Drillium Dude 

Thanks Grady! I've upgraded to some treaded Paselas for the the Casati in hopes of doing some miles on gravel this summer, too. I decided to designate one bike for banging around, and since it's not wearing any paint, it gets the nod (put it together cheap, too). I also find myself on the road less and less; too many drivers paying more attention to phones than their surroundings!

DD

top506

Looks like there's a lot of that going around......

Top

dedhed

I thought when the kids were gone I'd have more time. Elderly parent that needs daily attention and "do more with less" at work have filled in and then some. At least the commute on most days gets me riding.

J.Higgins 

The only thing thats keeping me away is the object of my heart's desire, and here she is: Meet my precious Polly McGee!



She's already a good companion in the shop. 12 weeks old. We were dog-less for about two years since the passing of our beloved Kaycee, and finally the time was right for a new baby.

52telecaster

Im on vacation without the bikes.... hitting national parks and tent camping.
Sequoia


Mesa verde


Camping in the woods.

oddjob2

Geez, I haven't checked into BF since May 27, 2019?

There are three major priorities: caregiving, home remodeling, sailing.

Caregiving - With family and friends support, other than from my dad, I relocated my mom, now 87, 600 miles away in New Jersey to a memory care facility 5 minutes from my house, in June 2018. The facility is only 4 years old and the staff does a great job. Dad decided he wanted to come to Michigan later in August. Never thought I would have a 94 y.o. roommate, lol. Besides the burden of domestic duties of hygiene, health, meals, transportation, and safety, the financial and estate matters are never ending.

I have had to establish fiduciary credentials with for banking, insurance, financial, government, pension funds, health care, and utility companies, about 48 in all. The worst is when an online presence was established, but no password directory and obsolete email addresses were embedded in the online account. Their investment portfolio has not been managed for about 8 years, income taxes current but no returns for several years, forgotten IRA rmds, uncashed dividend checks, and on and on. There are also 2 condominium rental to manage, one in Hoboken and one in Ann Arbor.

Last but not least is getting the NJ homestead sold and cleaned out after 55 years in one place. The selling has been smooth and closing is pending. Luckily, I have been purging the house of personalty for 18 months. But still, it is not an easy task to manage from 600 miles away. Spent the last 2 weeks donating, purging, what we didn't need and packing and moving the balance. Habitat for Humanity ended up with a 1/2 load in a box truck, Goodwill probably 15-20 SUV loads over time, 6 cases for the library book sale, and I lost count on Craigslist freebies. Of course, Budget truck rental had to screw my schedule up by a day. But here is an example of the imported to Michigan goods.

oddjob2

Remodeling - Time seems very limited to update an almost century old compact Arts and Crafts home. Scope creep is another issue. A redo of the only 2nd floor bath and poorly laid out bath morphs into 2 back to baths on the 2nd floor, a closet conversion to powder room on 1st, and a complete redo of basement bath. All new interior supply and dwv of course. Also, addition of a subpanel now is an upgrade to 200 amps, to accommodate a free outdoor jacuzzi.

Windows swapped for French Doors



Spongy floor = cracked pinwheel tile


Reframed bathroom joists


Nice wiring, eh?


Framing for 2 baths


Freestanding garage gets a major upgrade for future EV.

oddjob2

Sailing - I am not getting any younger as I turned 63 last month. So I rededicated myself to yacht racing and got to crew on two of the faster boats in the municipal park 2-3 days a week. When we push away from the dock, I get to focus on only one thing, going faster! Unfortunately due to the need to Uber my dad around, I have only had the chance to ride down to the park only twice this season. Doing my 18th PH-Mackinac in a few weeks.

mechanicmatt

Kinda...

I have moved from Kansas City to Signal Mountain, TN with the wife and two young boys. We have bought a new house and have all the new house blues, remodeling two baths, leaky roof, leaky basement, but it seems to be coming together. Work is massively stressful, but home life is amazing and couldn't be better. Live in a beautiful place though, that encourages epic rides right from the doorstep. Try to get 2-3 1hr rides in weekly which is a huge improvement for me.

