The Dog Days of Biking

We all like challenges of varying degrees...

 

Unless that challenge is riding a commuter bike through the sand...

Over the last week, I've been really frustrated with politics and other real-life events.  I started feeling like something was genuinely missing from my life.  I think it actually started more than a week ago, when I spoke to someone from back home who regularly follows this blog and they mentioned that I don't write as much as I used to.

I thought about why that's become the case, and as expected, I told myself "I just don't have the time."  You know what?  Screw that.  I had to admit that I miss it, and I need to make time for it again.

Telling myself that isn't going to be enough, because it never is.  I need to have some sort of a challenge associated with a task to accomplish it.  So I figured, if #30daysofbiking worked before, it will work again...I'm going to do another month of consecutive bike riding and blog posts!

I intend to let this flow naturally as it did last time around with only a few set plans in mind.  Who knows?  I may finally partake in the monthly Philly Full Moon Bike Ride for a change.

I also want to get back to some of my running blog themes I've gotten away from in recent months, most notably "Rustcycles" and "Nice Racks."  I realized that recently I've not been paying attention to much outside of my own mind, and it's had far-reaching negative effects.  Beach trips and gigs aside, my head has been entirely too cooped up within its own self lately, and I need to "ride it out," so to speak.

So here I am, about to see where my two wheels take me this month, once again.  This time around, I'm not attempting to log miles myself - there's an app for that.  Ride along with me and keep up if you can...

DNCycle

In case you've been living in a cave for the last week, the Democratic National Convention dominated much of the news and lifestyle of Philadelphians over the last few days. If you know me, you already know what I think, and I'll keep my political opinion off this blog post. Sort of.

The event led to an innumerable amount of protests, some of which I attended, all of which were peaceful. In fact, I heard of very few incidents as compared to when the RNC was here years ago. My favorite was the least protest-like, and in fact, it was not labeled as a protest by the event organizers.

It was called RideDNC, and it was a ride down the entire length of Broad Street. Hey, any excuse to ride to promote cycling awareness and safety, I'm in. Unfortunately, I also had a softball game that evening, so I was a little late to the party:

I really just wanted to take a picture of my makeshift Bernie Bike.

If things had gone according to plan, I would have made it to the start point at Cheltenham Avenue just as the ride began at 7:30. Of course, we started late and the game dragged on until almost 8, meaning I would have to blend in mid-pack, but at least we won!

I ended up getting to the corner of Broad & Spring Garden Streets just as the lead pack moved through. Perfect timing, eh? It's tough for me to take pictures with my phone while in motion, but this was friggin' awesome:

Yes. Scratching your armpit is awesome.

I knew two of my friends would also be joining midway at Dilworth Park. I found one on the way:

He's gonna kill me for posting this

We then trekked southward to search for more friends:

The ride itself was a pretty good pace, much faster than I expected, but definitely what I preferred. All told, I logged about 6 of the 12.5 miles, but bear in mind that I also logged well over 15 miles earlier that day while working and commuting. It was a great scene at the end of the ride at the corner of Pattison & Broad, where everyone gathered for hugs and handpounds:

There was a party too, but no beer. No thanks.

And, I finally found the other friend I was expecting there too!

He was hunting for Pokemon.

As I mentioned above, the after party wasn't really to our liking, so we decided to venture up to East Passyunk Ave, which happened to be having a street festival and/or block party, whichever term you prefer. Literal dancing in the streets and such:

Trust me. They're dancing.

I can't wait until Open Streets PHL returns this year. Riding down the end of Broad Street with no traffic was surreal, to say the least. I didn't view this ride as a protest, but rather a simple exercise of raising awareness. There were plenty of messages being thrown around and all in good fun, but the core of it was about 1,000 cyclists taking over one of the busiest streets in Philadelphia just to say "we're here." I love that. Would totally do it again.

As for the DNC, good riddance. I'm ready for life to return to normal here in Philly, whatever that means.

Beach Bikin' Away

I've not been lacking in the busy department these days, but I've found some time here and there to escape the hectic-ness of my Monday-Friday lifestyle and get outside Philly to enjoy other outdoor activities.  A couple weeks back, a bunch of us shot down to Rehoboth for a weekend, and I made sure to sneak in a few rides here and there.  Biggest difference, no one on the road, not even in the bike lane:

Except for that one car off in the distance...

