Month: January 2013

I Go, Hugo, We All Go

I was up all night. It happens sometimes. I started to think about a paper I will be writing at work in a few weeks. I mapped out the whole thing in my head. This took the better part of the 3 a.m. hour. I was back to sleep only to be stabbed in the ear by my alarm clock. Big, glowing 6:00.

I was out of the house by 6:35. It was still dark but I wanted to get to Coffee Club with enough time to hang out. The ride to DC was automatic. I rode past the review stand for the innaugural parade on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House. Everytime I see the White House or the Capitol, I have to shake my head. This is such a cool place to live.

There was a decent crowd at Swings for Coffee Club. I like talking to big people but I love talking to babies. Jacques walked in with his baby, Hugo. This child broke the cute-o-meter on my camera. Jacques is one proud papa. Hugo is so calm and good natured.

Jacques and Hugo

Jacques had fun raising him up above his head. Hugo was having a blast. Felkerino took Hugo for a minute or two. Hugo decided that Felkerino’s head was a play toy. Does this ear come off? Nope.

Hugo pulls Ed's ear off

Then Hugo decided to share his breakfast with Felkerino. I do believe that jacket is waterproof, Felkerino.

Hugo's breakfast on Ed's jacket

After fun with babies, I headed off to the office. I made it almost all the way across the TR Bridge without having to stop for inbound cyclists. Then two appeared. Drat. I do hope that the next renovation of this bridge includes a wider side path.

I left work a few minutes later than usual. It was still light out. Daylight makes me sound like Marv Alpert. Yesss!  I checked the Interwebs and learned that in early January we pick up about 1 minute of daylight everyday. By the end of January we will be picking up 2 minutes of daylight per day. All told, January 31 has 45 minutes more daylight than New Years Day. Please, please, please get here quickly.

Big Nellie carried me to work all three days this week (I worked from home on Monday). We are getting along great these days.

The Mule is in need of some TLC. I recently bought some brake pads for The Mule. It was warm enough outside to do bike maintenance so I put the pads on. It took me about 20 minutes, about half the time it took the last time I installed pads. I am actually going up the bike maintenance learning curve.

The Mule’s chain has seen it’s better days. I took the bike on the car rack to Spokes Etc. Belle Haven store to drop it off. I told the mechanic I wanted a new cassette, a new chain, two new sprockets and new bar tape. He told me that my chain rings looked fine. So we dropped the chainrings from the work.

Then he asked me if I could wait. 20 minutes later I rolled The Mule out of the shop with its new chain, cassette and bar tape. Lesson learned. January is a great time to get work done on your bike! Thanks, Colin!

Spoke’s Belle Haven store has been a godsend for me, especially back when I had only one bike. I’d roll in on the way home from work and they’d make adjustments and do minor repairs while I waited. They still do. A bike commuter’s best friend is his local bike shop.

Time to go.

One Down, 166 or So to Go

The first bike commute of the year is in the books. Well, the book. I keep this paper journal each year and it’s in there:

#1 29 T/E Cold 37 am. Cold low 30s pm 1XBE

Decoded this means:

Bike commute number 1. 29 miles. On Big Nellie (my Tour Easy recumbent). A brief weather note. And I did my back exercises 1 time. (This is a 20 minute routine I do every morning.)

The ride itself was pretty routine. The first two miles involved my left knee becoming re-acquainted with Big Nellie. At about mile 2.5 I hit the big plunge from Park Terrace down to the Parkway. In 37 degree temps this wakes my ass right up. I was dialed in to Big Nellie at this point and took the S curve at the base of the hill at 25 miles per hour.

Whoosh.

The rest of the ride I was on autopilot. I haven’t ridden in 3 days. My legs were fresh and the bike was willin’.

Crossing the I66 off ramp at the Rosslyn Circle of Doom I had a close encounter with a right on red driver. He was in the crosswalk. I had the walk sign, he had the red light. He looked at me. I started in front of him. He started to creep forward. I turned and looked him in the eyes and said “RED LIGHT!”  It’s right turn on red after a stop with no pedestrians present. Unless it’s I WANNA GET TO WORK GUY. Then the rules don’t apply and I can intimidate everyone with my big ass car. It’s in the uniform vehicle code under Section 203.2 Exemptions for Selfimportant Assholes.

I made it the remaning half mile without threat to life or limb.

The ride home was a bit chilly. The best part may have been the lingering daylight. It’s only been a couple of weeks since the solstice but the days are already longer. (Or I was halluncinating. Christmas cookies will do that to you.)

