Another year on the pedals
It's been most of a year since The Year of Magical Pedaling, leaves have fallen, and we've seen our first snow (in the air, not the ground). Where does our biking hobby and habits stand?
Let's start with arrivals and departures.
- Added: Yellow Juiced CrossCurrent X.
- (Breaking news) Added: An aging but cool Juiced Scorpion. This can interchange batteries with the other Juiced bike.
- Subtracted: Our white Lectric XP 2.0 was sold to a FoG ("Friend of George") in Iowa. We brought it out at the start of Babs' rehabilitation journey and realized we didn't exactly have a way to get it home.
How about adventures? We ran errands, went bike-only for three weeks, rode multiple times in Portugal, ran more errands, got rained on, brought the cats to the vet, rode with niece-by-choice Katooch in Iowa, did what Willie would want us to do, and saw ever more bikes popping up in the neighborhood and at the market.
A year's worth of experiences
How's our mileage?
- Black Lectric: 239 -> 311 (72)
- White Lectric (sold October 2023, $600): 301-> 456 (159)
- Blix: 270->733 (463)
- RadRunner 2: 461-> 857 (396)
- Yellow CrossCurrent X (purchased: August 2023, $1726) 0-> 356 (356)
- Black Juiced Scorpion (purchased Nov 2023, $800): 374 -> 380 (6)
The total is 1452 miles. Last year, we totaled 1186 miles.
What have we learned?
We've diversified the stable. Everyone has a bike more-or-less assigned to them, but Ginnie and I are the primary riders. The experiences are quite different. From Buster's stately Dutch-style blue Blix, to the Harley flavor low rider experience of the Scorpion, to my sports-car yellow agility rocket, there's more fun to be had this year. We hope to see everyone in the family on bikes more often, and we'll keep trying to take at least one or two along on any trips we can.
Ginnie and I are planning for some long rides in the coming year. The interchangable batteries on the Juiced bikes will help with this but we're still a bit of battery power short of our needed capacity. I've also discovered the religion of hydraulic brakes. Only the two Juiced bikes have these brakes but ultimately, the whole fleet will use this.
Finally, we're making the mental switch from being "bikers" to being a family who bikes. It's a subtle transformation to seeing the bike as our main mode of moving, not a novelty hobby. That's moving forward.
