No bad days on the bike. At the risk of a tortured metaphor, rides are the warp threads of the loom of my life, bound firm in the frame of the loom as I weave the day’s events around them – the places I go, the things that I do, and the rides that get …
The game is to ride everywhere, where “everywhere” involves dividing our world into squares ~300 yards on a side and visiting them all, and “riding” sometimes involves what one might call “walk-a-bike”. Sooner or later, you end up in places like this. It’s a pretty fun game.
Saw the Birds above from the train window yesterday, and went back today on my new ebike for a closer look. The ebike is primarily an accommodation for my age and failing knee, allowing me to ride more longer when I feel like it – hauling groceries, or books and laptops to work, or searching …
When Eric and I converge on a meeting, there’s always the “Are you gonna bring a bike?” conversation. This week it’s the Getches-Wilkinson Center’s Annual Colorado River conference, and the bike ride was a loop around Denver Water’s Dillon Reservoir, on the Blue River. It’s nearly full. The creeks feeding it were running. There was …
Continue reading ‘With Eric Kuhn’s help, I found a (nearly) full Colorado River Basin reservoir!’ »
I’m feeling old and tired, so Squadrats, a new (to me) GPS mappy bike game, arrived at a good time. There’s a video game culture catch phrase, “numbers go up”, which describes the incentives designers have to give you ways to make some number go up, to lure/hook you into playing ever more. (Think “streaks” …
In September 2019, my friend Scot and I did one of our more memorable “what happens if we turn here” bicycle rides. In our endless search for what I call “longcuts” – the safest route, rather than the shortest – we followed a concrete flood control channel called the North Pino Arroyo up through Albuquerque’s …
Apologies that I don’t have any pictures of the dogs. Via the wonderful Wandrer, I’ve been playing a new cycling game that involves trying to ride on all the streets. For a modest fee, you can connect Wandrer to a cloud-stored archive of all your GPS-recorded bike rides, and it’ll keep keep track of which …
Continue reading ‘The dogs of the cul-de-sacs of Albuquerque’s South Valley’ »
“Well, you have your compost!” – L. Heineman We got 5.88 inches of rain this year at the “official” Albuquerque airport weather station, which for perspective is essentially a one-in-six dry year based on over a century of records. But we got 7.05 inches at our house. Plus, as Lissa pointed out, I have my …
Continue reading ‘2020 – as dry as a tumbleweed metaphor in a bad western. But compost!’ »
I barely have anything to say, so I ride my bike. Last Thursday, I rode through my 5,000th mile of 2020, something I’ve never done before. Like much of 2020, there will need be an asterisk next to this accomplishment, but it felt good to take the morning off and ride. Cycling has become my …
Continue reading ‘On a bike, fighting through the pandemic fog, with Silver Surfer’s help’ »
Some years ago, when I first began riding bikes in Albuquerque, my office chum Jimmie took me riding south through Albuquerque’s Rio Grande valley floor along a street called Guadalupe Trail. It’s not a street I would have found by myself – following the contours of one of the early acequias, the irrigation ditches that …
Continue reading ‘Seeing Like a State: the corner of Ortega Road and Guadalupe Trail’ »