtown Columbus:

I rode a little more and then met up with my girlfriend at a new (to the Ale Trail) brewery in Ohio Brewing:

A pretty neat space, right? I'm looking forward to returning some day. There's a decent food menu that I didn't even get to so...

The next weekend, I did something similar, this time starting at Land Grant Brewing:

I had hoped to do a little more riding and a few more stops, but it started pouring in the mid-afternoon by the time I reached Seventh Son:

So, I popped the bike on the back of the car and we drove home from there. Still not a bad way to spend a couple weekends!

And of course, I worked a few errands into my regular biking routines. I'll likely never return to the ridiculous loads of laundry I used to tote on the back of a bike trailer in years past, but every now and then I will load up my bike with 80 pounds of groceries:

That was about it for me as far as cycling went this month. I took off most of the last week due to scheduling conflicts, but ended the month on a very fun note by taking the family to one of my favourite childhood experiences in HersheyPark:

There were no bikes, but plenty of great memories. And chocolate. Hah!

School ends this week, so I'm hoping to start working more family bike rides back into our weekly habits. May went by quite fast, but it was a pretty good month. Here's hoping June is even better.

30 Days of Biking Day 30: 30 & 300 Miles!

Good evening on the final day of 30 Days of Biking 2022! Today was a microcosm of this month, which means it ended better than it began. Some early morning rain kept me inside doing household chores, but the afternoon weather was great for a distance ride into downtown Columbus:

Some clouds and a little wind not withstanding, the rain held off long enough to get in a solid 30 miles. I didn't stop for many pics along the way as a result, but here are a couple:

Really liking that sculpture. It's only a couple blocks from Land Grant Brewing and/or Brewdog Franklinton. I can envision many a drunken picture taken in this spot. Ha...

On the way home, I stopped by my friends at Heritage Cycles in Grove City to pick up some new tires for My Therapist:

They're definitely needed, and this will be a good project for a future rainy day. I probably could have done it today, but I had a bunch of other household things to get done. On top of that, the girl is going to require some serious cleaning after today:

I gave her a quick hose down before putting her in the garage for the evening, but I'm going to need to get the real deep cleaning tools out once I take the tires off. So, it actually works out perfectly. Sort of.

With that, this wraps up my 7th completed 30 Days of Biking challenge. This has been the weirdest, and dare I say most challenging, I've experienced so far. It rained or snowed and temperatures barely got above 50 on just about every day for the first two weeks of the month. In hindsight, it's no surprise that I didn't commute via bicycle until the 20th, that I logged just 30 miles in the first week, and 36 in the 2nd week. It's also kinda crazy that I sneaked in 65 miles in one day on the 16th, just about doubling my monthly mileage:

Still, the challenges extended beyond weather. With our child deciding to participate in track this Spring, our schedules were all much busier every afternoon. The family didn't really desire to participate in rides in part due to the weather but also due to hectic scheduling. That hurdle was a little tough for me to overcome, because I always enjoy getting others involved, and especially my family. On one random occasion, I did run into my Heritage friends on my way for coffee:

This was another welcome sign that things were going better to close out the month, and as I sit here having just barely gotten to 300 miles for the month, I can say that yes, April did finish on a good note. I'm hopeful that four consecutive bicycle commutes in the final week is a harbinger for late Spring:

I'm sure the family rides will come once the school year ends and Summer vacation is in full swing, and the miles don't really matter except for me competing with my own self. Now the real challenge is to keep it going beyond 30 Days of Biking. I hope you've been inspired to ride this month, and hopefully to ride more this Summer!

30 Days of Biking Day 29: FOUR!

I finished the last full work week of 30 Days of Biking with FOUR consecutive bicycle commutes! This may sound like a small victory, and it is, but considering how many weird circumstances prevented me from commuting via bike earlier in the month, I will take any victory I can get. To celebrate, I decided to ride a mile out of my way on the afternoon commute to enjoy a couple brews with a co-worker at Columbus Brewing:

The month sort of came full circle, because my first ride of this month was around this parking lot. The ride home was as gorgeous as the weather looks in the picture above.

All of the commuting this week has me near 80 miles for this week and within striking distance of 300 for the month. After an extremely slow start, I'm feeling much better about the final two weeks of April. Let's see what day 30 has in store.

30 Days of Biking Day 28: The Long way is the Right Way

Day 28 of 30 Days of Biking began somewhat auspiciously. I was running behind getting kut of the house, but I arrived at the bus stop before or right at the time it was scheduled to be there. I checked the Transit app and didn't see any busses on their map, but it said it was still 2 minutes away. 2 minutes went by, no bus. I checked again, and it said the next bus was due in 27 minutes. So, I was annoyed, but at this point I had to decide whether to ride or to go home and drive. I decided to ride:

What's really weird is that the bus passed me on my way no more than 5 minutes after I left the stop. Whatever. I suppose I needed the extra exercise.

