Month: January 2024

Leaping into a New Year – January 2024

Riding

The month started out a bit slow and stayed that way. I think I ate more cookies than miles. By the end of the month, I found hills to be a bit more challenging. Ugh.

I rode 634.5 miles for the month. This was my lowest mileage month in two years. I did 90 miles on Little Nellie, 307.5 miles on The Tank (my CrossCheck), and 237 miles indoors on Big Nellie. (I convert time to miles based on 10.5 miles per hour.) The Mule took the month off.

My long ride of the month was only 35.5 miles and this was split up into three rides. I rode 30-miles round trip to Friday Coffee Club with a detour to a hardware store on the way home. I followed that up with 5.5 miles on two short rides running errands to the office supply store and a different hardware store.

I ran a ton of errands by bike this month. The errands help me get motivated to ride outdoors on cold days. I have noticed that the daylight is lasting much longer now. I did lose about a week of outdoor riding because of two light, but messy snow events.

My indoor riding has helped me get some reading done (see below). I am currently halfway through David Copperfield which is turning out to be not quite the slog I had anticipated.

Watching

The Big Dig – I began listening to this nine-hour podcast from WGBH News last month. It tells the story of the biggest urban highway project in the country in which Boston’s infamous elevated Central Artery was buried and a new tunnel to Logan Airport was built. I learned only after listening to seven episodes that a video version is available on WGBH’s YouTube page. If you are into transportation, construction, infrastructure, urban planning, and such, you really should listen to this. The entire ordeal reminded me of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and Panama Canal as described in books by David McCullough.

Loki Season 2 – Oddly well acted mess of CGI and multidimensional nonsense. There’s this sacred timeline and it’s spawning branches but the time loom can’t control them so the time lines will break and everyone who lives on them will die. Or something like that. YMMV.

Echo – Another mediocre Marvel miniseries centered on Maya, a Choctaw, deaf, amputee, who is a badass fighter, of course. Promos make it look as though Daredevil has a big role in this but he’s in it for all of a minute. Hawkeye, played by Jeremy Renner, is in it for a few seconds.

Armaggedon – A Netflix Ricky Gervais stand up movie. Crude. Funny in parts.

The Enemy Below – Robert Mitchum, U. S. warship captain, faces off with Curt Jurgens, U-boat captain, in WWII. I saw it as a kid and loved it. Star Trek ripped it off. Das Boot did it 1,000 times better. Still entertaining though.

Barbie – An absolutely fantastic opening sequence but otherwise meh. I am a big Greta Gerwig fan but let’s just say I wasn’t the target audience for this one.

Two NFL “Championship” games – I watched the Super Bowl semifinals so that I may look somewhat knowledgeable at our friends’ annual Super Bowl get together on the 12th. I need to bone up on my Taylor Swift songs though.

Reading

Why We Love Baseball by Joe Posnanski. What better way to spend the time before spring training than reading 350 pages of stories about baseball. IYKYK. There all all kinds of oddball anecdotes in this book but sadly it leaves out my two favorites from the Washington Nationals. Juan Soto hit his first home run five days before he was called up officially to the majors. Weirder still was how Michael Morse hit a grand slam without a bat in his hands. As Joe Garagiola said, “Baseball is a funny game.”

Prequel by Rachel Maddow. Americans, acting as agents of Hitler’s regime, carried out a long campaign to keep the US out of WWII and, even, to try to violently overthrow the US government. Sound familiar? If you listened to Maddow’s podcast Ultra you pretty much know this story. This book fleshes out many of the details that could not fit into Ultra. Among other things, the plotters used the free mailing privileges of a number of sitting Congress people to distribute Nazi propaganda. Suffice it to say, the connections to recent events is obvious.

Blood Memory by David Duncan and Ken Burns. The companion book to Burns’s American Buffalo documentary on PBS. Both the book and the film are excellent. The book and film describe the slaughter of tens of millions of buffaloes and the efforts to bring the buffalo back from the edge of extinction. Just seeing one of these creatures up close is an intense experience. I can barely imagine seeing them as far as the eye can see.

Eat, Poop, Die – How Animals Make Our World by Joe Roman. Birds do it. Bees do it. Whales do it. It turns out poop (and pee) is a wonderful thing.

Medical

Lumbar Spinal Stenosis – My lower back woes continue. They are getting worse incrementally in spite of me doing a physical therapy session nearly every day. I decided to take up walking for a couple of weeks. It’s uncomfortable and slow. Using a cane is a must. I managed to top out at 3 1/2 miles one day last week. I read today that Merrick Garland, the U. S. Attorney General, is having spinal decompression surgery to address his similar problem. It will be interesting to see which doctor he uses and how he makes out. Personally, I don’t know how much longer and I put up with this.