It was only a few degrees colder than this morning and the light wind was behind my back. I took me a few miles to get comfy. And I was comfy. And I was dialed into Big Nellie. It was like driving a hovercraft. Recumbents are different. A conventional bike never feels like a hovercraft. And you never get the urge to yell Yabba Dabba Dooo when you ride a regular bike. (And don’t call me Fred.)

I intended to take the short route through Old Town but I got lost in the moment and ended up riding down Union Street and under the length of the Wilson Bridge. I could still see the faintest traces of daylight behind the puffy clouds above.

I crossed over the access road to the Hunting Tower apartments. A woman was walking across the street. I thought she saw me coming. I buzzed by too close. She barked something at me. It was probably nasty. Oops. Sorry.

The ride south from there was a battle of blindness. The headlights of the cars were really killing me. I almost ran off the trail several times. And a bike approaching with two blazing lights, one on the handlebars and one on the rider’s helmet, almost fried my retinas. Dude, really?

When I arrived home I realized that tights were probably not enough coverage for my legs. Tomorrow its back to my wind pants.

Someday, I’ll take pix and post them of my adventures. I am still getting around to setting up my new laptop. Actually, I am procrastinating by reading my Christmas present (Tom Wolfe’s latest and not greatest novel). So if you need pictures, close your eyes, your pedaling away, in your hovercraft….

 

 

 

 

No Wonder I’m Tired: 2012 by the Numbers

Before I get into the year end numbers, I’ll take a quick look back at December.

In December, I banged out a chilly 571 miles.  I rode a bike to work 16 times covering 477 miles with the workload spread over my three bikes. The Mule commuted four times for 121 miles. Little Nellie did another four commutes for 118 miles.  Big Nellie did the other eight rides for 239 miles.

The remaining 94 miles was split between The Mule (one 47 mile day that included the Chocoride) and Big Nellie (two rides including one to the Hains Point 100). So I only rode 18 of 31 days. Slacker!

Now let’s look at the year.

For the year, I did 250 rides on 244 days. (The difference occurred on weekends when I swapped bikes for some reason.)  I covered 7.372.5 miles.

I entered the data from my journal into an Excel spreadsheet and found that I rode 167 times to work (5 more than previously thought). This is my highest total ever. The Mule, my oldest bike by far, did 72 commutes, Big Nellie did 49 and Little Nellie did 45. The average length of my commute was 29.7 miles round trip. Some commutes were longer because of detours to the Friday Coffee Club or other things (like viewing the cherry blossoms). Some were shorter when I used my bike to commute to and from car mechanics in Alexandria and North Arlington. (My shortest commute was 6 miles round trip.)

4,958.5 miles or two thirds of my total or the year came from bike commuting. Bike commuting saved me over $650 in gas money. I commuted 16 times in seven separate months and maxed out with 17 commutes in August.  I only commuted 5 times in April when my mother passed away.

Probably the biggest single reason for the high number of bike commutes this year was the fact that we had no snow and warm temperatures. I lost a couple of days to hurricane Sandy but that’s about it. The rest were forfeited to family matters such as college scouting trips, high school events, my wife’s post-operative care, and driving my son to and from college. I only drove to work a handful of times when I could have ridden.

My longest ride of the year was 111 miles on The Mule on the day of the Hoppy 100 ride. Little Nellie’s long ride of the year was 41 miles and Big Nellie maxed out at 66 miles. I did 13 miles of 50 miles or more. My long month was my 827 miles over 25 rides in September which included four event rides. Despite only riding 14 times in April I still eked out 416 miles.

Of my 244 rides, all but two were outside. I did two rides on Big Nellie on my wind trainer. One of these lasted over 2 ½ hours (probably a movie or a book was involved).

I guess I do ride a lot but not really when you consider the fact that there were 122 days, fully one-third of the year, that I did not ride at all.

All of my riding was confined to three states (Virginia, Maryland, and New York) and the District of Columbia.

I didn’t set out to ride a specific number of days or commute all the time. It just happened. I have not set any goals or made any plans for the new year. I’ll ride to work as often as I can or want to (which will be nearly all the time that family and weather permits). I doubt I will do a tour. If they ever open up the final miles of the GAP trail into the city, I could see riding to Pittsburgh on a (very) long weekend. Another possibility would be a Saratoga to DC ride, which I have twice canceled.  Or maybe even a brevet, because you just can’t have enough two-wheeled self abuse, now, can you?

I probably met more people through biking this year than ever.  The Friday Coffee Club, the Bike Arlington happy hours, and serendipity account for this. More than any particular ride or event, these folks collectively made my year on two wheels enjoyable.

Now that 2012 is done, it’s time to get riding…..