Reep's Bike Adventure of Epicness (BAE) (has ended)

[GreenBike]

Thanks for sharing your story, great to read ! Sounds like your trip was almost too life-changing ...

I've done many 4-8 week biketouring trips, always feeling fantastic afterwards, then going back to work having this great secret that no-one else has discovered. But also always some bad days when the only thing you want to do is to throw the bike & stuff in a lake and call a taxi.

But simple living at its best, ( like ERE? ). It also feels really good and philosophically right to travel about on a Bike with just a few high-quality lightweight stuff, just what you need to enjoy and be comfortable on the road for many weeks, but nothing unnecessary or heavy-weight. The latest gadget developments are great, I have an ebook reader containing a whole library > 200 books, a smartphone with offline maps covering every country, and a hub-dynamo to charge it while biking.

On some campgrounds I´ve been in my minimalistic tent surrounded by 10 enormous luxuary RVs loaded with stuff, and I´m sure I was having the better time !

[Chad]

@reepicheep
I'm very much enjoying your trip posts. Sounds like it was very worthwhile.

[reepicheep]

6/16/2015
Distance: 57.4 miles
Elevation: 430 ft gain, 331 ft loss
Location: Bonn

As I get closer to the end of my trip some things matter less. The daily mileage, the time it took. Stopping to take pictures. Who I'm staying with and what their story is. My physical pain and discomfort. The amount of money I've spent. What the weather is.

The days begin to blur together a bit and I forget who I stayed with and where, unless the conversation was exceptional. I've also begun to think about why I'm travelling at all, especially in light of yesterday's musings on the value mismatch between myself and Hubs.

This trip started out as a roundabout way to get to the ERE meet-up and just take some time off work.

I did hope to get some time for contemplation, of course, and I have. I've filled my head with audiobooks and podcasts and sometimes the silence of my own breathing and internal whirl of thoughts.

Then, the trip became about resiliency, and so I've had some very long days. Still, I could have made it harder--I could camped more, bought less ice-cream, gotten up earlier, etc.

Then, the trip became about meeting people and sharing with them and influencing them and allowing myself to be influenced by them and learning about how they saw the world. After awhile, though, all the conversations are the same. Who am I? Where am I going? Where have I been? What place has been my favorite? The Dutch want to talk about global warming and the American gun fetish. The Germans want to talk about immigration (and how they aren't rascist, they just don't want the brown people in THEIR town) and the economy. Everybody I meet is young and uncertain of their future and thinks that travelling might solve their problems. If they can't travel, they live vicariously through me and the other surfers they host.

But sometimes I meet someone different. Last night was like that.

marya works for the UN in an environmental science/climate change office. Her office is discussing laying off 20-60 people by next January, apparently as punishment for members of the EU who aren't willing to reduce their emissions (I'm unsure whether the lay-offs have any actual correlation). She's at a real transition point in her life--she had an abortion 3 weeks ago. She's in a long-term relationship with her boyfriend, who is a native of Bonn in his 30's.

She is at a very difficult place in her life. She has travelled and lived in a dozen or so countries--she comes from South America--but she has spent 5 years in Bonn working at this job.

The abortion and the lay-offs woke her up from what she calls a "comfortable sleep."

She chose to host me because of this trip I'm on. She had never thought about biking before and she was curious about me. But last night, I mostly listened to her.

Her fears of living a conventional life, being trapped in a golden cage, of feeling sorry for the women she sees pushing a pram down the side walk. Her uncertainty about the future of her relationship. How closed off and cold she's become since moving to Germany, which has a very different culture than South America.

She thought an around the world trip would help her reset, refresh, become more connected to the rest of humanity again.

I said it probably wouldn't help. The demons inside--we carry them with us wherever we are. Getting on a plane and waking up 18 hours later in Australia is not an exorcism. It doesn't make us better people. There has to be a purpose, a direction, and a time and space for reflection or the travel is meaningless.

And then I realized I was talking to myself.

I am listening to Vagabonding today and I hope it will help me to figure out this question. Because if the answer is "I'm young, and therefore genetically predisposed to wandering" then what I have with my husband isn't a mis-match of values, it's a mis-match of life stage--a gap that will shrink as I get older and more inclined to family life.

Continued:

But if there's really something else I'm doing here, something worth spending my time on, then this value-question is something I'm going to have to keep negotiating and re-negotiating with him for the rest of my life. I'm prepared to that end, because at the end of the day I would honestly prefer to travel without him. Sometimes I wish he were there, for the nice views, the special moments I would like to share, but the reality is he's not physically or mentally equipped for the effort and challenge of getting to those views. If he were, it would be different. I would want him with me, then.