Thanks to a tip from an old friend, I parked my car outside the immediate downtown area for the weekend and rode in:

They're going the wrong way

That sign was actually part of the impetus to do what I did this past weekend, when my Mom, stepdad and I trekked down to OCMD to join up with yet another old friend to enjoy some beachy-ness and the like.  It's been awhile since I've added to my Sunday Cycling Series, and I did it in quite epic fashion this week.  I crossed another adventure off this Summer's to-do list, namely biking 20 miles of the Coastal Highway from OCMD up to Rehoboth:

Everyone's happy at the start...

We set a pretty good pace, and I didn't take many pictures along the ride.  By we, I mean my intrepid good buddy Amy, who was just crazy enough to join me:

Selfie game on point at Indian River Inlet

This was a little past halfway, and the ride was actually pretty easy.  At least for me.  The views weren't bad either:

I mean, if you're into beautiful, sunny days at the beach...

We reached our (my) true halfway point after a nearly 2-hour sojourn:

And now you see the real motive

That includes a few small detours to water breaks.  Not too shabby.

It wouldn't be a true Sunday Cycling Series ride without a nice beer at the end, right?  I've become somewhat of a regular at the Dogfish Head Brewpub, so it wasn't a NEW bar per se, but they always have some unique new brews to try, and these were all great:

Beware of the Baton. Evil.

Except it wasn't the end.  Sadly, Amy was not feeling up to completing the full 44-mile round trip with me.  I don't blame her.  It's not like she does this for a living...haha.  My stepdad came to pick her up and they went back to OCMD to get some more beachin' in while I prepared to finish the round trip.

So, after a short rest on the beach at Rehoboth, I chugged southward, and I use the term literally.  I wasn't expecting it, but I faced a 10-15 mph wind the entire ride back.  Several times, I thought about calling back and hitching a ride, but I kept it together.  I guess I should have expected this, as it happened last year, too.  I did some quick number crunching on Strava later that evening, and I was slowed by about 5 mph on the ride back.  It took me a little over 2 hours.  Not that I'm training or anything, but that's pretty crazy, right?

Anywho, the next morning, actually the next couple days, were uneventful for the most part.  Lots of beach time, a couple short rides, most notably this ride to see the sunrise on Monday morning:

I don't recommend riding a commuter bike on the beach

And just for some additional fodder, check out this cruiser that was left unlocked outside our condo:

I wouldn't steal it anyway because of that hideous paint scheme

It truly is a different world at the beach.  I can't wait to go back.  Ya know, other than a gig Friday, I do have the weekend sort of free...

Go Topless

And in this heat, why wouldn't you?

In case you've been living in a cave for the last week, it's been insufferably hot here in the city of Brotherly love. Even for me. You can almost see the haze in the pic above.

Summer happens to be my busiest time on the job, as you can probably tell by my lack of posts. Yesterday was rather tame compared to the rest of this week, but it still involved moving 400 pounds of linen kits and another 200 pounds of pillows to Temple University, which was thankfully done in a cargo van, not on a bike. Seriously, I would have passed out from heat exhaustion.

I finished with the bulk of my morning deliveries except for one, an emergency shelter just a half mile from the laundromat. Interestingly enough, while we're at our busiest in Summer, they're at their slowest. To keep weight (and exhaustion) to a minimum, I decided to take the bin off the trike for fun:

Fun in the sense that it's not really fun at all

It looks a little weird, right? Especially when you consider what I did with this trike a couple weeks ago... I could have pulled this bag over my shoulder and done it on a regular bike, but that surely wouldn't have been any fun at all. Plus, the trike has been lonely these days. I did enjoy it, and I was pretty surprised how much weight and wind resistance a 10 pound laundry bin can add to the ride. Alas, this likely won't happen again any time soon.

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In case you didn't read my last post, I missed 8 days in my #365daysofbiking quest, but I'm still going relatively strong, and I haven't missed a day since (that I remember). It's tough work to keep track of everything, but thankfully I have Strava (follow me!). Wish I had known about it sooner.

Combined with #30daysofbiking and whatever I logged before then, I know I'm well over 1,500 miles on a bike this year. Comparitively, I just got my oil changed 2 weeks ago for the first time since November, which means I am pretty damn close to logging as many miles on a bike as I have in my car this year. And I still have some adventures yet to come this Summer...