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Weekend To-Do List: Challenge Submission Form
Readers and coffeeneurs, what are your weekend plans? If you completed the Coffeeneuring Challenge, be sure to make time to submit your finisher’s form. Find it here. Easy peasy and feels so good to cross it off the December to-do list! All finishers are eligible for the grand patch prize! This year’s design from Umbrella… Continue reading
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Black Coffee Friday: Career Transition Takeaways
As many of you know, earlier this year I departed federal service. This marked my first break from work in more than 25 years (!!!). The ensuing months were both freeing and anxiety-inducing as I tried to map myself to the next place. I was reminded of my emotions right after graduating undergrad– a world… Continue reading
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D.C. Coffeeneurs Meetup! November 2, 2025
Calling all D.C. area coffeeneurs! We are planning a meetup on Sunday November 2, please join us. Other details: Grace Street Coffee has a café located inside the Rubell Museum. The coffee shop opens at 8, and the museum opens at 11 (and it’s free for D.C.residents!). Let’s meet for coffee and share our coffeeneuring… Continue reading
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Bikes to Like: Christian M.’s Terraferma
This year I had the pleasure of meeting Christian, who completed his first Super Randonneur series in 2011. I came to know Christian through his bicycle. There was something about the creamy orange paint that caught my eye; it looked like a delicious orange pushup. Intrigued by the bike’s careful setup as well as the… Continue reading
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Bikes to Like: Kevin T.’s Rivendell Atlantis
Since we’ve been on the subject of randonneurs and coffeeneurs in Alaska, I thought I’d start out the week with a long overdue Bikes to Like, featuring my flickr friend and RBA of the Alaska Randonneurs, Kevin Turinsky. What kind of bike does this Alaska randonneur choose for the varied conditions Alaska offers? Read on… Continue reading
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Bikes to Like: Gary D.’s Independent Fabrication
This week I’m featuring a PBP-bound bicycle, Gary’s Independent. This bike gets in a lot of long rides with Gary, as he is fond of keeping an active brevet and permanents schedule. Gary seems to really enjoy the ride of his Independent and he makes sure it gets lots of TLC at College Park Bicycles… Continue reading
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My Reward for PBP Training: Little Package Cycling Caps
With Paris-Brest-Paris quickly approaching and the bulk of our training in the books, I decided to reward myself with a new cycling cap. Where did I turn for the perfect cap? Why, Little Package, of course! I learned about Little Package via one of my cycling friends. After seeing his fancy cap, I decided I… Continue reading
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Bikes to Like: George M.’s Boulder Bicycle
For some randonneurs, 650B bikes are where it’s at. I’ll use my randonneur spouse (who is also my real-life) spouse as an example. He became enamoured of the notion of a 650B ride and used a 650B Rivendell Bleriot as his primary randonneuring bike for the 2007 brevets as well as Paris-Brest-Paris. For Felkerino, riding… Continue reading
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Bikes to Like: Mike W.’s Custom Waterford
In randonneuring, you get to know people by what bike they ride. I first met Mike after seeing his bike in the parking lot. “Who owns this bike?” I wondered. “Someone with an excellent randonneuring aesthetic!” I found out the owner was Mike, who started riding with the D.C. Randonneurs this year. Mike’s positive attitude,… Continue reading
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Bikes to Like: Eric P.’s Titanium Lynskey
This week Chasing Mailboxes turns its gaze away from steel and toward titanium. That’s right, people. Titanium! During a trip to Tennesseee last year, I became familiar with Lynskey Bikes, based out of Chattanooga. In an odd coincidence, Felkerino and I started riding more with cycling friend and randonneur Eric, whose primary randonneuring bike is a… Continue reading
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Quickbeam Single Speeding and its Pleasures
Lately I’ve been riding my Rivendell Quickbeam around. It started because my Surly got so dirty I just couldn’t take it anymore and I set it aside for a bath. Then I cleaned the Surly and now I still can’t ride it because it’s clean, and riding it will make it dirty again. And since Felkerino and… Continue reading
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Bicycle Tchotchkes: “I heart your bike” Bikemail
If you’re like me, you ride with one eye on the road and one eye checking out what other cyclists are riding. There have been a few times where I’ve stopped to admire a bike parked somewhere in the city, pulled out a pen and paper, and scrawled a note to the owner about how… Continue reading
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Bikes to Like: Scott G.’s Gunnar Sport
Last year, Felkerino and I started running into seeing Scott G. on D.C. Randonneurs rides and spent a lot of time following him and his friend Charlie around the Endless Mountains 1000K course. Scott is an international randonneur, having lived and ridden in Canada, Australia, and various parts of the United States. Since Scott has… Continue reading
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1992 Bridgestone MB-4: Free bike = FIGHT!
