💥 Woooo!!! 💥That's something nice to scratch off a bucket list aint it? Last week, I rode my trike all the way around the city of Long Beach, Lakewood, Downey, and tagged Whittier along the way. That's 50 miles of riding in a day. The best part is, I know I could do it again. The biggest hurdle to get past was needing a little more water to haul with me, because I sweat heavily.

Video

The second biggest hurdle, and I mean this seriously, is that I can't play music while I record video with my phone lol! Recording video is important for a trike ride, right? It feels important. Here's a little something I put together with the footage I recorded for your viewing pleasure.

^{_{Credit: My own video footage. Music is Diamond by BassNoize & Raphael Suntec discovered on FreeBackgroundMusic on Soundcloud}}

That piece was put together with Blender, an open source software of awesomeness for animation and video editing. Using Python, Blender is a user friendly editing platform for any level of user you happen to be. The only trouble is that there are a lot of options to weed through in order to find the user friendly means of production that fits you. It took me a day to learn the ropes from a few youtube tutorials and a day to put a nice vertical video together with it.

The Outfit

Ok, so, most of this was just to avoid getting sunburned BUT I will confess I have fun messing with people who are utterly confused by a trike riding clown with an old security hat on. I get greeted with smiles, looks of confusion, even gang signs from teenagers. On that note, I DID have to promise my significant other that I won't ride at night anymore 😇. Seriously, who the hell teaches these young fools that open public spaces are the best spots to make an exchange? I know it's LA County and all, but they actually got to the bike trail by walking through bushes. Stay in the damn bushes if you're trying to hide, dummy! Geez! Sometimes I imagine if I were bulletproof, I'd take the time to talk some sense into these dudes... But I digress.

While my last trike ride post didn't make much steem on Steemit (pun intended) I've decided that I don't really care if my personal fight against my own fat tissue interests anyone. This effort of weight loss depends on making a long term lifestyle change. I'll admit it's a bit of grandstanding on my part, but if the effective method is to trick my own brain into doing the healthy thing, then pretending that others care is a small enough sacrifice of my personal integrity to be justified as a means of obtaining the desired end, to be healthy.

More to the point, I got to see my inevitable future earlier this year as my father passed. To be sure, he did a lot of the damage to himself by being too stubborn to even try to be healthy. Still, many of you reading this on Steemit understand all too well that life is random. It can come and go as quickly as a cryptocurrency can rise and fall in value. All that we can do for ourselves is improve our odds of living through the chaos. No one is in a better position to do that for me than me. That's just the fact of the matter.

Last Attempt Was A Failure

An additional reason why this achievement boosted my confidence is that this is my second attempt on this route. The first one ended in the middle of South Central with 2 leaked tires. Ugg, if you, dear reader, are considering getting into recreational cycling, do yourself a favor and insist on getting upgrades to your tires right off the bat. Get the more reinforced tires and ask them to apply some slime (preemptive fix-a-flat for your tire). Despite being cut short, I had done the majority of the ride before the tires deflated. Here's a the failed attempt and a shot I took of the situation at the time:

Since this last ride, I have been on a much anticipated vacation, which I will be posting about soon (SDCC 😵). As a consequence, I have not been able to maintain the dent in caloric intake that this trike ride did for me. That being said, there's still heart 💖 benefits and head benefits that were gained from the effort. The next opportunity I have to ride, I think I'll look at some OC bike maps and see where I could take myself next. I feel as giddy about adventuring on these bike paths as I have felt with exploring a map on every RPG I've enjoyed.

Lifehacks, advice, questions and feedback are all welcome in the comments below. If you enjoy this sort of post, please upvote and let me know in the comments. My hope is that weight loss talk and advice can be a matter of speaking through actions rather than overconfident words or woo hype. Good luck in your efforts to be healthy!

<sub><sup>Image alterations were processed using the Prisma app

Disclaimer: The people and logos depicted here did not authorize, sponsor, or in any way associate with the creation of this post. These are my own independent observations in Long Beach.</sup></sub>

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