This poem is about the last day of the annual Tour de France, the ride into Paris for the grand finale. It was originally written in late September 2020, as the tour came to an end after starting some two months late due to the global COVID-19 outbreak.
Sometimes when you're cycling, you get in over your head but you'd never admit it...or at least I wouldn't. Bonking, or "hitting the wall,” is one of the loneliest, most helpless feelings I have ever experienced.
I've been saving this one. In fact, I wrote Velo Verses #14 before this one, and it weren't out of superstition. Anyway...it's not a gang, it's a club! Herein are but a few of my wonderful memories of riding around the magical island of Oahu with the greatest group of folks imaginable.
What we have here, my dear, is a failure to communicate...
I got in a bike wreck one early morning back in 2010 when I lived in Hawaii. I have long said that I think I owe my life and my lucidity to the fact that I was wearing a helmet that morning.
In 2016 I had a goal to ride 5000+ miles and to complete each monthly climbing challenge offered on the cycling tracking app Strava. It was a tremendous year until ice storms killed the December effort. Missed it by that much...ugh.
Unprecedented demand, shortage of shipping containers, supply chain problems driven by a global pandemic...all these things conspired and coalesced to create a bike shortage starting in 2020. Its effects have not completely waned even today in 2023.
Old school saddles, like the ones made by Brooks, are made with rivets. If you're pushing for all you've got, you're riding on the lone rivet on the front of your saddle, leaning into the ride with your grunt on, mashing for the win. And if that's not where you're at, it's where you want to be...
Recovery rides are supposed to be easy days in the saddle. Sometimes it just doesn't work out that way.
No matter what you've heard or read to the contrary, it's all about the bike. It. Is. All. About. The Bike.
During the Year of our Weird, 2020, and while warming up for my evening ride, pondering life, the universe and everything, I was doing laps up and down my block and through the cul de sac. Then and there occurred a most unpleasant event involving the neighbor's pup...
The weather outside is frightful. I'm going for a ride anyway...after some coffee and a few memories.
The rules of 'burbing are simple: ride every road in a town, 'hood, or suburb in a single bike ride. When you add the challenge of "without a map," though, it can be a difficult task. And then, of course, there's the question no one wants to ask or answer: Um...what happens if you miss a street?
Velo Verses edition two came to me one sunny afternoon in the year of our weird, 2020. As I was riding along through a local neighborhood, a bug flew into my mouth. The event had its own flavor, so to speak—given the strange times—and reminded me of a similar bug run-in nearly a decade prior.
Here's a poem about cycling's walk of shame. I once shared it with my closest lifelong friend and he said, "it works nicely to the tune of The Beverly Hillbillies." At first I just chuckled when he said it, but then I went back and looked at it again. Either way, come and listen to my story...
Bicycles can not only change the world—they might just save it.
For my money, the Ascher HJ-045 bicycle tail lights are definitely a "buy." In this article, I'll tell you why.
Electric bikes, or e-bikes, are here to stay. How they are regulated may change somewhat in the future, but a good foundation has already been established with a common lexicon of classification.