The Crayonava Chronicles –

How one middle-aged lady laughed in the face of pandemic lockdown isolation, armed only with a bicycle and a fistful of crayons.

{I made you all this post to read while I am at work on my new book here at the Writers’ Retreat in Italy. You will like this post! It has lots and lots of pretty pictures. Even if you have seen some of them before, they are still pretty.}

Early in the pandemic lockdown of 2020, an email reached me from the organizers of one of the many charity bike rides I’d participated in during years of summer riding seasons.

Of late I normally ride in some 19 or so charity events each summer, a different line-up of events each year but always for worthy causes. You know, riding a bike to make the world a better place, etc. etc.

The message came from Sam and Matt Accardi, the brothers who run the Bikes&Beers series of charity events: Bikes & Beers – America’s Favorite Cycling and Brewery Events! (bikesandbeers.com)

I’d done their event in Parkesburg, PA, a 30-mile loop starting and ending at the Victory Brewing Co. The Bikes&Beers concept is: you all start your charity ride at a craft brewery, ride, return, and everyone drinks free beer.

Sam’s and Matt’s plan was to make an online community of riders, where all would share solo rides on Facebook, to keep riding as we awaited the end of lockdown and the restart of events people could do together.

I was thrilled with this, and signed right up, sending in some money to get my t-shirt and swag, happy that I’d still be supporting some good causes through their organization, because to be honest, I’d initially been drawn by the Charity rather than the Beer.

But Sam and Matt set up one stipulation for this group that I had no intention whatsoever of following: they wanted us to document our rides, and post weekly distance totals, using Strava, or some other ride app.

If you turn on Strava, it will produce a stat-heavy mapped record of your ride, with a red line marking the course you rode on the map.

No way in hell was I bothering with Strava. Too fussy! Distances? Leave me alone. It’s an effin’ pandemic and you want me to mess with apps? #@!&^%$. I just ride.

So instead I posted the following on Facebook, which I suppose stood out a bit from all the stats and chirpy Personal Bests and top speeds rapidly accumulating on the Bikes&Beers page:

Because I do not have Strava, I will be recording this and all future rides with an original crayon drawing.

And here is the accompanying artwork I uploaded that day, 10 April 2020, to Facebook:

At the time, I had scrounged up a handful of vintage, broken crayons from the bottoms of drawers and boxes, leftovers from when my son was much younger. So I called my pictures Crayonava, the crayon version of Strava. I continued to ride and to draw.

Direct from the Crayon Box of the cranky middle-aged lady bike-rider who will get around to using Strava when she can link it to her flip phone, dammit.

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In my official distance record for this week, I tried to capture the deep existential essence, indeed the sheer immeasurability confronted by the socially-distanced cyclist undertaking the virtual pursuit. Once again, my medium of choice is crayon.

*Edited, because the previous version of the picture was not doing JUSTICE to my ARTISTIC VISION. Sometimes a picture is worth 1000 words. Sometimes you still need to redraw and upload it 3 more times:

——–~~~——-~~~——–

Terrible weather, so I rode indoors today. Of course I recorded the scenery extensively so I could share a legitimate record of the ride.

Elevation: 4th floor. I live on the 4th floor.

Duration: An episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and a little bit of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:

The very odd thing was that people actually liked my lousy crayon pictures. “Hmmm,” I thought. “People actually like my lousy crayon pictures.” So I kept on drawing.

Because #NoHavaStrava, I am continuing to document my Official Bikes & Beers Social Distancing Rides with original crayon drawings.
File this under: Who Ordered This Stupid Weather?:

Riding alone in a pandemic was just weird.

Remember when we had destinations? I remember back when we had destinations:

The Accardi Brothers kept making t-shirts, and mailing us all bike swag, as the online community grew.

In strict accordance with the organizer’s guidelines, I hereby officially document the arrival of my Official Rider Appreciation Packet.

In crayon:

At some point, I wanted to illustrate that one could still sort of ride a favorite charity event route, just in isolation. I decided to ride the Lancaster Farmland Preservation Trust “Pedal to Preserve” 30-mile course by myself, and then send the Trust the money I would have given them for the actual event. So I got up stupid-early on a weekend and drove out to Lancaster, PA to ride past all the cows by myself.

Charity rides are cancelled or postponed, but we can still access the routes and cue sheets… #StillNoHavaStrava :

Then the gosh-darned strangest thing happened. Because my crayon drawings were getting a lot of “Likes” on their page, Sam and Matt announced at their live online Bikes&Beers Spring Raffle Drawing that they had decided to send me a Deluxe Box of Crayola Crayons.

That’s top of the line. The 64-color collection. It comes with a built-in crayon sharpener.

‘Cause the only thing in need of sharpening around here are my crayons.

And they sent it! So as a sort of thanks for all the new colors, I drew my own version of their Bikes&Beers Facebook Cover Photo:

Hey Sam and Matt !!

THE CRAYONS ARRIVED !!

64 colors changes everything.

So I will be completing my Spring Training several days into Official Summer, and if I wanted your opinion on that, I would have already asked.

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I am endeavoring to fulfill the role of Bike-Riding Public Servant with Crayons. You are welcome. #StillNoHavaStrava:

——–~~~——-~~~——–

And now, your very own fill-out-able Crayonava Certificate of Achievement to commemorate the zillions of solitary miles pedaled and the fact that we have all gone absolutely nowhere:

Hundreds of us signed up for the next phase, and t-shirt, of the Bikes&Beers Distanced Pandemic Bike-Riding Event Non-Event.