Recently, I sent a bike of mine off to the hospital to be parted out. Last week after our morning ride to coffee, we ran into saw a coffee buddy of ours who said he had an old mountain bike that he wanted to give away. Specifically, he wanted to give it to us because he said… Continue reading
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Bikes to Like: Russ’s Rivendell Custom
Felkerino and I used to see Russ quite regularly on D.C. Randonneurs brevets. Russ is great riding company. He loves wool, flat pedals, steel bikes, and being outdoors. Also, he always seems totally relaxed when he’s on the bike. Unfortunately, we don’t see Russ on D.C. Randonneurs rides anymore because he is now stationed in… Continue reading
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Bikes to Like: Ritchie’s 1979 Austro-Daimler Vent Noir II
This year I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and riding with Ritchie, a D.C. Randonneur. The first time I saw Ritchie, I had to rub my eyes and take a second look to make sure he was real. He looked liked he might have stepped out of a time machine and somehow ended up on… Continue reading
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Bikes to Like: Rick B.’s Merlin Extralight
There are some people I know from being on the bike and nowhere else. Rick B. is one of those people. We’ve never seen each other in our “real lives,” only our cycling lives. I’ve come to know Rick from my morning commute, where our routes occasionially cross paths. Rick and Felkerino know each other… Continue reading
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Bikes to Like: Rootchopper’s Specialized Sequoia
This week I’m highlighting D.C. commuter, Rootchopper, and his bike. I love the look of this bike and when I saw it dressed up in Ortliebs on his flickr page, I wanted to know more about it. As Rootchopper is a dedicated commuting cyclist with a lovely steel bicycle, I thought he’d be a perfect… Continue reading
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Bikes to Like: World’s Greatest Randonneur’s Sam Hillborne
Because I am surrounded by so much bicycling goodness, I’ve decided to run some Q&A posts on some of the bikes I’ve seen and admired in the D.C. randonneuring and commuting scene. The first post features the World’s Greatest Randonneur’s (WGR) bike. It’s a Sam Hillborne, from Rivendell. Here’s what WGR had to say when I… Continue reading
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Bikes to Like: Titanium One-Off
Whenever I ride my bike, I try to: follow of the rules of the road; take a panda photo; and keep an eye out for bikes that interest me. Sometimes all three of these things happen, and sometimes only one of them does. However, one morning commute after taking my regular panda shot I came… Continue reading
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Cake Commuting: the Gersemalina Way
You may recall that I recently had a birthday and that Felkerino birthday-cake-bike-commuted with a somewhat messy, yet still savory, outcome. I also embarked on a cake-commuting expedition earlier this year, and was waiting for just the right moment to write about it. I now realize that the right moment would have been one week… Continue reading
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Birthday Cake Commuting: The Felkerino Way
Before I launch into the sweet topic of my post, I’d like to welcome another researcher to the cupcake commuting circle. Girl on a Bike has sucessfully completed her first cupcake experiment. She used cakelove cupcakes. I love how she describes cupcakes as “a frosting transportation device.” She has a point. Read about her experiment… Continue reading
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Cupcake Commuting: Furin’s Cupcakes
In my initial cupcake commuting post, I clearly showed that my bicycle transportation technique needed work. I received a number of helpful comments from readers about possible improvements. These included a couple of comments suggesting alternate transportation devices, one comment noting that the butter in the frosting hastened the demise of my cupcakes, one person… Continue reading
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Cupcake Commuting: for Science!
It’s been a great day over here at Chasing Mailboxes. First, yesterday’s post about Capital Bikeshare was featured on DCBlogs. Second, I learned that I have a collaborator on my rapidly unfolding cupcaking commuting research project. My new partner in cupcake commuting research is fellow D.C.-area cyclist and blogger, Freewheel. What a relief! I’d hate to think… Continue reading
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Cupcake Commuting
Like other cities, the Washington, D.C., area has been seized by an obsession with cupcakes. That suits me perfectly because I love sweets. A few months ago, my friend and I rode to lunch in Ye Olde Towne, Alexandria. After our meal, we decided to pop by Lavender Moon Cupcakery and get a treat for the… Continue reading
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Tree Decorating, Bicycle Style
The past several days, Felkerino and I have been hard at work on the 12 Days of Randonneurmas, an annual feature of The Daily Randonneur that celebrates our favorite randonneuring goodies of the past year. As we’ve been writing away, I took some time to think about other bicycle things that make our life great.… Continue reading
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Missing the Bike and Thank You Notes: Co-Motion Tandem Edition
After I finished writing my Quickbeam “thank you” note for Lovely Bicycle’s recent “Thanking Your Bicycle” giveaway, I started thinking about Felkerino’s and my Co-Motion tandem and all the great experiences we have had with it. That Co-Motion is one awesome bike, I thought. It also deserves a few lines. Dear Co-Motion Tandem, Continue reading
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Missing the Bike and Thank You Notes: Quickbeam Edition
Before hitting the road to Florida, I participated in Lovely Bicycle’s “Thanking Your Bicycle” giveaway. She invited people to write a few lines thanking their bikes for all they do. Cycling has become such a pivotal part of my life. It’s how I recreate, commute, shop, and maintain fitness. It was fun to take a… Continue reading
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Felkerino’s New Jersey
Look familiar to any of you? Severna Park! Thanks to Clint and Chip for coordinating the purchase. Continue reading
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Does your Bicycle Gravitate towards Bakeries?
Recently, one of my cycling/randonneuring friends said to me, “I can’t but help to notice a lot of pictures of pastry on your Flickr site. Does your bike gravitate towards bakeries?” I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. Was it this? Continue reading
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