Neck woes – Somewhere back in December or November I screwed up my neck. It feels like I have whiplash. I think I brought this on with a combination of fiddling with the handlebar height on The Tank and doing side planks as part of my stenosis routine.

I get sharp pains that shoot up into my head when I turn my head. I can feel the tightness in my lateral neck muscles with my fingers. It even affects my bite. I was seriously considering going to my doctor for some advice or maybe an x-ray (to ROC – rule out cancer) just to be safe. On a whim I pulled Yoga for Cyclists off the shelf and looked up neck stretches.

Basically the stretches involve moving your head to the each side as well as the 45-degree forward position. My neck is so screwed up that I actually had to gently guide my head back into a neutral position between stretches. I am happy to report that after just one session of stretches my neck felt much better.

I learned a couple of things. Neck stretching should only be done to the sides and front. (This is contrary to the stretches in Richard Hittleman’s classic yoga book.) Rotating your head back makes things worse. I augmented the book’s stretches with corresponding head twists (assisted by a gentle guiding hand). I can now comfortably turn my head while riding which is kind of important when you’re trying to avoid big metal things.

And Finally…

Done

A Shorts Story

A few days ago a cold, snowy week gave way to temperatures above 40 degrees. I decided to brave the snowy trails and bike lanes and ride to DC to drop off some books at a used book shop. What normally would have taken 90 minutes each way took 115 because there were so many places where snow and ice made my route unrideable. Having made it about ten miles riding and walking, I decided to take a chance on some snow and slush on the trail that connects the Crystal City neighborhood of Arlington to the Mount Vernon Trail. I made it about 100 yards before encountering more snow and ice. I decided to hell with it and rode over it. Bad idea. I went down on my side, fortunately landing in a pile of powder on the side of the trail. This is why I don’t like winter riding. Had I landed on a hard surface I’d have been in a world of hurt. I picked myself up and continued on my way, making sure to avoid another crash. I made it back home without any further calamities.

Today is January 26. I rode The Tank to Friday Coffee Club, leaving just before dawn. The temperature was around 60F. I wore shorts. Yeah baby! It is amazing how much nicer bike riding is in shorts as opposed to long pants. On the way I encountered dense fog and somewhat cooler temperatures along the Potomac River.

The Washington Monument from Gravelly Point Park across from DC

Our band of merry bike riders enjoyed their coffee outdoors today. A week ago it snowed and, for all I know, nobody went to Coffee Club.

After a couple of hours of discussing our various medical woes and discussing other pressing issues of the day, I rode back toward home. The fog had lifted and the sun was burning off the rest of the clouds. The ride downriver was as good as it gets for January.

Today was a good day to put in some extra miles so I stopped at an Ace Hardware store in Old Town Alexandria. After a quick transaction, I was back on the bike riding further south to pick up some milk at the local grocery store. (So far, the only downer to the morning had been the near sour milk I had poured over my Wheat Chex before leaving home.)

Once at home I read the paper and grabbed some lunch before heading back out on the bike to buy some tax software at an office supply store. I dropped the software off at home and headed back out again to drop off my lawn mower blade to be sharpened at the neighborhood hardware store. While there I picked up 15 pounds of bird seed which fit nicely in my two large Ortlieb panniers.

Once back at the ranch I gave The Tank a look over to see how the salt and sand and brine was treating its chain. The chain had rust spots along the side plates so it was past due for some new lube. I took the bike onto the back patio operating theater and successfully made things right.

While I was working on the bike, the air conditioner kicked on. The inside temperature and humidity felt like June. It was a muggy 80F degrees outside when I finished my chores. Dang.

Puzzling Weather

Winter finally arrived in the DC area this past week. We had two snow events. I use “events” instead of “storms” because the amount of snow fall, in total, was no more than 3 or 4 inches. I didn’t even bother to break out the shovel and my mega shovel continues to gather dust under the deck.

My analogue snowblower from a few years ago. Great invention. Works like a charm.

Alas, the snow did make a mess of the roads and bike trails around here. And with temperatures below freezing, I’ve put my outdoor riding on hold, spending most of my wheel time on Big Nellie in the basement, spinning and reading. I’ve knocked off four books so far, covering a variety of topics from fascism to poop. (I am not making this up.)

In winter, I multitask like a boss. (The book is Boomtown by Fredrik Bachman.)

While off the bike, I’ve watched a bunch of movies and miniseries on TV. To be honest, it’s been a lean viewing season so far.