It's one thing to drive up a mountain and another walk. I know; I've done both. There's something more visceral and rewarding about the latter that's difficult to explain. As long as I'm travelling with Hubs, we're going to drive.

I think maybe he once knew this truth or understood it--when he was young, he free-climbed cliffs just to find a spot to read in. But I don't know that he remembers or can remember, because he's let his body go to hell and he couldn't climb the cliff now, even if he wanted to.

I don't know that he's prepared to keep negotiating my travel--he thinks that someday I will outgrow the desire and be happy at home, in more or less one place, working with him or on my own projects. Maybe I will be OK with that kind of life. It's possible. It's just right now there's so much I want to do--a coast to coast American bike trip. Travel in South America. Hiking in Alaska. The PCT. Habitat for Humanity projects. Hiking in New Zealand. Teaching Drum in Michigan. Sailing.

I could spend years of my life doing these things, and they're all going to be without him, I think, unless something dramatic changes for either one of us. How can we have a life together when we are so different?

June 16, 2015--later that day

As I listen to Vagabonding, a couple of ideas became more clear to me.

1. Travel as overcoming fear--I think this is a big one for me as most of my life has been about overcoming preconceived ideas (from myself or others) about what I am and am not capable of. I have a lot to prove.

2. Travel as exposing my authentic self. Even as stripped down as my life is, I play a certain role at work and with my family and friends. While I do tend to have the same kinds of conversations over and over, it's also easy and fast to get into some really deep topics with strangers--because there's no expectation of having to deal with the aftermath. We will probably never see each other again. So when I'm travelling, even (and paradoxically) though I'm lying about what I'm doing, I am at my most real. I am closer to who I really am and who I really want to be than I am at any other place in my life--including when I interact with Dave, who doesn't seem able to handle who I really am (or at least he's not very happy about it).

[reepicheep]

Unfinished post from the 16th finished up above. ^^

June 17, 2015
Distance: 40 miles
Elevation: 531 ft gain, 505 ft loss
Location: Koblenz

Spent the night in Koblenz with Sonja. I've actually requested to stay with her before, back when she was a student in Trier (film and public relations), but she was unable to host me then. Now she's doing an internship in Koblenz--public relations--and we finally met. It was destiny.

She invited me out to a pub quiz at what is apparently one of the best Irish pubs outside of Ireland. I believe it, as it was quite packed and full of other quiz contestants.

I was there with Sonja and her friend Frederick, who is the local CS/guru/event organizer. Our team name was "No Bananas."

There were three rounds and we won all of them, despite the quiz questions being half in German and competing against more than 20 other teams of 3-5ish people. Our prize was free drinks.

I couldn't finish my cider as we had to catch the last bus home, but it was still fun (because we won, of course) and I'm glad I went. I was quite tired and also wanted to spend time writing, but ended up at this pub instead--with a memory of triumph and sweaty excitement I'll have for the rest of my life. Who knew I had such an exhaustive knowledge of Disney soundtracks for films I haven't seen in 15 years?

I listened to Epictetus: The Art of Living--twice--this morning and he's given me quite a lot to think about. It occurs to me that my passion for travel may be (probably is) an internal journey externalized. My desire to listen to different podcasts, non-fiction literature, and to write extensively on this trip seem to reflect that idea. These are not standard habits.

What, then, is the internal journey? Epictetus suggests that we are all on a quest to improve and better our spiritual lives and the spiritual lives of others. I'm not sure I fully agree with his phrasing. I would say more that the "quest" I'm on is more about reaching and being my authentic self, and that I clearly feel more like the idealized vision I have of myself (something like a combo of Superman, Edmund Hillary, Lisa Nelson, MacGyver, and a travelling monk) when I'm travelling. Travel gives me more opportunities to exercise the skills and character traits of the people listed above.

Of course, the real trick is to be that authentic self ALL the time, not just when I'm on the road. To hang on to something from the travel experience and return home with clearer vision.

I'm married. I probably shouldn't be, but nobody forced me into it. That decision brings with it inherent obligations to my spouse and to our relationship (an entity of its own, separate from either of us independently). I've been running away from those obligations out of a sense of a loss of freedom--I don't want to be accountable to my husband. I want to be able to do whatever I want--both now and when I finish my term of service.

