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DC Coffeeneuring Meetup October 26
Hi all! I’d like to invite coffeeneurs who are in the DC area on Saturday October 26 to a coffeeneuring meetup on the Mall. Where: Bar Americano, the kiosk in front of the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall (6th and Jefferson SW, approximately) When: October 26, 11:30 to 1ish (open house… Continue reading
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Coffeeneuring Challenge 2024: The Year of Small Wins
Readers. Bike riders. Randonneurs. Members of the Always Be Coffeeneuring Club. Everyone (on Earth)! The season has arrived. Year 14 of the Coffeeneuring Challenge. I’m pretty excited to say that we’re still here. We are still here and October 6 we roll. If you ride a bike, enjoy low-key adventures, drink coffee or tea (or… Continue reading
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Western Lane Is Not About Squash
This year I finally discovered audiobooks. Yeah, I’m decades late to the game, but I got here okay?! Until recently I thought audiobooks were cheating, but I now see them as a different reading experience. Nothing wrong with mixing it up! I tend to listen to audiobooks while I’m walking around town doing errands. Or… Continue reading
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You Can’t Play Pickleball By Yourself
As many readers know, in early December 2023, Felkerino was in a hit and run while cycling. Since then he has been recovering and healing. Our 2024 plans dissolved after his crash. Instead, we focused on medical appointments and managing the crash’s aftermath. Felkerino wrote an excellent summary about his experience here. While Felkerino mended,… Continue reading
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Coffeeneuring Challenge 2023: Patch Prizes Mailed!
Congratulations to all who completed this year’s Coffeeneuring Challenge. It seems easy to make it across the finish line until it isn’t and you’re fretting over a calendar wondering how to work those last rides into your life. Good job. Over 350 people completed the challenge this year, well done! All patch prizes have been… Continue reading
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Year in Review: 2023
If 2023 were a bike ride, I would describe it as one filled with spectacular climbing. Steady long climbs at manageable grades. Vistas on all sides. Tough in patches, especially toward the summits, but not painfully so. Equally scenic pedal-free descents. No hairpin turns. No crosswinds! Few headwinds! Sunshine! Some of the best downhills I’ve… Continue reading
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Update: Felkerino Hurt in Hit and Run
Hi everyone. I want to send along some personal news. Long story short, due to unforeseen circumstances I will respond to people about their Coffeeneuring Challenge results the week of December 11. Longer story as follows. As many of you know, the Coffeeneuring Challenge is run by a lean, mean staff of two: the Intern… Continue reading
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2023 Coffeeneuring Challenge: Grand Patch Prize Reveal
So this is what the day after the Coffeeneuring Challenge 2023: Lucky 13 feels like. The sun did not shine and it rained all day here. We need the rain, though, our part of the country has been in a drought. So can’t be too sad about the showers and wet sidewalks. The end of… Continue reading
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Coffeeneuring Challenge 2023: Final Countdown
Friends, it’s been an incredible coffeeneuring season! Thank you for making it all happen. As we lean into the final two days of this challenge, I thought I’d take a break from my own coffeeneuring rides to feature a few goings on around the coffeeneuring globe. Any bike can be a coffeeneuring bike. We’ve seen… Continue reading
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Coffeeneuring Challenge Roundup: Let’s Keep Going!
Remember that saying, “Every time a bell rings, a coffeeneur completes a coffeeneuring ride?” I do. Everywhere I look, people are riding here and there in pursuit of coffeeneuring-approved beverages. It’s so exciting, and here at Coffeeneuring HQ we urge everyone to keep riding! Back by popular demand, I’ve put togetherer a few highlights of… Continue reading
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Coffeeneuring Challenge Here and There
We’re two weeks into the 2023 Coffeeneuring Challenge and people far and wide are hopping on bikes and setting out for all sorts of seasonal beverages. In recognition of these coffeeneuring rides, I’ve put together a roundup. A few people asked for these last year, and I am here for you! Paul Steele is back… Continue reading
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Coffeeneuring Challenge 2023: Lucky 13
Hello readers, randonneurs, bike riders, members of the Always Be Coffeeneuring Club, and everyone else who finds themselves reading this post. Have you given any thought to your fall plans? I have. I’d like to encourage you all to join lucky year 13 of the Coffeeneuring Challenge. On October 7, the Chasing Mailboxes Coffeeneuring Challenge returns!… Continue reading
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PBP 2023: Midnight Meal of Stars
Last light. The time for lights and reflectives signals its beginning and we pause to ready for the night miles. Vests and anklebands on bodies, head- and taillights powered up for the coming hours. The heat of daytime fades as we ride within the snake of night riders. We’re going faster now, I think. Truth… Continue reading
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Belief: Paris-Brest-Paris 2023
What if we don’t finish? The thought shot through me as Felkerino and I rolled from our hotel to the packet pickup in Rambouillet. Felkerino and I had ridden Paris-Brest-Paris (PBP) on tandem two times previously (2011, 2019) and never had the idea of not finishing ever entered my head. But the fraught years leading up… Continue reading
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Future Me: DC Randonneurs Shenandoah 600K
As part of the MBA program I finished last month, I took a course called Operations Management. I didn’t know much about this discipline until a few weeks ago. Operations management techniques attempt to optimize resources to efficiently produce goods and plan for the future. During one of our classes I commented that many of… Continue reading
