reflections
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The Mind’s Journey
I began this year feeling quite uncertain, almost ambivalent, about the brevets. The past year has included some serious and unexpected health issues in my family. These scrambled up my head, and prompted a reassessment of that big question “What am I doing with my life?” Continue reading
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Final Week of 30 Days of Biking (and Poetry) in Washington, D.C.
Over the past month, I engaged in a personal challenge to ride my bike each day, take at least one picture during my ride, and find a poem that somehow encapsulated the day. Poetry has always held a special place for me, but over the years our relationship became distant. I saw it as extra, even… Continue reading
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Stillness in the Ruckus of Washington, D.C.
Buses align Ohio Drive, one after the other, and block my once-daily view of the Potomac. Large chatty groups of tourists swarm the National Mall, oblivious to the bike commuters that weave around them. They start the day early, and I fail to wake up any earlier to avoid their field trips. The sudden influx is an annual… Continue reading
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Birthday Week Bike Rides in BikeDC
Dear Washington, D.C., my current city of residence, I discovered a better way to maneuver around you after too many years as a subterranean Metro passenger. Continue reading
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Randonneuring In Retrospect
I’m a randonneur romantic. Sure, longer brevets almost always include periods where I question my recreational pursuits due to discomfort, exhaustion, or some dissatisfaction with a route segment, but they don’t hang on. Eventually, those feelings fade and bike riding reclaims its place on my list of favorite things to do. Continue reading
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Bringing Made-Up Words to Life: Coffeeneuring and Errandonnee
I don’t mean to shock anyone, but the words “coffeeneuring” and “errandonnee” are totally made-up words. That’s right, both are fake words used to describe activities that people do on bicycles. These terms were born out of similar circumstances. Continue reading
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The Truth and Nonsense of the N+1 Principle of Bicycles
If you’ve been around bikes long enough, you’re likely familiar with the “n+1” principle. Velominati describes it as follows: The correct number of bikes to own is n+1. While the minimum number of bikes one should own is three, the correct number is n+1, where n is the number of bikes currently owned. This equation may… Continue reading
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The Randonap
Since beginning my glamorous randonneuring career in 2005, I’ve not only ridden in places I never imagined, but I’ve dozed in an assortment of spots I never before would have considered comfortable or conducive to sleeping. Ride long enough, sleep little enough, and you too will find yourself mastering the strategy of the perfect randonap. Continue reading
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Figuring Out How to Speak Bike
Recently Elly Blue put a question out to the Twitterverse, asking people about the things they found difficult when first taking up cycling. Her question took me back to 2003 or so when I began cycling around Washington, D.C., for transportation and fitness. Continue reading
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Why Write About Bicycling
As I was padding around the Mall on a meditative lunch run, I pondered what keeps me writing about time spent on my bicycle. Continue reading
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2015 Question Marks
January– a cold month prone to dreary days and shades of brown on all sides– is generally an optimal time for me to hang out inside and ponder big ideas for the year ahead. Usually at least two or three appealing active undertakings grab me and won’t let me go. Last year those big doings… Continue reading
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PBP 2015: To Go or Not to Go Again?
The turning of the calendar to 2015 also means the arrival of a “PBP year.” Paris-Brest-Paris, the most heralded, historic, and international of all grand randonnees now peeps its head around the corner and beckons to us randonneurs, a mere eight months away. I thought that deciding on a return trip to PBP would take little internal debate.… Continue reading
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Combating Cynicism Through Active Commutes
Today I was reading David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech “This is Water.” In it, he addresses the theme of selfishness, as well as the tedious aspects of adult life and how we all construct and view our life experiences. Our challenge, he says, is to step outside ourselves, take an active role in interpreting our surroundings, and… Continue reading
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The Wheelman’s Song
Those of you who follow me on Instagram may have noticed that I’ve been perusing old issues of The Wheelman and Good Roads. Both magazines were publications of the League of American Wheelman, which is now the Bike League, and date back to the late 1800’s, when people’s fascination with the bicycle was just beginning… Continue reading
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Giving Thanks for Bike Rides
Ten years ago I began life as a daily bike rider, after years of mass transit and more driving than I care to remember. My bike was my tour guide, encouraging me to explore and familiarize myself with the city. Because of bike rides, I gained physical strength and confidence. Continue reading
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Hard Reset
