I last posted on 30 days of biking back on the 14th of April.
That doesn’t mean I stopped riding, it just means I ran out of steam on the blogging. It’s a great concept and it probably lends itself to the 140 characters of Twitter but I assumed my readers will probably run out of patience if I write “went to the station again” for the 15th time in a month. And it’s not as if I haven’t ridden a bike almost every day since too.
The bigger problem however was that I completely ran out of time to blog, I have had some pretty good content but I haven’t had time to do it justice. So while I am catching up with those posts I have looked back at the second half of the month and pulled out just a few highlights to close out the sequence, even if it is late. Almere and Paris were the travel highlights, but I have already blogged about those.
What was really great was being forced to note as I went along why even daily cycling is so uplifting, especially when you live out in the countryside and spring brings changes almost every day. This has been especially true this year, the late cold winter has compressed spring into a ferocious burst of energy and all of that broke during the 30 days of April.
So glory number one from the end of the month is blossom, bursting out all over.
And number two is the rediscovery of touring. At last the weather has been good enough to do proper touring rides and I managed three or four of those, both local explorations, another club ride with Cyclottignies and my big trip across Wallonia. I ended April a lot fitter than I started it!
Finally there was one other big beneficiary of my determination to ride every day. He is a lot fitter too. When I might have just nipped out for a walk instead Murphy got lots of great cross country rides even after work and we explored a some great new local lanes off the Lasne Nature maps although not without a few barriers.
Anyway I managed to ride every day except one in April, probably more than I would have done without the incentive of the challenge. So Murphy and I thank the 30daysofbiking guys in Minneapolis, great idea. We’ll be back next year.
To see how the rest of the world fared click here
I Do Not Despair 
Spring? Still waiting 🙂 at least the snow has gone and the last of the anti-slip gravel swept away… Lovely part of the world you are in!
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My friend in Norway shows a passion for the thaw that those of us further south find hard to understand, but maybe after our extended winter I get it more.
We never expected it to be so lovely when we moved to Belgium, a real bonus.
Enjoy your spring
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This was my first time doing #30DaysOfBiking, despite the fact it started in my own city. Not in particularly great physical condition, I was intimidated. Our late start to spring this year made it even more challenging – snow, sleet, wind – you name it. Some days, in the name of safety (icy streets) I moved indoors to a stationary bike. Mostly, I was outside enjoying our beautiful city. On day one, 2 miles felt like an eternity. By the end, I could bike 10 miles at a time, all the while with a smile on my face. After borrowing my daughter’s bike for the 30 Days, I’m off to purchase my own this weekend. I look forward to enjoying my city via bicycle for the next few months as spring and summer settle in to Minnesota.
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Good for you – and welcome to our world. There comes a time when you need even that 2 mile ride to stop the rest of your day feeling like an eternity!
Good luck with it.
Kevin
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