But as Epictetus says, freedom comes from a full understanding of our limitations, not from heedlessly pursuing every whim that pops up.

I wonder if this can be true? Duty, obligation, these are ideas that run counter to the cultural socialization I've experienced thus far. I am supposed to follow my dreams, to live my own life, to not let a man tell me what to do...etc.

But I already reject so much of the stereotypical ideas of my culture, class, and social environment--why should I accept without question that "freedom" means what I think it means, what I've been taught it means? Epictetus was a slave, but he seems more free than I, for I am caught in an endless loop of fear and drama and rationalization.

To confuse the matter further, I've been listening to The Moneyless Man. ERE is partially about being more efficient with money. If it's possible to live on 15k, 10k 7k a year, then why not zero? And if zero, then what does it matter how much financial acumen one has (or does not have)? Dollars become like leaves--basically worthless as a medium of exchange for the purpose of procuring needs and living life.

Hubs has the financial acumen of a small child. But if we lived in a primitive village--a life I romanticize quite a lot--and did not use currency, his basic inability to function in a way that matches this strange society we live in would not matter.

I can eat paleo, undertake barefooting, enjoy camping, not mind hunting, want to life in a tree house in the forest--but I'm angry at my husband he does not have the foresight to open his own IRA? In this primitive world I'm imagining, he, and not I, would be more successful. He's much better with people. He would thrive in a socially-based sharing, gifting, or bartering economy. I would be much more dependent on him and the structure of relationships he'd be able to build.

A lot of my angst about eventually going home to him is wrapped up in what I perceive to be a fundamental value mis-match. But the mis-match may be predicated on my personal cultural indoctrination about what I "ought" to care about, combined with a huge helping of obsession over acquiring totally arbitrary pieces of paper that serve to replace human relationships and individual ingenuity.

What am I supposed to do with these ideas? He would say I'm overthinking things, and that everything will work out. But that's simply not true. If I can't get my mind right, our relationship isn't going to last. It would be entirely too easy for me to selfishly and wantonly destroy what we've built over the last few years. Staying together is difficult--not day to day, we actually get along quite well together--but in the long term. I can dream up all these value mis-match problems basically related to how we spend our time together.

Maybe the answer lies in understanding that if going away is easier--running away--then staying is the path that's more likely to bring the personal growth I'm seeking. To be authentic with my husband is to more fully nurture and breathe to life the small spark of the cosmos inside me--maybe some would call it God. Maybe it's just the part of me that's most real, the part that's not clouded or shrouded with fear of the future, or fear of opportunity costs, or fear of giving up some personal control?

[reepicheep]

June 18, 2015
Distance: ~50
Elevation: 991 ft gain, 850 ft loss
Location: Koblenz to Bingen on June 17

Distance: ~50 miles
Elevation: 1,647 ft gain, 1204 ft loss
Location: Bingen to Home on June 18

Stayed with Luca in Bingen last night. He and his folks hosted me after the original host I messaged, Verena, offered to host but said she wasn't going to be home until 10 PM.

Verena and Luca had some amazing CS experiences in Florida and New York, so they were eager to host a New Yorker. We had a good time going to a youth-run club and bar. It was pretty quiet on a Wednesday night, but their friend Julian was celebrating his birthday, so we celebrated with him. They are both studying music and hope to someday open up a music school/cafe together.

I'm writing this entry 800 M from my house at a sushi restaurant. I don't want to go home, because that will mean the trip is really over. I have to work tomorrow.

Few notes:

-Sometimes my legs hurt so much at the end of the day I could barely climb stairs.
-I do, however, have some incredible musculature on my thighs and calves.
-I never pooped in the woods. I did pee a lot though.
-I hauled the stove ~700 miles (google tells me the exact distance was 650, but I got lost enough and also used the bike as a commuter vehicle without all my gear on once in town that I think 700+ is more accurate) and only used it once.
-I lost one sock, one pair of spandex shorts, one bottle of face wash (at Gaudalupe's house)
-I was able to eventually use my clip shoes regularly without falling over. Things are still dicey on hills, and I tend to start my day in sneakers until I get out of town.
-I spent way more than 5 euro/day. I have a huge love of ice-cream. My total food costs were something like 400 euro.
-I didn't ride without podcasts or books for a period every day, but the last few days I spent more and more time in silence.
-The route along the Rhein was packed with bike tourists, most with brand new Ortlieb panniers (there's apparently a huge Ortlieb store near Bonn). I judge them. My panniers have been well-loved, but only because I got them used in the first place. They make me look a lot more well-traveled and expert than I am, and I think this occasionally prompted people to talk to me when they might otherwise not have.
-I prefer non-tourist routes, even if they are less flat, more dangerous, and less clearly marked. Today from Bingen home I saw only a handful of bikers, all of them locals. Much preferable to the hordes of Canadians, Americans, and UK types on the Euro Velo routes participating in sponsored bike tours.
-I have some kind of weird wart or ingrown hair growing in a really-uncomfortable-for-biking place.
-Cargo shorts don't make great biking shorts.
-Before I left, hubs realized my intent to camp. He became very concerned, as he originally thought I was going to stay in hostels or couchsurf (and he seems to have gotten over his fear of couchsurfing; once it was unacceptable, now it is a preferred option in comparison to stealth camping). He expressed himself clearly, without freaking out, and I more or less humored him by couchsurfing the whole way or camping in designated spots. In retrospect, I wish I'd camped at least once or twice to overcome some of my own fear about that--I met a German biker who had camped along the Rhein who had no fear of it, but he also had a friend with him. I did appreciate the opportunity to shower frequently.

_____________________________________________________________________________

It occurred to me today (after listening to Epictetus again) that the real value of this trip has been in the many, many hours I've spent thinking while biking, or listening to things that give me new ideas. I enjoy the people I meet and the things I see, to be sure, but the internal journey happens while I'm on my bike--and the truth is that I don't really need to sleep anywhere other than my own bed--or next to my husband--to spend the day biking 70-100 km, thinking.

I think these questions about my husband and our relationship are coming up now because we're going to get publicly married in November. My parents will finally know I'm actually married, almost a full year later. A public marriage vs. a private shouldn't anything, and it really doesn't, it's just that the first was so rushed that I really didn't think too much beforehand.

I love my husband. I care about him. And I know he loves me--deeply and intensely. We have a commitment to each other, one I believe we would both feel even if we didn't have a piece of paper from the state. That commitment should not be something I feel the need to push away, to constantly test to the limit.

Maybe someday I can look at my marriage as a secure platform from which I can launch into the world, instead of a box I have to break out of in order to really experience life. Something I discussed with Guadalupe was doing a year's worth of month-long challenges. I like this idea because it would force me to get out of my head and act--not just think.

I have been telling myself I need to do something about my semi-crippling fear of the the future for years. I *think* about meditating, or having some daily ritual or routine, but never establish the habit. My fear of the future is really related to what's going to happen to with my relationship, since we are so different from each other.

I've realized a couple of things on this trip. First, at the beginning, you just don't know where you're going to end up. You can plan all you want, but it doesn't always matter. And I'm remarkably ok with that--on a bicycle. Today I went down a paved, marked bike path that turned into a quarter mile of mud. I had to get off and push the bike (uphill!) but eventually the path became paved again.

My relationship is a little like that--life is a little like that. At the beginning, you can't always see the difficulties ahead. When you're mired in the difficulties, you don't always know whether or where they end. But there's really nothing for it to keep going, in good faith that mud can't last forever, that hills don't last forever, that eventually the way will be smooth and easy again.

Second, all I can do in the morning is approach the day with a willingness to work hard, to tackle obstacles, and to keep going. Enjoyment and appreciation and reward only come AFTER the hard work.

So. I'm going to spend 30 days--starting the 22 of June, as I need a few days to get my shit together at work--focusing on my marriage. I'm not sure what that means, exactly, but I'll figure it out as I go, just like I figured out this bike trip.

[sky]

Thank you for sharing what you learned.

[reepicheep]

Post script, written on June 26, 2015

Total costs:



I've now been back at work for one week. The general response to my trip has been sheer amazement from co-workers and leadership. People almost invariably respond with "I don't think I could do that." I assure them that it is remarkably easy and that my physical preparation consisted primarily of biking to work, a flat 10 km round-trip. They wonder if anything bad happened to me and I tell them that the worst thing that happened is I got badly sunburned, an entirely preventable experience.

It is difficult to answer the question, "How was it?" I say, "It was really good. An amazing experience." And I leave it that. I can't package it into a 30 second sound byte, and nobody really wants to know the truth, anyway.