Every Christmas my in-laws send us a jigsaw puzzle. Usually, we complete them before our daughter heads back to school but this year not so much. She and her mother worked on this 2000-piece monster for two weeks before I took over for a while. For the last few days my wife has returned to the dining room and we’re finally starting to see some progress. My guess is we have 600 or 700 pieces to go.

Either we solve this puzzle or we go insane. Maybe both.

One of my sisters told me she sent me a “fruitcake” for a Christmas. She was kidding. What she sent was a book of New York Times crossword puzzles. I have plowed through 125 of them. I was doing okay for the first 100, solving 97 of them, but they seem to be getting harder and harder.

I do okay except for the pop culture references.

When I was in school taking math classes, I would often hit a wall when trying to solve homework problems. My freshman year in college, I spent a couple of hours one Saturday banging my head on my desk futilely trying to solve a calculus problem. I gave up and went to a party. The next morning, with a mighty hangover, I rolled out of bed to see my calculus homework on my desk, tormenting me. I picked up a pencil and BOOM, solved it. No problemo. The same kind of thing happens with jigsaws puzzles and crosswords. Whenever I hit a wall, I just walk away. When I come back, my brain seems to have re-wired itself and I start making progress again.

While all this nonsense is going on, I continue to fight the battle of my aging body. I have been doing back exercises six times per week. One version is based on the Stu Gilman Big Three exercises for strengthening the core and lateral muscles. Oddly, this does more good for my riding than for alleviating my back symptoms. Every other day I do the stenosis exercises that I had been doing from 2022 to 2023. They help some but, to be honest, so does sitting down.

Standing and walking with lumbar spinal stenosis usually means I lean forward. This, combined with my bike riding posture, means I have a curve to my upper back. So I have added exercises to try to straighten things out. I use a pillow or a foam roller, positioned across my shoulder blades. Then I lean back and just hang there. It may not solve the curvature problem, but it feels good.

I have also started to go for walks, something I have been meaning to do for a while. I have to use a cane to unweight my spine. My first walk was two miles. After a mile, my back actually started to feel okay. My next walk was over three miles, with a stop at the bank along the way. I’ve since upped my distance to 3.5 miles. That’s about as much as my back can take. For now.

Part of my walking problems stems from spending so many hours on a bike. It’s as if my body forgot how to walk properly. The first walk, in addition to featuring spinal pain, was tiring. After a few more excursions, however, I don’t feel much fatigue at all. Progress.

I am hoping that lessons I learned from my running days will apply to my walks. When I first started running I couldn’t do 1/2 mile. After a few more runs, I could do a mile. Then a few weeks later I could do three. Then five. And so on. Each barrier seemed to be my max. Then, somehow my body adjusted and I’d run a little farther. When training for a marathon I once ran 21 miles and thought I was going to die. I felt physically ill at the finish. A week later I ran the same distance not only did I feel fine, but the last mile I ran was faster than the first. So I hope that in a few weeks my body will start adapting and walking will be more comfortable.

Time to go work on the jigsaw puzzle.

Riding 2023

When I was recovering from pulmonary embolisms in early 2018, my friend Katie B. sent me a t-shirt that said “Never Underestimate an Old Man with a Bicycle.” This year, during which I turned 68, proved her right.

I rode 11,532 miles this year, my second most ever. As usual, I put the most mileage, 4,630, on The Mule, my touring bike. The other three bikes shared the rest of the burden nearly evenly. This was quite a surprise because I had all but stopped riding Little Nellie, my small-wheeled folding travel bike. Riding it even for just a handful of miles just killed my back. So, as a last resort before selling it, I switched the bike from drop bars to more upright H-bars. The improvement was incredible. I ended up riding 2,155 miles on it.

The conversion and a ton of other work including new hand-made wheels for The Mule and Little Nellie were done by the folks at Bikes at Vienna. I give my special thanks to Daniel, Tim, and Beth for keeping me rolling all year.

The year featured my 11th long-distance tour. I rode a 2,653-mile loop from DC to Bar Harbor to Erie, PA and back home. I did a bit of walking here and there but I did myself proud for the most part. There was one memorable hill in downstate New York. I took one look at the beast and I dismounted and started walking. It was laughably steep. I made it through an intense hour-long thunder storm in Ontario and a code purple air quality day in Erie, PA without harm. Oddly, the hardest part of the whole trip was pushing my loaded bike up and down the detour of the Paw Paw Tunnel on the C&O Canal. I used Warmshowers more on this trip than ever before. I had many great hosts but special recognition goes to Katie and Tom Huntington in Newcastle, Maine who put up with me for two nights, one going up the coast, the other down.

My longest mileage month was June, 1,702 miles, all of which was on tour. The shortest months were February and December at 730 and 749 miles, respectively.

