I’m not alone! There are plenty of cycling fanatics out there, and my recent post on the warning signs struck a chord of recognition with so many of you. Scores of reader/riders commented, confessed, felt a little better … and then probably went for a long ride. So, here’s my follow-up post with several of your comments … thanks for sharing.
Julie Kenney: “I have chosen two of my jobs based on proximity to greenways so I can bike before work, during lunch break & grab a quick ride before driving home. BTW – a new bike was required so I could keep a bike at work & one at home.”
Thanks Julie. And, I too have sort of chosen a job based on biking. Back in 2006, I was offered a job teaching journalism at Ohio State. My first and most immediate thought: Summers off! For cycling in France! And so, we moved from the Philadelphia area to Columbus. Alas, I only had one glorious summer off for riding, and then took a job as a reporter with the Columbus Dispatch and had to squeeze bike trips into my limited vacation time.
Darrell Potter: “A lot of times, [after] I wake up to take my 0200 leak, when I lay back down, I think of which bike I’m gonna ride [and] where in the morning as I fall back to sleep.”
Thanks Darrell. I map out bike routes in my mind after my late-night bathroom trip. It beats counting sheep.
Mike Gallucci: “The locations of potholes, heaves, roots and other road surface hazards on your routes are easier to remember than what you had for dinner last night!”
Hey Mike, What’s a heave? It sounds dangerous.
Dave Kiser: “You also become an expert on roadkill: time of death, direction of travel, approximate speed/size of offending vehicle, etc.”
This reminds me of my squirrel story.
Michael Zsutty: “Going slowly up to a red traffic light while driving my car so I won’t have to clip out of my pedals.”
Bill Anderson: “Pumping up your Semi Tractor Trailer Tires with a hand-held portable bike pump … successfully.”
Bill, that’s quite impressive.
Caroline Worrall: “You add more and more things to your saddlebag as you encounter unexpected problems on the road, and you now basically have an entire bike shop packed into a 0.4L bag.”
Tom Anderson: “Watch car commercials on TV just to admire nice roads.”
Jeff Pierron: “Here’s one to add to the list [just] for 2020: You ride obsessively like you’re training for an event, even though 99% have been canceled. But you want to be ready just in case.”
Here’s the link to my Biking France books (Provence, Bordeaux, Normandy, the Loire and the Dordogne). I recently took all five off Amazon, iBooks and all the other eBook platforms because they took about 60 percent of the revenue. Now, thanks to even more tech advances, I can make them available as PDFs.
Thanks to all you out there who have biking on the brain …
The Biking France Blog 