I've continued to have the same mental experience as I described in my earlier "back-at-work" post. I work hard, but only for the sake of the other people around me. I care about my subordinates and I care about what they want both within their careers and outside of them--but I am not here to tell them that remaining in the military for the long term or getting out of it is the best way for them, I am just here to help facilitate their choices (regardless of if I think those choices are ill-informed). The easiest way to describe how I view them is that they are all still trapped in Plato's Cave, but I am free. I return to the cave not to convince them of their chains, but to help them in their labours, to share and lighten the burden of the work. This attitude may be perceived as arrogant, but it is a better attitude than I return to work because I am forced to by contract.

I still view the work we do as similar to that scene in the Phantom Tollbooth where Milo attempts to move a huge sand pile from one location to another with a teaspoon. It's hard to express inherent excitement or interest in work that feels not just pointless or useless, but also at it's core, destructive. We are not adding value to the world, and the military as a whole is largely extractive of value, I think (though it can be quite beneficial for the individuals who serve, if they don't die/get PTSD/lose limbs/wreck their marriages).

I've gotten more and more interested in Stoicism. I have downloaded and listened to "A guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy" several times, as well as listened to a lecture on Stoicism put out by the Yale free course program. I've done some research into Epictetus's life. My next purchase will be Seneca, I already have Meditations (though find it difficult to get through--I read it in college). I find myself during the day reminding myself not to wish for things to be other than as they are--usually when I'm quite tired and haven't left the building in 8 hours. I remind myself that once upon a time, serving in the military was a dream of mine. That I am living my dream life. As I bike to work, I do negative visualizations, as suggested by Mr. Irvine. I struggle with these, as my automatic response to "What if this bad thing happened?" is to think about a way I would negate or work around the bad thing. I have visions of myself-as-amputee running marathons on those cool prosthetic foot-spoon things. If my foot was cut off, I would no longer suffer from plantar fasciitis. I might be more willing to run.

Stoicism helps. I think it is the most rational approach for someone in a soul-sucking job surrounded by people with low morale in pretty shitty working conditions. I feel calm, unruffled. And I notice more when I'm NOT calm, and what I'm getting upset about. My conclusions thus far are usually that whatever is disturbing my inner serenity hasn't been worth it. I am looking forward to learning more.

My husband and I have moved into wedding planning. My Mother-In-Law is a big-wig at a Synagogue on the East Coast, and she is planning on celebrating her 20-year anniversary with Hub's step-father in November. She has graciously invited us to plan our ceremony at the same time and place (and offered to absorb the cost of our small number of additional guests--many of Hub's guests were already going to the event), and we've taken her up on it. The planning is almost entirely out of our hands--there was very little for us to do, other than set a guest list, pick some music, and make our desires known to the catering company. While a wedding in a Synagogue wasn't my first choice (we were originally planning on a small beach wedding on the West Coast, before the shit hit the fan in January 2015), I've never been a Pinterest-wedding-woman and I am remarkably unfussy when it comes to many of the details. I could not care less what color the tableclothes are, whether there are centerpieces, what the photography arrangements are, and so on. I am going on a work trip in a couple of months to a country renowned for its ability to custom-create any possible clothing item for remarkably cheap, so I plan on getting a custom-made and fitted wedding* dress there for what I've been told will be a couple hundred bucks. If that doesn't work out, I'm sure my MIL will be happy to take me shopping the day before the wedding and we'll pick out a nice dress at Nordstrom's or something. Since we purchased wedding bands for our ceremony in January (~$300 on Etsy for both, as I recall), the dress will likely be the most expensive part of the entire event, other than the 6 plane tickets we might need to buy for cross-continental, trans-oceanic flights that both of us will be taking. The honeymoon will be at the house that I've bought, but never lived in, though I've requested one night in a national forest and I expect Hubs will be happy to accommodate.

*Wedding dress used loosely. I'm not even sure it'll be white.

Many of the conclusions I reached in the last few days of travel remain relevant for me. The idea of money has remained somewhat abstract and I view it and the acquisition of huge piles of it as somewhat less necessary for a fulfilled life. I don't have the skills needed to live without money, but I am confident in my ability to acquire them. Most of the money I habitually spend is related to my work--purchasing coffee for my shop, buying lunch or dinner for my subordinates, buying a shelf (used) for a non-fiction lending library I am establishing in our squadron (looking for donations if you're willing to ship books!). Even the $150 I just dropped on my phone plan--pre-paid, should be enough to get me through the next 12 months or so--is mostly because work needs to call me and I need to call work. At home, I use wi-fi or Skype.

