Hey June

Memorial Day is the unofficial start of Summer, and I did my best to kick off my Summer with a productive June on the bike. It did start rather auspiciously though, with the road to the office blocked off due to a police investigation:

Fortunately, it seemed like nothing serious came of this, but it did result in a delay to the start of our work day. From every crisis, comes opportunity. Rather than drive all the way back home, I decided to take a quick jaunt into downtown to pedal a few morning miles courtesy of CoGo:

The rest of that day was uneventful by comparison, which isn't always a bad thing, right?

Despite feeling like we are constantly traveling, we spent a good amount of time in Columbus last month. I got into a nice Saturday/Sunday routine riding into the greater downtown area for various reasons:

Naturally, some of those reasons included checking off stops on the Columbus Ale Trail. This was taken at Holy Trinity Brewing. On the particular Saturday shown above, my girlfriend was volunteering at a convention downtown. She brought her bike along via the car and joined me later in the afternoon:

And why did she join me? Why...it was for the Columbus installment of the World Naked Bike Ride:

Not quite as eventful as the Philly Naked Bike Ride, but still a worthwhile experience nonetheless. Our enthusiasm was a little tempered by some rain showers and cooler temperatures. I'm still glad we made it.

Feeling pretty good after that evening, I decided to keep it going on Sunday:

This is from a relatively new brewery called Understory. It's probably the most beautiful atmosphere I've experienced of any central Columbus microbrewery:

I was on my way home from there and encountered some more inclement weather, so I paused briefly at North High Brewing:

There are worse things that could have happened, right? From there, I continued my trek home and decided to stop for some food at Taft's Brewpourium. I ended up running into some friends:

It was a pretty great way to end a pretty great weekend.

I didn't do as much commuting via bicycle as I wanted to last month, but it did happen on occasion:

Even one day saves more than a gallon of gas and about $5 each time. Every little bit counts, right?

The next weekend I took a few more rides and knocked off a few more breweries along the way:

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Hoof Hearted and Saucy also have amazing food options for diets of all varieties (vegan, vegetarian, carnivore, etc). Highly recommended, especially if you're on a bike. Food and beer always tastes better after some exertion, right?

Finally, on the last weekend in June I pedaled into downtown one more time to meet up with some friends at Comfest:

For those of you who don't live around the CBus, Comfest is a local music and arts festival now in it's 50th year. I had previously been unable to attend since moving here in 2018 but I finally checked this one off the list too. I had such a good time, I forgot to take more pictures than the two you see above haha!

With Summer in full swing, hopefully the adventures keep coming as well. I hope you all enjoyed a safe and healthy 4th of July!

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...