I rode the 50 States and Cider Rides with a splendid group of folks. Special thanks to Michael, Chris, Monica, Sara, and Domitille who rode both with me. I also did the Great Pumpkin Ride solo (and picked up my umpteenth long-sleeve technical shirt in the process). I ended the event year by participating in the Ride for Your Life, which raised awareness about the scourge of traffic violence in the DC area. Kevin, Jacob, Bryan, Lili, Annette, and Nina joined the 50 States posse. Katja, Timothee, Miguel, and Lisa rode with us on the Cider Ride. Annette, Shira, Leslie, Jeanne, and Monica did the Ride for Your Life Event.

Six years over 10,000 miles. Dang.

After over two decades of membership, I upped my game and became a lifetime member of the Adventure Cycling Association. If I had known I’d have been bike touring for so many years, I would have saved myself a bunch of annual membership dues and become I lifetime member long ago. My loss is Adventure Cycling’s gain.

And as always, here’s where my bike odometers stood at the end of the year. Total mileage on all four is 176,944.

End of Year Odometer Readings: Clockwise from top left: Big Nellie, Little Nellie, The Mule, The Tank.

Reading 2023

As usually I read about two books per month, mostly when baseball was not being played. I am pretty pleased with my choices and those of my wife and daughter. I could have done without Ancestor Trouble though. I met David Goodrich at a book signing event and was glad I did. His On Freedom Road raised my awareness of the underground railroad in north central New York State through which I bike toured in June. The Winners, the final (I suspect) book in Fredrik Bachman’s hockey town series didn’t do much for me.

My top ten are in bold. Small Mercies was pretty good too.

January

American Lion: John Meacham

The Winners: Fredrik Bachman

Riverman – An American Odyssey: Ben McGrath

Dickens and Prince: Nick Hornby

Station 11: Emily St. John Mandel

February

The Secret Life of Bees: Sue Monk Kidd

Educated: Tara Westover

On Freedom Road: David Goodrich

Rough Sleepers: Tracy Kidder

March

A Hole in the Wind: David Goodrich

A Voyage Across and Ancient Ocean: David Goodrich

The Great Bridge: David McCullough

July

Your Inner Fish: Neil Shubin

August

American Ramble: Neil King, Jr.

Killers of the Flower Moon: David Grann

Small Mercies: David Lahane

September

Ancestor Trouble: Maud Newton

Crooked: Cathryn Jakobson Ramin

The Way Out: Alan Gordon and Alon Ziv

The Wager: David Grann

October

The Last Devil to Die: Richard Osman

An Immense World: Ed Yong

November

Brave Companions: David McCullough

December

The Path Between the Seas: David McCullough

A Truck Full of Money: Tracy Kidder

Mornings on Horseback: David McCullough

On the Street: Bill Cunningham

The Mystery Guest: Nita Prose.

Watching 2023

When I wasn’t reading or riding or watching baseball I was catching up on movies and TV series (and a podcast). There were several things I really liked. All Quiet on the Western Front, The Wonder, Normal People, A Man Called Otto, Oppenheimer, Lupin, Get Out, and the Mike Birbiglia comedy specials were all worth the time. The Big Dig podcast is a must listen for anyone interested in transportation, urbanism, and grassroots protesting. The long-awaited Luther movie was strange. Luther is portrayed like a British Batman.

I really enjoyed the World Baseball Classic. It was held in the spring before the major league baseball season began. Just the thing for escaping winter’s doldrums. Alas, the Washington Nationals were mediocre. Still, they were a vast improvement over the 2022 team. Going to the games was a good excuse to hang out with my kids or get a bike ride in.

January

All Quiet on the Western Front

The Wonder

February

Wakanda Forever

March

Chris Rock: Selective Outrage

Normal People

Where the Crawdads Sing

April

Luther: The Fallen Sun

The Mandalorian Season 3

Conversations with Friends

May

KT Tunstall at the Birchmere

A Man Called Otto

Bill Russell – Legend

July

Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania

Secret Invasion

Oppenheimer

August

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3

September

Little Richard: I Am Everything

Heart of Stone

October

Lupin Season 3

Ashoka

November

All the Light We Cannot See

Cocaine Bear

Get Out

Whiplash

Squaring the Circle

The Killer

The Old Man and the Pool

I Should Have Said Nothing

My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend

Thank God for Jokes

The New One

December

The Crown (actually watched the first four episodes in November).

Minari

Top Gun – Maverick

Interstellar

Yogi Berra – It Ain’t Over

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

Air

Nyad

Big Adam Bikes

Death on the Nile

The Big Dig