The seasons changed, and we all kept on riding our solitary rides. And I kept on documenting in my own special way.

As the weather warmed, my route took me over a vine-wrapped tree downed by a storm, completely blocking the bike trail.

Oh my darlin’, Calamine….

——–~~~——-~~~——–

I love Summer. I really do:

At some point, the absolutely unthinkable happened!

The Strava app went out of service, in a targeted hit by ransomware!

Strava was completely DOWN!

The online panic was palpable, with the exception of one solitary, multi-colored corner of the internet universe.

My latest ride report, submitted in crayon.

I was gonna type “respectfully” submitted, but who the hell am I kidding.

It is always nice when you get handed a new tagline.

With all the messaging and posting on Facebook, I was starting to get to know some of my fellow riders. So I began incorporating some of them into my “art.” With their permission, of course.

When I started this drawing, which arrived in my brain some days ago and would not leave, I had no idea it would end with part of a morning spent printing ever-smaller wallet-sized images of Tom Murphy’s head. Tom Murphy, you’ve reached Crayonavafication! I have no idea what comes after.

(Tom Murphy had previously posted a video showing all the layers he uses to ride in frosty Utah. And I think that custom border is in the colors of some perpetually losing ice hockey team Tom follows.)

Hey Fellow Bikers! Jim B. said it was okay to share this crayon picture he asked me to draw for him. I completed it maybe a week ago. He wanted to Crayonava-ize his favorite ride, and I said, Okay, Jim, if you make a donation to a charity supporting people during Covid. And he did.

(“Kree8” was used because I stalked the hell out of Jim online to find some more material, and he seemed to work with that company. So his drawing was “Kree8ed.” And I had to make sure Jim didn’t splutter beer everywhere, because he’d already said he cracked up every time he saw my new tagline.)

For the lovely Anne B., I made a picture that included her beloved daughters and recognition of all the causes she holds dear, especially Suicide Prevention and Survivor Support.

Everybody’s pal Walt P. got a picture that celebrates his many and varied range of interests: boats, beer, bikes, beer, and the Oconee beer brewery, which brews beer.

But even now that I was officially A Famous Commissioned Crayon Artiste, I never forgot the little people.

Sam and Matt must have been happily surprised that their project had generated such a positive big-group response, and fostered community in a time of isolation. They renamed it Bikes&Beers Nation, which continues to be the Fb page name today.

So what did the people of Bikes&Beers Nation like so much? I decided to document this, based on actual Facebook comments on the Bikes&Beers page.

Just when I thought that this crayon bike art thing had maybe run a lot of its course, Sam and Matt Accardi got in touch with me about a sorta nutso idea they’d had:

An on-line pandemic art auction to raise money for charity, and to offer a cheerful live online event for all in dismal, pandemic, distanced times.

Featuring guess what?

We decided on 5 original pieces of Crayonava Crayon “Art” to be part of this event. Other actual artists donated some actual pieces of actual art, and the gallery of offerings went live on the Bikes&Beers website.

People could buy raffle tickets, as many as they liked, for individual items, and then Sam and Matt Accardi held their goofy, but admittedly charming, live show to determine the winners. It was more raffle than auction, but people increased their odds by buying more tickets for specific items.

So in a truly unforeseeable outcome, I found myself wrapping parcels of crayon pictures to send to people who’d paid money to own and display them.

Weird things happen in pandemics when crayons are involved.

Some were my versions of beer brand labels I’d drawn to commemorate some of the host breweries:

I did my best to wrap each package with the care and respect due to precious works of high art.

I think I added to each parcel a crayoned document which I titled “Official Certificate of Authenticity” with the following scribbled lines of authenticating text: “It’s Authentic. AF.” Those, in case anyone is unaware, are my initials.

At some point, various real-life bike events started to happen, and I got to meet some Bikes&Beers riders in person. And to discover that these people really did exist outside of Facebook. Actual friendships were born. Some people got teary and hugged each other.

I just continued to dish the snark.

Then the Bikes&Beers rides returned.

I found myself back in Parkesburg, PA at the Victory Brewing Co., with other actual human beings on bicycles, and eventually standing around holding full Bikes&Beers custom pint glasses of beer!

It was also 100℉ / 37.7°C that day, with 95% humidity. People were wilting off their bicycles like Powerade powder dissolving in hot water.

Not me, of course. I am a partly-English Mad Dog straight out of the Noel Coward song, “Mad Dogs and Englishmen”: “And though the British are effete, they’re quite impervious to heat.” But I witnessed the wiltings.

Rolling hills, they said.

As a side note, I remain incredibly proud of my ability to completely dodge the loaded political issues of this extremely fraught time.

When actual Bikes&Beers friends, the people I had met in person, real people I now knew, could not make a Bikes&Beers ride, like this one at Yards Brewery in Philadelphia, PA, I was able to document all that they had missed. Because it remained important to keep them included in all the hijinks and fun.

I promised Sandy Beep B. that I’d let her know what she missed at Sunday’s Bikes & Beers Ride at Yards Brewery:

And slowly the world returned to a sort of normal, which we riders could sense as long-cancelled bike rides happened again. The return of events did a lot to reassure people that we could start to feel more certain as we faced the future together.

And I am sure that Sam and Matt Accardi will be forever grateful that they took that huge step of sending me that 64-color box of Crayola Crayons.

How could they not be?

I would like to thank Bikes&Beers rider Tina V. for bringing to our attention here at International Crayonava B&B Fb HQ that Philly’s tradition of a Naked Bike Ride is back on for 2021!

Ride on, Friends. Ride on.