#30DaysOfBiking Part II

With our bike handling skills returning and the nights growing cooler, Ginger and I continued with 30 Days of Biking on our quest to once again become Bike People. Returning to bicycling after so long was a treat, there's no other way to describe it. I knew I'd missed it but I didn't realise just how much until we moved somewhere it was possible to get the bikes out of the house without a team of Sherpas. Every day I tried to think of an errand or appointment to complete by bicycle and if I couldn't, we simply rode around the neighbourhood. Recording and hash-tagging our adventures gave me extra motivation, as did seeing the collected pictures and videos of all our fellow cyclists in both hemispheres. Whether it was around the block or a marathon, you could take a daily trip around the world on two (or three!) wheels by visiting the hashtag. As a bonus, Google Maps for bicycle routes is finally reliable here. It took me around all of the hills instead of up them and had accurate time estimates for a sweat-free journey. Here's a sample of the rest of our April:

Nice.

I laugh in the face of gym when I have BIKE.

Basil Basket still the most useful accessory.

The Stranger Things edition.

Out of the whole month, we missed 3 days due to being 200kms away from our bicycles. And we felt it keenly! 30 Days of Biking was an excellent way to get back into bicycling for transportation & pleasure. Now I just need a new headlight, as the Knog Boomer is on the way out…

Bigger, Backer, Biking-er?

🎶RETURN OF THE BACK(side)

once again

RETURN OF THE BACK(side)

bottom of the world🎶

I was gone so long, emojis became a thing. And because I am forever your Cool Aunty who can name three out of four of the kids who used to be in 1 Direction, I am using them to herald my return to the bicycle blogosphere. It's been a while. Through illness and bicycle unfriendly geography I grew estranged from my wheels. But a move to a less mountainous area of Tasmania, one with shared paths (!) awakened the need. The need for transportation cycling speed. That's approximately 9km a mother-effing hour, baby.

This need also coincided with the month of April, which is 30 Days of Biking month. I couldn't think of a better way to get back into Bicycle Land than forced goal setting and hashtags, so without further ado, here's Part 1 of my glorious return to bicycling, shamelessly backdated:

April 1st - Hello. It's me.
Day one started off rough because there was a gin festival near our new house, and it turns out that those tiny little sample shots will take you down when you have 10 in a row. So I had to sober up before we could get on our bicycles for the first time in years.
P.S. I have Snapchat now because what kind of Cool Aunty would I be if I didn't have a way to broadcast my day drinking BUT WITH A FLOWER CROWN FILTER?

Before Gin Festival / After Gin Festival

By nightfall, Ginger and I were ready to roll on the salubrious shared path infrastructure of Devonport, Tasmania. Our new home and also the home of The Spirit of Tasmania ferry.

Filled with foolhardy enthusiasm, we bicycled to Devonport Bluff and back, never once considering the consequences for our car-seat-softened undercarriages.

Spoiler: I felt it.

It was so good to be back, I don't even have a self deprecating thing to say about it. Bicycling is fucking fun. We threw ourselves into dutifully hashtagging the first quarter of the month, bicycling around the block, to the shops, to appointments, to dinner (where we saw some weird shit), and to a great community market event at Hill Street Grocer where the bike racks were blocked so we couldn't park properly but we got to eat a hotdog in a carpark while a jazz band played. Yes, hipsterism has finally reached Devonport and brought with it a late night dessert bar, a gin distillery, a boutique beer bar that sells alcoholic ginger beer and has espresso martinis on tap, and a grocery so fancy that you can buy a $30 German made dish brush while you wait for your professionally arranged flowers to be decoratively wrapped.

Despite all my rage, I am still just Sous Vide in a cage.

Antidote.  The new late night dessert bar.

We were fatter of bottom and compromised of fitness, but dammit we were back, ready to ride into a bicycle heavy future on flatter land. Welcome to Devonport!