One Donut

Ah, the sweet circle of destiny. We cycle out and we return. Are we changed? OUI. So we must banish from our minds questions of difficulty or ease. Life is difficult! To be human is to endure a thousand little indignities. What is a little inconvenience amongst friends? Sisters and brothers, this world was not made for us and our two wheels. But, what joy, can we ever misuse their world. Its weave is loose. Its confounding riddle is riddled with holes through which we might slip. What is a little inconvenience in the face of discovery? This is our daily quest: to reach the end of our turn with our eyes open and our head held high. And, on Fridays, we venture out on bikes to do the same, to see the city in all its glory and decay, to experience it together. And on one-donut rides, if all goes according to plan, to return before 11:30pm.


Next rating

Two Donuts

If one be a snack, then let’s make a meal out of it. As with all of the ratings, the simple calculus of direction, duration, and chance means that some will be easier and some more difficult. Are we basin-bound or intrepid mountaineers? Each are equally possible. So it is a balance of volume and density one must equate; the cardinal direction will be your best guide. All we can say for sure is that two donuts are more than one donut: and so our goal is now to return, Cinderella-like, avant minuit. Probably safe to assume that with greater volume comes greater overall “weight.” But, again, it is not really about that. We go as explorers, not athletes.


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Three Donuts

If all that seems a bit much, if you are sitting there shaking your head at the overblown self-importance of it all, lo, the good news: this be even more! Not a snack or a meal but a feast. Here, all bets (and clocks) are off. That quantification is desired is well understood, trust. But all that can be provided are qualifications. Oh, adventurous soul, we call upon you. You are really in it now, the maw of the situation, the wide open city. Each turn a leap into another parallel universe of possibilities. Or maybe nothing happens at all. Maybe it is just a bike ride, you know? Maybe we go 30-ish miles out into the streets (and trails and tunnels and mountains and embankments and alleyways and…) and around back to the start. That is all that can be promised. It’s a bike ride. Is that enough or too much or enough?


Next rating

Four Donuts

You have been promised, if nothing else, a bike ride. And yet…

If two is more than three, and three more than two, then what be four? Here, in the new math, four is hardly anything. A fable: In my younger days, when I was poorer and donuts were cheaper, occasionally as a treat I would buy myself a dozen donuts in the morning. They would be breakfast and then lunch and then also, after a more proper dinner (I wasn’t a total savage), they would end up dessert as well. But you know what would not factor into that day? A bike ride. Weighed down by fried dough and sprinkles, my body yearned for repose. And so too here: a four donut ride is rarely much of a ride at all. If three donuts is figurative gluttony (for adventure!), four donuts is reasonably likely to be actual, literal gluttony — or at very least sloth. In short: a party! This might involve cake or bowling or dancing or karaoke, but it is unlikely to require all that much in the way of riding a bicycle.

The donut ratings are cycled through each month: the first ride of each month is one donut, the second is two, and so forth. It resets at the start of the next month.

However, since Completism (and any other extra rides, like weekend day rides) interrupt the cycle, one needs to stay tuned to the mailing list to find out what the specific rating each week will be. But, generally speaking, lower-rated rides are toward the beginning of each month and higher-rated ones are toward the end.

As for the ratings themselves, they are keyed more to duration than difficulty per se. Yet, since longer rides allow time for more ambitious routes, they also tend to be more difficult as well (if that is one’s concern). Additionally, one can often gleen as much information about what to expect from cardinal direction — which I also typically provide — as from rating.

Here is the approximate timing of each rating, with the caveat that this is the intention but not always the reality:

One Donut: return before 11:30pm.

Two Donuts: return by midnight.

Three Donuts: no specific limit here — we’re on adventure time — but probably before 1am.

Four Donuts: less a ride and more a party, leave whenever you are done partying (you may have to find your own way back to the start but it most likely won’t be too far/difficult).