I came over to this computer intending to write a Coffeeneuring Challenge update (entries due this Monday!), but instead I’m pondering other matters– small changes in my own life that have altered my daily routine and energy levels for the past few months. One month ago– though it feels longer– I completed my second marathon of October,… Continue reading
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Contemplative Fall
Recollections of the harvest and farmers working fields long past sundown. Walks across campus, heavy book-filled backpacks on our shoulders, feet drifting through drying leaves. The donning of long sleeves to absorb the chill of mornings that advise of even colder times to come. It’s odd how this time can feel like a stopping point. The end of one cycle,… Continue reading
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Talking, Planning, Doing
Anything is possible to achieve on the internet. Talk is the only requirement. I’m thinking about riding insert whole lots of miles here this year. I’m planning to do insert impressive event here. Articulated aspirations can make us heroes in our own minds. Planning also has its place. I’m planning to do insert impressive event here. These are the… Continue reading
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Chasing Mailboxes: The Pursuit of Something More
Where does your energy go? What do you choose to pursue? Does each day pass in a blur of routine, or do you save a sliver of time to wonder about the existence of something deeper? You don’t know what the something deeper is, exactly, and you are not convinced it is a thing. You hold onto an optimistic belief that… Continue reading
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A Post-1000K Conversation With “Future Me”
Immediately after Felkerino’s and my 1000K ride, I was proud of our accomplishment, relieved that we completed what I felt was an extremely challenging course, and happy that we rode within ourselves from beginning to end. There were several tough parts, but we did not come close to timing out and, and our bodies held… Continue reading
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Enduring the Pain Point
Mile 250 of our 625-mile ride. Fatigue courses through my body. My skin has that beat-up feeling from multi-day endurance riding. The sun is shrouded in fog and the road keeps going up. Mile 372. Crawling through Douthat State Park. It’s peaceful and wooded, but night is falling. And the road keeps going up. And… Continue reading
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Melting Time Under the Moonlight
A self-confessed person of routine, I don’t stay out late and I don’t rise before the sun most days. I eat three meals a day, work Monday through Friday, and try to sleep seven to eight hours a night. I’m a huge fan of sleep. Randonneuring appeals to my affinity for routine. I select the events I… Continue reading
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Things to Do During Your Taper
Ah, the taper. Time to back away from the long efforts, rest the legs, eat good meals, and ready for the big day. What’s a person to do with all this new-found spare time? Continue reading
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Preparing for a 1000K Brevet
After a summer of bicycling, the Appalachain Adventure 1000K is fast approaching, and Felkerino and I will be riding it. Given that the Appalachian Adventure is a late summer affair, Felkerino and I maintained a pretty big base of mileage since finishing the Super Randonneur series with the D.C. Randonneurs. Despite not tracking my cycling miles, I still have a… Continue reading
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Bicycle as Escape
I never seem to tire of writing about bicycles. I love talking about them, dreaming about my next bike trip, figuring out the perfect bike commute setup, pondering the ins and outs of randonneuring… you get the idea. This love of riding bikes led me to start Chasing Mailboxes. I was searching for an outlet… Continue reading
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“Bikes” All The Go: From 1904 to 2014
Two weeks ago, I attended “Pedaling Through History: A Look at Cycling Collections Across the Library of Congress,” a one-day exhibit at the Library of Congress. I learned about it via Rambling Rider so hat tip to her and all those fancy things people say. “Pedaling Through History” was a compact display full of ye olde treasure.… Continue reading
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Spreadsheet Ruminations: Are You There, Legs? It’s Me…
Three months ago I ditched the spreadsheet I used to document my bicycle lifestyle, opting instead for a non-quantitative approach. There’s more to life than counting up the miles, I told myself. I want to explore it. Over the last three months, I have documented many rides with journal entries and taken photos along the… Continue reading
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Washington, D.C. Bike Commute Scrapbook
What a week. Four sparkling summer days, top notch training, and a ride along with a friend on a couple of days, too. I celebrated the end of my Bike Friday Tikit field trips to Northwest D.C. with a photo safari on today’s ride home, in part to stretch out my time in the afternoon… Continue reading
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@SharrowsDC Ride Along in #BikeDC
As a child, I spent part of my summer days taking swimming lessons. My sister and I would walk with Jeff, the neighbor boy, to the bus that would take us to our swimming lessons in the town seven miles down the road. I did not like swimming lessons, but I enjoyed the walk to and from the bus.… Continue reading
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It’s The Worst Thing In The World…
To be a driver behind a cyclist. Today is a bike tour rest day for Felkerino and me, and it coincided perfectly with an op-ed blowup in the Washington Post, which I am disappointed to admit is also my local paper. Continue reading
Chasing MailBoxes 