Here’s a cute blog that introduced me to a few cool new kinds of biking. Of course, they’re kinds of biking that thousands of us freaks have long been doing but it’s fun giving them names. Or just having fun with names.
It’s written by a woman. Always fun to discover more bike party women!
I saw my first cute bike ride term in a comic strip in the latest issue of “Bicycle Times,” a dandy bike culture mag.
…”Rambleneuring.”
Cute.
Then comes the Chasing Mailboxes blog.
She lists:
*Coffeeneuring
*Errandonee
*Utilitaire
…All these are plays on fun and somewhat more formalized forms of biking and XC sking.
She does contests for them. Mostly it’s a way to celebrate just riding bikes in everyday life and thinking of extra little ways to get a smile from it.
Like, Martha doesn’t really like or do organized rides but she rides all around town most days. For decades. Sometimes she goes on spirited country jaunts, usually on her own. But mostly she’s doing errands. Bank, library, grocery store: the big three.
Years ago we converted my rockin’ old Team Miyata crit bike to a go-fer bike for her. We kludged a rack to it. She says she likes to go fast. So she likes narrow tires. Probably we should get her some nice plump Compass tires instead — fattest that’ll fit her frame. She does get flats — a bane of narrow high pressure tires. It would be more comfy, too, to switch to tires that are fast yet can be ridden at 80psi rather than 105.
She’s noticed over the years that she’s the only errander in our region! We have a few morning/night commuters and a few sportifs — none of those are too friendly to her. Or at all. She’ll wave or say Hi to the racer gals passing her — the same ones over and over — and they typically won’t even turn their heads. Like, as a rule. …So she just rides by herself on gloriously empty roads, roads that are darn nice for casual biking. Empty. Low traffic. Smooth. We live as far from stores as you can get in our area — 5 miles. So she’s gathering in everyone else who might potentially be erranding. I guess it’s a rock-solid bedroom scene, basically. Nobody around mid-day for erranding. …The better club-ride type routes start near us and head further outta town where the roads are better for faster group rides.
chasingmailboxes.com
https://chasingmailboxes.com
