Fellow bike blogger MG has come up with a little contest to make riding in the last weeks of winter more challenging and purposeful.  It’s called the Utilitaire 12.  The idea is to do two bike rides per week for six weeks.  The gist of the thing is you run errands on your bike, see?  It’s actually a contest more appropriate for someone who lives in the city.  Out here in the suburbs, running errands can add up to quite a lot of riding.

I have already done one Utilitaire ride this week.  It was my bike commute on Wednesday. It was 29 1/2 miles.  That was pretty easy since I ride to work as often as possible anyway.  So today I decided to run errands.

At the Barbershop (pole in background)

Now according to the rules, I get credit for only one more Utilitaire ride this week.  Mine was a doozy.. I started by riding  a little over a mile to the barbershop.  The barber once again exposed way more of my scalp than I care to see but he can’t be blamed for the thinning of the hairs.

Getting My Powerball On

After the barbershop I rode about a tenth of a mile to the 7-11 to buy lottery tickets.  The jackpot is in Croesus territory so I had to buy a ticket. For the next five or six hours I can dream about buying a Caribbean island like Richard Branson.  Unlike Sir Richard,  I will install sprinklers, however.

The Supermarket Has My Bank Inside

Back on the bike, I headed over to scenic US 1 to go to the bank to cash a check. Apparently, this is National Chatty Teller Day.  There were five people in line as the two tellers made small talk with a couple of customers.  Sometimes I just which tellers would be rude so I could get my money and run.  After a ten minute delay, I had my cash and I was out the door. 

Scoring Some Wiper Blades

In another quarter mile I arrived at Auto Zone to buy some windshield wiper blades for the Millennium Falcon.  The MF is the car we bought for our son. It is a Mitsubishi Lancer.  I don’t know any Japanese but I’m betting lancer in Japanese translates to something like turd in English.  One of the wiper blades was 26 inches long, too long to allow me to close my panniers. Actually, it stuck out so far that I caught my leg on it as I went to mount my bike.  I nearly crashed before I started.  What a klutz!  After some careful thought I removed the wiper blade from the pannier, got on the bike, then out the wiper blade back in the pannier like a cowboy putting away his rifle before heading after the bad guys.

Wiper Blades Are Too Long

I tried to find a shortcut through an adjacent apartment complex.  I was shocked at how large the complex was.  After about 1/2 mile of riding down dead ends, I gave up and headed back to route 1. Back to the house I rode without incident thanks to the access road that runs along the highway.  By the time I reached home I had reached 7 1/2 miles of Utilitaire riding.  I put the wiper blades on the MF and then headed back out.

My final chore was to buy some Assos chamois butter.  Cyclists who wear cycling shorts don’t wear underpants; instead bike shorts come with a built in pad to cushion the ride. Unfortunately, if you ride enough you’re nearly guaranteed to get saddle sores.  Saddle sores are bad news.  Butt cream to the  rescue. A container of Assos costs more than $25 but my buttocks are worth it. My local bike shop is four miles from home.  Hi Yo Silver, Away.

Ass Cream Sold Here

On leaving the bike shop I noticed that I had already logged 11 1/2 miles of Utilitaire cycling in one day.  If you count the bank and Auto Zone, the barbershop and 7-11, and the bike shop, I had already done 3 rides today.  I only get to count one because that’s MG’s rule and she is Queen Utilitaire of the Interwebs.  Unfair I say!

It being the case that I was already 4 miles from home and a little less than 30 miles from a 100-mile week, I decided to go for a spin.  I headed north on Fort Hunt Road and made my way back to Washington Street in Alexandria.  I rode north from there to Slater’s Lane where I headed east.  I reach US 1 again but here it has a brand new bridge with a bikeable sidewalk.  On the north side of the brdge I entered Potomac Yards, a new development on the site of an abandoned railroad classification yard.  (A classification yard is where trains are assembled from rail cars coming from a lot of heres and going to a lot of theres.)

The Bridge to Lady Bird Johnson Park

The principal advantage of Potomac Yards is that it is pool table flat and has a brand new boulevard that cars don’t seem to want to use.  Fools!  In five minutes I was on the north side of Crystal City, riding through the new Long Bridge Park.  The Park isn’t intended for biking but the road next to it is a mess.  After riding through the park, I made my way along the north side of the pentagon and hung a right into Lady Bird Johnson Park.  There I glanced at the big stone monument to her husband. I stopped to use the bathroom facilities but the men’s room was filled with shady looking characters.

Anacostia River Trail

Not wanting to buy any meth, I left and rode under the GW Parkway and over the 14th Street bridge into DC.  There I picked up the interim Anacostia River Trail. Interim means :we ain’t finished yet.”  What was finished was very impressive. It is especially so since so much of the area is empty lots and old industrial buildings.  Unfortunately, the trail is closed at the Washington Navy Yard.  back tracking a bit I found the Trapeze School..  You’re kidding me.  No sir.  There it was and there we people inside taking lessons.  I wish I was young, athletic and fearless.  Sadly, three strikes and I’m out.

