For the last three days, I’ve been dealing with car repairs. I took one car in on Monday to a body shop. I folded my Bike Friday and put it in the trunk. After dropping the car off, I rode to work. On Tuesday I rode to the body shop after work and reversed the process.
Today I drove to North Arlington with my Bike Friday in the trunk of another car. I dropped the car at a dealer for routine maintenance. Then I rode my Bike Friday the 3 1/2 miles to work. I didn’t break a sweat making me wonder why anybody who lives within four miles of work would drive a car or wait for a bus. Just ride a bike!
In the evening I reversed the process. Easy peasy.
So if you have a car and it needs some work done, get it done by bike. Works for me.
My bikes were tired. I was sick. So I took yesterday off. Today was another story, And this is it.
I’ve lived in DC for 30 years, not including spending the summer here in 1980. And I have never hiked in Rock Creek Park. I’ve biked it. I’ve run it. I’ve even run a 10 mile race in it, but I’ve never taken to the wooded trails that run through the park like blood vessels.
Today, I rectified this in a big way. Starting from Pierce Mill I hiked the Western Ridge Trail to the Maryland line and then crossed the park and hike all the way back on the Valley Trail. I just checked a website that sad that the Valley Trail is 5.5 miles. That means I hoofed it over 11 miles. No wonder I’m tired.
Got Mud?
For those of you unfamiliar with Rock Creek, it’s a wooded urban canyon that cleaves the Northwest quadrant of DC. I have stayed on the paved bike trail and roads of the park until today. The trails are mostly hard packed dirt. Hilly sections have timbers (and sometimes stairs) across the trails to make it easier to go up and down the sometimes steep hills. The Western Ridge Trail started out steep and a bit rocky but ended up being smooth for the most part. I was moving along pretty well when I spooked a deer (I hope it was a deer) in the bushes next to the trail.
Up the Western Ridge
As the name implies, the Western Ridge Trail runs along the ridges on the western edge of the park. This means you have to hike up to the ridge. This was a decent work out. Once to the top the trail rolls up and down, ocassionally popping out on to a street here and there. At one point, in a wooded section, I was surprised to see three horses and their riders coming my way.
The Western Ridge Trail comes back down to the canyon floor at the Maryland/DC line. I cross Beach Drive, the road that runs through the park, and hit the Valley Trail. The Valley Trail was hit or miss. Sometimes it was an unpaved road, sometimes a dirt path through lush greenery. Sometimes it went straight up the side of the canyon. (Hey, where’s my stinking valley?). It also had an annoying amount of tree routes to negotiate.
Thankfully, the Valley Trail hung a right just at the end of this bridge
I’m not complaining though. It’s a damned nice way to spend a summer Sunday morning. Even a little rain didn’t spoil my day. That’s mostly because the tree canopy is so dense that the raindrops rarely made it through.
After my 1000-mile June, I backed off a bit in July. I rode to work 18 times. The only times I didn’t ride to work were days I took off or worked from home. My parking space at work must have cobwebs on it.
Other than a half-mile spin on The Mule to check out its new drivetrain, all my riding was on Little Nellie, my Bike Friday New World Tourist, and Big Nellie, my Easy Racers Tour Easy recumbent. I rode Little Nellie for 16 commutes (including one where I rode from work to Nationals Park). Big Nellie picked up the other two rides to work.
My long ride for the month was Big Nellie’s 111 mile ride to Purcelville and back.
Total mileage for the month was 746 miles. About 2/3rds of which was on Little Nellie which pretty much tells me that my back will tolerate big miles on its little tires.
Off the bike I finally started doing some hiking. The Billy Goat A trail is only about 3.5 miles but it proved to be brutally hard on an oppressively hot and humid day. I did the Billy Goat B and C trails, a total of at least six miles. It was a much more enjoyable hike. I really like doing these hikes as a thing unto itself and as a break from all the biking I do. I need to further investigate the trails in the woods of Great Falls as well as the Rock Creek Park trails which I am ashamed to admit I’ve never hiked.
For the year I have racked up 91 commutes, 41 on Little Nellie, 24 on Big Nellie and 27 on The Mule. I’ve ridden 4,544 miles, a little under 650 miles per month.
A Few Spokes Shy of a Wheel 