Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
All tagged cycling
After a week of jumping from one scenic and interesting town to another on New Zealand’s North Island—continually feeling like, “Wait! I want more time here!”—I was especially excited to have just one Airbnb rental in Nelson on the South Island for the next six nights.
In grade school, Field Day was an event I enjoyed because it felt like an outdoor celebration of the end of the school year. I was competitive enough to try hard and want to win, but I never excelled at any particular athletic skill. So, why would I want to volunteer for a grown-up field day? Redemption.
I’ve had “do a mountain-bike clinic” on my list of intrepid activity ideas from the start of this project. Learning some cross-country trail riding sounds like a fun change of pace and a nice departure from my usual road-cycling experience, and Steamboat seemed the perfect place to try it out. This is a story of how I got more adventure than I'd bargained for.
This year, I want to ride with larger groups of people to push myself more and make some new friends. My first group ride of the year was a special event: the B&O Bicycle Tour on June 3, and it unexpectedly turned into the start of a fantastic birthday weekend.
I’m a planner. An organizer. A person who thinks ahead and wants to be prepared. This means that generally, when I leave the house to take a bike ride, I have a route in mind. On Saturday morning, I mixed that up. I turned right instead of left and made decisions on the fly about what road I’d take next.
![Week 29: Grown-Up Field Day [Score +14]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58b4c7cc20099e8b54a9ad11/1507596566069-9O2165EIENCVLCQXN21V/CorpChallenge-107-aem.jpg)
![Week 25: Unplanned Adventures in Mountain Biking [Score +24]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58b4c7cc20099e8b54a9ad11/1505437571969-I7PWN01OS07B0Z3TWKJE/SteamboatMTB-aem-103-2.jpg)
![Week 14: An Epic Ride and a Wink from the Universe [Score +10]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58b4c7cc20099e8b54a9ad11/1497485482206-1G82DV3KQ650ZYM16JGK/BORide-28-aem.jpg)