Around the Navy Yard complex, I hooked up with the Anacostia River Trail again.  This led me to the 11th Street bridge across the Anacostia. With a couple of quick turns. I was on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.  MLK is a hilly beast right through some of the poorest neighborhoods of DC. There are four hills from the 11th Street bridge to the Wilson Bridge across the Potomac.  Four, that is, if you avoid the high-traffic South Capital Street in DC which turns into /Indian Head Highway in Maryland.  Wanting to save a hill I took the highway.  Drivers were pretty mellow today so I had no trouble getting to Oxon Hill Road.  I took a left and began a screaming downhill on near virgin pavement toward the base of the Wilson Bridge.  If you take this downhill all the way to National Harbor you can reach 40 miles per hour. (Been there, done that.)  Today, I left the downhill about midway to cross over a bike path that would take me to the Wilson Bridge bike path. 

Navy Yard Closed

Trapeze School – Check Out the Motto

In no time at all I was back on the Mount Vernon Trail. One mile later I left the trail to ride up the big hill on Park Terrace Drive. Even though I had ridden nearly 40 miles the hill seemed preferable to the flatter but more circuitous MVT.  

I arrived home in a light sprinkle.  I had ridden 42 1/2 miles and accomplished a whole bunch of errands. I treated my Sequoia to a quick chain cleaning and a fresh application of Pedro’s Ice Wax.    I treated the engine to a fresh application of see-food.  Utilitairing makes me hungry.

 I missed riding in yesterday’s warm weather so I was pleased when we were treated to day two of Springmaggeddon.  It was 64 degrees for most of my ride home. I was wearing bike shorts for the second time this year.  My panniers were packed mostly with bike clothes that I didn’t need.  Oh, the weatherman said it would be really nice this evening, but, this time of year, if he’s wrong, the consequences can be most unpleasant.

Approaching the Roosevelt Bridge on the Mount Vernon Trail

The ride in started in a light rain.  It was in the low 50s and I broke out my tweener gear.  That’s my long fingered gloves, arm warmers, and my Buff head gaiter.  The holey sweater stayed home.  So did my boots.  Once the rain stopped it was pretty nice.

On the Boardwalk under the Roosevelt Bridge

The ride home was way better. I wore a jacket over a light base layer. I stashed the tweener stuff and broke out my normal bike gloves. Then I took off. What can you say about 64 degrees, no rain, and a light tailwind?  And I had fresh legs from taking yesterday off. My legs said, “Let’s boogie!” and so we did.  I covered most of the first half of the ride into Old Town Alexandria going about 17 miles per hour. I NEVER go that fast on the trail. 

Once I started encountering runners and walkers, I slowed my roll. It got dark but the temperatures stayed around 60. What an excellent ride. Then two lights bounced just ahead of me.  A bunny! In February.  It was the legendary Punxatawney Bunny.  As the story goes, if he gets caught in your wheels, we get six more weeks of winter (and you get a trip to the ER).  Fortunately, I was too alert and he was too fast.  So winter is officially over.  Feel free to thank me with a cup of Joe or a cold beer. 

Riding up to Washington Street along the Great Wall of Beltway

Actually, according to the news tonight we are benefiting from a jet stream that is stuck along the US-Canada border.  The same jet stream dips south in Europe. It’s snowing like a bitch in southern France, central Italy and the Balkans. And its 20 below in the Ukraine. And I’m in shorts.

Of course, now that I’ve jinxed us, we’re screwed.  Sorry about that.

This mild winter has left me with pretty impressive numbers.  I logged 463 miles on my 3 trusty steeds. 59.5 miles on my New World Tourist (Little Nellie), 24 on my Tour Easy recumbent (Big Nellie), and 379.5 on my Specialized Sequoia. Only the 24 miles on the Tour Easy were indoors which is really unusual for me. Usually I ride away the snowy days in the basement.  We’ve had hardly any snow at all this year.

I did nine bicycle commutes for about 265 miles.  The first one was on Little Nellie, the rest on the Sequoia.

I rode 16 out of 31 days.  On the days I rode I averaged 28.9 miles.  Including off days I rode 14.9 miles.  Although it seems like I’m on track to do 5,500 miles for the year, I did 360 miles last January with 5 commutes and rode 6,900 miles for the year.

I did a little over 70 miles over the weekend and felt sore and tired all day Monday, and my knees and shoulders ached. I figured out why on Monday evening. The mechanic at the bike shop broke the bolt that holds my seat post on.  When he installed the new bolt, he didn’t tighten it enough so the seat slid down a bit.  Just a couple of millimeters makes a big difference with me. I’m pretty sure that I will feel much better tomorrow when I ride to work. Of course, 60 degree temperatures won’t hurt either.

Onward into February….