Had to get rid of 16 bikes before leaving KC, sold a few, but mostly given to two bike loving friends that will fix and flip and could use the money. Still have 15 bikes I brought with me but I think I can get it to less than 10 if I work on it. 3 are ready to go now.

Surprisingly, a major inspiration to get back on the bike was a ride in Ireland called the Ring of Beara. Almost killed me but 115km of riding was a good inspiration to get to exercising again. As a lot of people have said on here, riding and fixing bikes is nice, but riding really is best.

jimmuller 

Dude, I would have thought you knew everything there is to know by now.

The stuff keeping me away? Music commitments, work. Oh, and this:



I still ride quite a bit, still commute by bike most days.

Narhay

Seems like a bit of public whining did the trick. Cleaned off the ironman, went for a ride and discovered my Mercier 300 takes a 22.2 stem so my excuse to not delve into it due to metric woes is unfounded.

SJX426 

Life. We moved over a year ago 40 miles south of where I work. My commute by train and foot is about 3 hours round trip each day. I am gone from the house 13 hours on work days. That doesn't leave much time to ride or wrench. I am one of those that was negatively impacted by the events of the early 2000's and have to work till I die. I like my job a lot with an interesting mission and unique vehicles to enable it, of which I participate in acquiring.

I also have been out of work of over a year. You would think that would leave lots of time for rides. Well it does if you don't mind riding in 90 degree weather with 75% + humidity and very few roads with bike lanes. It has been a discipline issue for me. If I don't ride much, I tend not to wrench much. That whole scenario does not inspire visiting this site as much as when I am active.

Another contributor is the 1 acre of yard to maintain. Less actually as some of it is wooded and some grows wild. That leave about 2/3 of a acre of grass. I need a riding mower. I also have aging vehicles that need attention with over 200k on each. This led to a purchase of another vehicle that is more reliable with far fewer miles. In other words lots of other projects.

I do read a lot here but after a few years, the interest is more about peoples experiences, knowledge and personalities than about the bikes. I suppose if I worked on the project bikes (3) or n+1, interaction would change.

A lot has changed since I found BF both personally, on the forum and in the market. I am glad I collected what I did and haven't cleared out the stash. I am still missing some pieces, but that will change. I enjoy reading your comments and opinions. Of the very few I have met, every one is quality person!

BTW: It is a dry area for C&V in Fredericksburg VA!

old's'cool

Girlfriend.
To be fair, she rides too, but not near my level.

Kilroy1988 

I just spent two years back in college to get a degree in natural resource management. I had a lot of free time while I was a student working just part time doing habitat restoration, but I had to keep trying to find ways to make enough money for ends to meet. So instead of bicycles a lot of my time was spent crafting lately. I've been busy making medieval reproductions:

- Gregory

More here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/90721376@N07/

badger_biker 

When decent bikes were more plentiful to find cheap and fix and flip I checked in more often to look for parts, knowledge, other examples of bikes new to me etc. Since that era has passed for me and my capacity for grail touring bikes has been maxed I just don't have as much interest in even maintaining my fleet like I used to. I don't really ride that much more although I intend to a year from now after retirement. Most of my bikes are where I want them so upgrades and changes don't spur me on anymore. Maybe I'm just getting old :-)

I guess I committed to a several major home improvement/repair projects the last couple of years and have also been more involved in projects for my daughter's house.

I still love to see what people are doing with their projects but an overall lack of interest in wrenching for me makes checking in here a rarer occurrence. Maybe I'll migrate to more time in the Touring threads when I get more time to devote to riding and planning trips.

balindamood

Work
Broken thumb/wrist that needs surgery (an I am avoiding it)
8 kids
Other commitments

...usual stuff.

AZORCH

Pure exhaustion from ten and a half months of teaching, then six weeks of "break" for renewal... oh, but I teach workshops those weeks. I ride, but am not wrenching much at the moment. Plus, I've slowly been thinning out things so there hasn't been anything new to share on here.

ksryder

Hiked around (a small part of) the Ring of Beara on my honeymoon a few years ago. Just absolutely stunning. The Dingle Peninsula gets all the attention but Beara and Sheeps Head are fantastic undiscovered treasurers. Can only imagine biking them.

Hope you can find some passable BBQ in Tenn.