There was an additional reward at the end of the day, a beautiful commute home:

Almost no wind, perfect temperatures, sunshine...I'm glad I decided to stick it out. A few extra miles rarely hurt anyone.

Two more days left in this challenge, and as always, I can't believe how quickly it went by...

30 Days of Biking Day 27: Work Smarter, Not Harder

This morning marked a milestone of sorts. For the first time since I can remember, I commuted via bicycle TWO days in a row:

And unlike yesterday morning, I actually made it to the bus stop on time! Having accomplished this commute with and without the bus multiple times, I've found that the morning commute is much better with the bus, for several reasons.

The ride into Columbus requires me to ride a short distance in a lane of traffic that eventually turns into an on-ramp for I-270 (known around here as the Outerbelt). There's no shoulder on this stretch, so there's no choice but to ride in the lane. No matter what I do, there's always someone who refuses to pass me even if I pull as far to the right as possible. Usually when I run out of space and have to signal that I'm cutting left, they then honk at me and give me the finger. Taking the bus helps me avoid this stretch. Not to mention, it shaves about 2.5 miles off my actual riding distance (the timing works out about equal though). I'm usually all about riding as many miles as possible, but conserving energy is important too. Work smarter, not harder, right?

Additionally, the morning bus schedule is far more predictable, because it hasn't had to compete with downtown traffic to get to my stop. The afternoon bus is almost never on time. As such, I've recently started riding the whole ride home, about 7 miles or so. The on-ramp issue I mentioned above isn't a problem on the way back, and the roads I travel have either a very wide berm or a multi-use path for most of my route. That, or they're just very sparsely traveled:

This may seem counterintuitive, but I find that I actually have more energy throughout my day when I commute via bicycle, and now that I've done it two days in a row, I'm reminded of why I enjoy it so much even on the toughest of days. Here's hoping I can make it three in a row tomorrow, and four on Friday. Only three more days left in 30 Days of Biking!

30 Days of Biking Day 26: Commute Times Two

Despite having a day off from work yesterday, I didn't exactly rest on that day off. As such, I did awake feeling mildly fatigued this morning, and I even slept until 6, which is about an hour later than usual for me on a work day. Nonetheless, I'd checked the forecast and knew that the weather was going to be pretty mild by comparison to some of the craziness we've experienced earlier this month. That motivated me to dig deep and commute via bicycle this morning:

On a side note, this was a longer than expected ride because I missed the bus this morning. Whoops! Thankfully the forecast came true and I didn't mind the extra miles at all. It was pleasant enough that I also rode the whole way home. I suppose I was enjoying myself so much that I forgot to stop and take any pictures. Heh...

I'm hoping the remainder of this week's forecast also holds up, because these should be some pretty perfect riding days if it does:

Some time yesterday, I went over 200 miles for the month, and there's still an outside chance I'll make it to 300 by the end of Saturday. I'm motivated for sure, but we'll have to see if Mother Nature gives me a helping hand.

30 Days of Biking Day 25: Maryland Monday

The family and I were on our way back to Ohio yesterday afternoon, but an ailing child stopped us in our tracks. She hadn't been feeling well in the morning, so Rae and I agreed that if it got worse throughout the day that we would stop and find a hotel room on the way. The worst case scenario happened, and so we found ourselves shacked up in Hagerstown, MD for the night.

As of this writing, the child is fully recovered and should be fine to go back to school tomorrow. In hindsight, we probably didn't need to spend the night, but better safe than sorry. I'm sure you've all been in a car while feeling ill and it's definitely no picnic.

From every crisis, there arises an opportunity. While the family slept in this morning, I took an early morning ride around the area. This shouldn't surprise you in the least:

I checked the map yesterday evening and noticed the multi-use trail you see above, which was just a quarter mile from our hotel. It loosely connects the mall area where our hotel was located with downtown Hagerstown about 3 miles away. I didn't go quite all the way to downtown, but I did turn around at a pretty neat little place:

The Hagerstown Roundhouse Museum is one of those places I would totally visit if I found myself randomly spending the day in this town. I'm a pretty big history buff, so I love seeing stuff like this:

The trolley is apparently the last trolley to ever operate in their county, a reminder of much simpler times. I'm not sure if we'll ever find ourselves here again, but I'd love to actually go to the museum if we do have a return visit.

From there, I headed back toward our hotel. I spotted this pretty cool mural advertisement for a local bar on the way:

And finally, a Moped shoppe:

I've never seen a store that specialized in Mopeds before. There was a scooter store in Philly, but that's not as cool so...

After that, I picked up the mixed use path again. The scenery was mostly warehouses and distribution centers that aren't very photogenic. Actually, it reminded me a lot of some parts of Grove City. Nonetheless, it was a solid 7-mile round trip ride and a great way to start the morning before hopping back in the car to complete our journey back to Ohio. I didn't expect to ride a bike in three different states this weekend, but after a very slow start to this month, it appears that the adventures are finally starting to find me again.