I’ve had the lazy, wandering pleasure each of the past eleven summers to spend at least a month of it out of town riding a bicycle.

• 2009: Germany;
• 2010: Katy Trail, Missouri and on down the Mississippi River;
• 2011: U.S. East Coast;
• 2012: Germany/Netherlands:
• And, so on.

But, to quote Paul McCartney from “Let it Be,” this year, this remarkably horrible year of 2020, the “two of us are riding nowhere.” Former much-loved riding places such as Germany and Netherlands aren’t even allowing us to enter their country. We are, deservedly, international outcasts.

Some of us are road tripping, bicycle and otherwise, around this country this Summer, but we’ve got more “hot spots” than a long-hair dog in July and I hate camping, particularly on a bike tour.

Usually I head out of town in June, as that is my least favorite blazing hot month to live in Albuquerque, but events and bad thinking led to me being stuck here refreshing Coronavirus data ~500,000 times per day between trips to the fridge for more Covid Comfort Food (CCF).

Then it struck me about two days ago: If I don’t have a bike tour, immediately, I’m going to go insane.

So, it’s Staycation Bike Tour Summer 2020 (SBTS), baby!

According to my Strava account, my recorded “personal best” month of bike riding was 787 miles back in June 2017. That June, spent riding through Portugal and southern France (with a mind-bending overnight bus trip across Spain in the middle), will be recreated in terms of mileage, but not memories, by averaging ~25 miles a day, every day, this month of July. 31 days X 25 miles = 775 (plus another 14 somehow to get past 787).

Only we’re not talking miles during SBTS 2020. To get us “away” from home, we’re using the Metric System. Hence we’re shooting for just over 1,250 kilometers (~40 km per day) this July, riding such exotic locales as Central Avenue, Rio Grande Blvd., and Gun Club S.W. It’s a month of faux adventure and sorta-kinda real achievement! Yes, I would very much prefer it also to be a month of fresh-made French croissants and €2 bottles of vihno verde, but what ya gonna do?

As this is a very official vacation, sorta-kinda, there will be fewer posts here on Better Burque this month. In past years, I’ve written travel blog pieces about my tour adventures, but posting detailed recounting of my crossing of Carlisle and San Mateo N.E. just doesn’t seem to warrant 1,500 words of exquisite prose.

Instead I’ll send along a post here and there while having the unique bike tour opportunity to wave as you ride the other way on Carlisle and San Mateo. Keep safe this remarkably horrible July 2020, and we’ll compare Staycation notes when we all “come back home” in August.