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I have something like a lotto fantasy about a big ride, maybe I'll work out how to make it happen before my body falls apart even without the help of quitting my job first 🤣 but today my wife and I went for our first proper bike ride of the year. It wasn't the first warm day or even the first comfortable day for a ride we just have had a lot else to do and it never quite worked out.
Heck of a fun ride, about 20 miles round with a pub and grub along the way. Best kind of Saturday in other words!
Every time I get to take a little ride around town I'm reminded that as much as my Salsa 27.5+ bike is a pure fun machine it really catches peoples' eyes in "F-U Orange!" with big ol nasty tires - great for safety, not so great for busy hands when we step inside a shop for a bite to eat.
Today was good but in the past we've had seats, lights, reflectors, handlebars, wheels, whole bikes stolen while grabbing lunch. I have the obvious feelings about that but no matter how I feel it's just the nature of how our society works right now and it's not gonna get solved in a forum post.
I seriously need to get a couple pub/townie bikes. They won't be as much fun to find side trails on but a couple cheap ugly bikes maybe with the seats and seat posts and anything else that doesn't need frequent service spot welded on.
Anyway it felt good to get out and roll today. And keep thinking about that ten thousand mile ride 🤩
I love this. This post is more like a journal entry and I think that is really cool. Looks a lot warmer up there in the NW than I would have expected.
When I was in high school I rode the RAGBRAI which is an 800-mile ride across the state of Iowa in 7 days. About 10,000 other riders from all over the world. So, you were cranking for 7 straight days yet it was a total blast. Every day you were riding through small towns where people would be sitting out on the street in lawn chairs watching like a parade. They would have homemade food, treats, and lemonade, and so on. In the evening, the small towns we would ALL stay in would balloon the population of a 2,000 person town to 12,000. The main streets would be closed down and there would be two or three stages with bands playing all night long. Beer gardens, booths, it was crazy fun. All of your gear was stuffed inside an army bag or something similar, tagged, and put on a semi which was transported for you to the next town you would be staying overnight in. There you would find your bag (there was a system for this) and set up camp...generally in a football field, on church property, etc and go have fun. You rode rain or shine but they did have "sag wagons" in the event you broke down along the way (your bike or you) so you could hitch a ride in a van to the next town on the map. In the mornings, the local churches would open their doors and serve pancake breakfast. I rode that event I think three times. It was one of the most fun things I did before I became an adult.
Now, riding with 10,000 other people has its pros and cons of course. The pros were that I got to ride next to people from all over the world and while riding they would come up next to you and you just would start talking..."where you from?" and the answers would be all over the board. South Africa!, Florida! etc... I also took many rides solo around the same time which was a really great experience as well. I think you should absolutely consider, and train for, and make happen a long-range ride.
This post is more like a journal entry
I guess it's a bit like that, to be candid it's mostly just to toss another twig on the fire here since it's still a little quiet.
The big ride I've been stirring in the back of my mind is about 2 months in the saddle, by my calculations that's at least twice as much work as a ride across town for avocado tacos at a LGBTQ+ bar and on average probably not nearly as tasty.
I'm guessing the earliest I can set that in motion for real is 3 years from now, and a lot can change in that time. Got a few more adventures much much closer within reach. As with a lot of things the real problem isn't affording the trip's direct monetary costs it's figuring out how to get two full months away from the career on which my continued home occupancy and nest egg depend.
@shovel Don't give up on your dreams. I worked for 45 years before I was able to retire. I wanted to do it so much earlier, but as you and I both know, you have to put in the work to reap the reward.
Regarding worrying about your body falling apart, my best advice to you (and they say, never give advice) would be to try to prevent injuring yourself as much as you can. I was such a fearless child/young adult and now at my mature age I'm really feeling every injury that ever occurred, whether it was falling out of tree, falling off a horse or a skateboard, or a skiing accident I had in my twenties. But, I have not let those things get in my way.
I'll experience some pain here and there depending on what I'm doing, but having the freedom of retirement I worked so hard for makes it all worth it in the long run. You'll get there!