30 Days of Biking April 2013: Almost Halfway Ride Report
April has not worked well for me in past attempts to complete 30 Days of Biking for various reasons–some of them good ones. I got a running start on April 2013 by riding my bike every day March 17-March 30 (I didn’t ride March 31–gave myself permission to take a day off before heading into [...]
A Small Moment
At a certain point in late spring a couple of flowering trees on my usual route home fill the air with sweet perfume. They stand in a most unlikely spot on Sherman Avenue just north of the freeway overpass. Not a scenic location, not a spot where a lot of pedestrians pass by to appreciate [...]
The Forced Mindfulness of Bicycling: An Andrea Post
Quick, how many times today have you looked at your cell phone while waiting in line, walking down the street, or sitting on the couch? I’m the first to admit, my number is easily over a dozen. Some days more than that. Between my DayJob, two businesses, and attempting to spend time with my husband, [...]
Getting Started Bike Commuting: A Blogspedition inside Bike Style
The blog now stands at over 170 posts after a year of writing. Lots of advice is sprinkled throughout every post, along with my ponderings and miscellany on bike policy, infrastructure creation, and other aspects of becoming a bike-friendlier world. This post serves as a categorized round-up of many of the posts you may find helpful [...]
30 Days of Biking: Why Week 1 Doesn’t Have 7 Days of Riding in It, and why that’s OK
The ride reports for 30 Days of Biking hold me accountable, but they can’t change what life throws at you, so I’m not going to ride 30 days in April. And you know what? I’m okay with that. When I set a goal—for the first time ever—of riding a certain number of miles and a [...]
Unmindful Biking by Yours Truly
At times I try to approach biking as a genuine mindfulness meditation. The immersion of self into the experience feels really wonderful when I get there. At times, though, I’m immersed in something more like dumb-ass-ness. Herewith, three stories of times I was not 100% mindful on the bike (all of which took place some time ago [...]
Mindful Driving, Mindful Biking, and “Accidents”–Part II
This post is Part II, continuing yesterday’s diatribe meditation on use of the word “accident” to describe a preventable negative interaction between a driver and a cyclist or pedestrian. The conversations I often have after someone on a bike is hit tend to circle around the premise that riding a bike is an inherently risky choice of transportation. [...]
Mindful Driving, Mindful Biking, and “Accidents”–Part I
This post has its origins in my brush with fate this week, and before that in fall 2010, when two things happened within a few days of each other: Arleigh Jenkins AKA Bike Shop Girl (a blogger whose work I read) was hit by a car, then Matthew Hardie, a young rider in Spokane, was hit. He spent [...]
It Pays to Pay Attention
Back in the saddle again after almost a week in New York City, where people on bikes share streets with New York cabbies and millions of people, and what happens? Tuesday morning I have possibly my closest call ever with a moving vehicle, reinforcing yet again the importance of mindfulness for safe riding. The scenario: [...]
What I Saw Taking the Road Less Traveled (by Me, That Is)
I made variety one of my watchwords for my 2012 biking, along with consistency and mindfulness. On my Wednesday ride I put all three to work, and thought I’d share a little ride report to show them in action. Consistency: I went home from work Tuesday with a migraine (luckily pretty rare for me now—once [...]
3 Words for 2012 Biking
Several of the people whose writing and social media work I admire—such as Chris Brogan, Christopher Penn, Justin Levy, and C.C. Chapman, who pointed me to all the others I list—wrote New Year’s posts on the theme of choosing three words as your guiding stars for the year. They meant for life in general or for your [...]