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Pittsburgh Randonneurs 400K Allegheny Mountains Cruel and Unusual Punishment: Rebrand Campaign
The Pittsburgh Randonneurs Allegheny Mountains Cruel and Unusual Punishment (AMCUP) 400K – a scenic tour of the Alleghenies boasting around 18,000 feet of climbing over 262 miles (full description here) – has a branding problem. Let’s agree that a brevet with such a title probably does not entice a lot of participation. Cruel and unusual… Continue reading
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Stretching Rituals: Pittsburgh Randonneurs 300K
I was going to write you a story of our Pittsburgh Randonneurs 300K, but it’s an amalgamation of spent feelings punctuated with mental snapshots brought about by a beautiful course on a perfect weather day that began with a full Flower Moon that set as rays of spring sunshine came up into a brilliant blue… Continue reading
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Meeting Myself: DC Randonneurs Ye Olde Frederick 300K
We are always meeting ourselves. Every moment is fresh, a chance for us to stand in a new place. A different self than the one we were just a second before. A unique package of commitments, health, emotions, and experience. That is, we can meet ourselves if we are open to it. The mind is… Continue reading
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A House Cat Rides the DC Randonneurs Both Sides (Not Now) 200K
There’s nothing like peak bloom of the DC cherry blossoms to motivate a person to leave the city for an all-day bike ride. It also helps when the ride start happens to be 7 miles from your house. Add that to an urge to put off homework as long as possible, and it’s a perfect… Continue reading
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Forward: 2022 in Photos
We’re down to the wire, but with a sliver of time remaining I’m putting out a year-end wrap-up in photos. Much of 2022 happened outside the picture frames. Studies. Work. Other stuff. Stuff I can’t really photograph. Still, these roundups help me mark time, reflect on what has passed as well as what caught my… Continue reading
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Coffeeneuring Challenge: Magic Bonus Day November 21-27
Friends, time has flown and we now find ourselves at the end of the Coffeeneuring Challenge. A big thanks to everyone who has brought the challenge to life this year. Don’t cry because it’s ending, because I have a secret to share with you. Did you almost make it but not quite? Did weather or… Continue reading
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Coffeeneuring Challenge: 2022 Submissions and Prize Reveal
Friends, we are in the thick of the 2022 Coffeeneuring Challenge, with three full weeks remaining to fit in your rides. Keep riding, you can do it! We have also reached the point in the challenge where some coffeeneurs have completed all seven required brewvets and are on to c+1 bonus rounds. Keep going, it’s… Continue reading
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Coffeeneuring Rewind: 2021 by the Numbers
People frequently ask about coffeeneuring statistics. Who has coffeeneured where over the years? What is the overall number of coffeeneurs and where do they ride? How many countries are represented? Today we bring you answers to these kinds of questions. Coffeeneur Sam Dodge (find him at @svdodge on the socials) took on the challenge of… Continue reading
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Coffeeneuring Challenge 2022: Year 12
Does anyone know what time it is? I’ll tell you. It’s time for the 2022 Coffeeneuring Challenge, now in its 12th year. On October 7, the Chasing Mailboxes Coffeeneuring Challenge is back and this time we have an Intern to help run the challenge! If you ride a bike and drink coffee or tea (or even… Continue reading
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DC Randonneurs Super Randonneur Series 2022: Full Heart Appreciation Edition
Hi friends. Before time gets away from me I wanted to put together a wrap-up post about Felkerino’s and my Super Randonneur Series on tandem this year. For those who don’t randonneur but follow along, a super randonneur is someone who successfully completes a set of four organized brevet distances: 200K; 300K; 400K; and 600K. … Continue reading
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Full Moon Fairy Tale: DC Randonneurs Many Rivers and Trails 600K
Someone cut a hole in the night sky, popped in the moon, and turned it up to the brightest setting. It’s a full moon like a flashlight and I am here for it. After more than 200 miles in the saddle, it feels like we’ve pedaled into surreality – a faraway fairy tale despite being… Continue reading
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Quiet the Mind: DC Randonneurs Northern Exposure 400K
The restless mind. The shiftless mind. An unsettled mind. Worries, classes, work. The world. I cannot shut it off, this mind. The only way to pause the mental cartwheels, it seems, is to apply some pedal strokes to the matter. Go for a bike ride, and try to forcefully divert the energy from my mind… Continue reading
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2021 in Photos: Beauty’s Where You Find It
Thoughts about this last year are a jangly jumble, but to roll them all into one phrase I quote Madonna in saying: “beauty’s where you find it, not just where you bump and grind it.” This has been a year of embracing change, accepting our impermanence, and seeing opportunity in each day even on days… Continue reading
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c+1 Coffeeneuring Challenge 2021 Call for Photos and Illustrations
As I write this, just over 24 hours remain in the 2021 Coffeeneuring Challenge. Submissions are coming into Coffeeneuring Challenge HQ fast and furiously, but there’s still time! One full day plus a few hours left. If you have a ride remaining to cross the official finish line, now is your chance! You can do… Continue reading
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Coffeeneuring Challenge 2020: Results and Highlights
Once again I’m late to the game with the results from last year’s Coffeeeneuring Challenge. Still, it’s exciting to see how the challenge continues to grow and over time and to gain a bit of insight into coffeeneurs over the years. Note: this post has been updated based on some errors identified by fellow coffeeneurs.… Continue reading
Chasing MailBoxes 