As is perhaps not surprising, my new found ideas about money have made my differences with my husband regarding the saving of it as less of a problem for me. I continue to save great gobs of it, just as much as before, and I have no intention of changing that habit, but the habit has become less about prepping for ERE and more about the real internalization that more does not equal better, and that in fact less is actually more constructive and nurturing for the human soul. Even I suffer from hedonic adaption in certain areas, and a prodigious appetite for food (something I am trying to curb with a Warrior Diet-Lite. It's been a struggle). I might be willing to sleep on the floor without the heat on in January, but I've not been willing to go without hot showers. If I draw an arbitrary line there, it's unreasonable for me to draw an arbitrary line for my husband anywhere. I can control only what I can control--my own saving and spending behavior, my own attitudes, beliefs, and reactions.

My thoughts regarding travel and its purpose and necessity in my life are complex. At the moment, I would say that the ideal of authenticity that I hope to bring back and maintain while at home is perhaps more possible than I first imagined it was. A round-the-world biking trip may be unnecessary for the acquisition of inner serenity. Nevertheless, I expect I will need periodic re-sets throughout my life in order to maintain and grow the attitude I am currently experiencing. I think Hubs will find regular Reep-maintenance trips as basically acceptable compromises. His presence or lack thereof on those trips will have to be figured out when we get there--just like the giant muddy hill I experienced on my last day of travel.

My 30-day focus-on-my-marriage project is ongoing and has mostly consisted of putting away substantial time to talk with him over Skype. I sent him a postcard (and I suck at snail mail and hate the Post Office, so this represents a fairly large mountain of aversion I overcame), as well as getting an eight-foot high stack of balloons delivered to the house. They didn't fit inside, he put them in the garden, and they popped 5 minutes later in the heat. I lost money slower gambling in Atlantic City, but I think he was pretty chuffed--especially since I told him the reason behind it was "just 'cuz". I'm somewhat torn on whether my 30-day project should include telling him he has a secret IRA. Thinking about keeping it secret is messing with my inner serenity; OTOH, we played the "What would you do if you won a million dollars game (post-tax)" and his first response was "Pay off the rest of the mortgage (~100k), then give you $200,000 to invest in whatever you think is sensible." The other 700k would go towards a variety of business ideas he has. I told him that if I won I'd probably put all of it in dividend-paying stocks.

And of course, what I think is sensible is that he have an IRA.

Biking as Metaphor for Life

In conclusion, on my summer vacation I learned that people everywhere are basically kind, warm-hearted individuals who only want to help (the Dutch make this a cultural priority, it seems) and that failing that, most people will basically leave you alone. I also learned that I am capable of climbing really big hills, though not always on my bike, and that Dory should be a roll-model for all long-distance bikers on their toughest days. I learned that I can't control the weather (but that I can control whether I put on sunscreen) and that sometimes, it's ok to ride the train. I learned that I have control over the things I fear, mostly, or at least I have control over how I react to the things I fear, that I don't have control over much of anything else, and that it would consequently be irrational to waste mental energy on the "anything else." I learned that travel isn't a panacea for the first-world-problems that ail me, but with the right attitude and the right inputs it can serve as a "leveling-up" experience.

[vexed87]

Very inspiring reepicheep, I enjoyed reading that. Maybe one day I can set out on a similar expedition, it certainly seems that you 'leveled up' a few times!

[Gilberto de Piento]

Most of your posts are too deep for me to comment on - I'm not much of a philosopher - so I'll stick with my area of expertise as a cyclist:

-I have some kind of weird wart or ingrown hair growing in a really-uncomfortable-for-biking place.

It's probably a "saddle sore". Some people never get them, some people get them on one ride. It's just acne. More washing is supposed to help prevent it. They end up in annoying places by definition because that is where you are touching the seat.

[enigmaT120]

I get those sores sometimes but mine happen whether or not I bike, and not on my sit-bones. I guess in-grown hairs, I don't know. They don't seem to be pimples which is what I always thought they were.

I can appreciate the challenges of a spouse who doesn't like to do all the things you like to do. When I met my wife it was during a period when I hadn't been running or biking at all, a brief period when I was just coasting on being in my 20s. So things like back or bike packing and running I have to do by myself or with other friends. Oh well, I won't play Scrabble with her and her friends either.

[DutchGirl]

I read your story about your ride, Reepicheep. Nice. A true adventure / experience, I would say. It doesn't surprise me that you didn't solve all your problems . But I think you have grown, have thought new thoughts, have experienced new situations. I think it will be a good memory, and that it can help you make the future better, too. Good luck!