A Busy Week

The big event of the week was my daughter’s graduation from the University of Connecticut School of Law. We drove to Connecticut, picked up my mother- and sister-in-law at the airport, did a bunch of tourist stuff, ate way too much, attended the graduation ceremony, then drove back. As you might surmise, I took five days off from riding.

The ceremony was well paced and the speeches were mostly interesting and entertaining. I think I’ve seen my daughter graduate five times (at least) now. I, myself, only managed three graduations.

During various car trips we were nearly crushed by two trucks, one during an illegal (theirs not ours) lane change and the other in a merge after a toll plaza. (my younger sister was nearly crushed by a tractor trailer on a similar merge about 30 years ago.) I nearly hit a West Hartford police car that was blowing through a red light. (The driver gave me a what’s-the-matter-with-you hand gesture. I didn’t hear his siren until he was right in front of me. We need to have more Euro-style sirens.) My daughter nearly collided with an ambulance that passed an on-coming car on a blind curve.

We took a tour of the Mark Twain house in Hartford. The woodwork alone is worth the tour. My daughter drove us to East Haddam to see the Gillette Castle. It was built by William Gillette, a nineteenth and early twentieth century actor, director, and man-about-the-stage. He was famous for portraying Sherlock Holmes over 1,300 times in a play he wrote. The castle is truly unique and a bit creepy. His work on the stage was instrumental in legitimizing American theater. He also made significant improvements to the art of foley.

We went to Wethersfield for dinner and discovered it was Bikes on Main day. The event celebrated the bicycle. Every store and home on Main had a decorated bicycle displayed.

After returning to DC my wife, daughter, and I went to the phone store and acquired new iPhones. Our old ones no longer supported newer apps and devices. One pleasant surprise is that the battery life is much improved over my old iPhone 7.

I spent the following morning sealing big cracks in the concrete stairs leading to our front door. I rewarded myself with a 30-mile ride on The Mule. After that, I converted my steed to touring mode by removing the Carradice saddle bag and selecting four panniers for the trip.

Friday was Bike to Work Day. I didn’t sign up because I thought I’d be gone on tour. Instead I rode to Coffee Club (only two others came) and then as an afterthought picked up a t-shirt at a pit stop. Then I rode to REI and bought a small bottle of castile soap, something I use often on bike tours. Three big takeaways from the day. E-bikes are booming in this area. They’re the new big thing. On the way to DC, I was passed in Old Town Alexandria by an electric school bus. How strange to hear the whine of an electric motor (or maybe the drive train) as the bus accelerated from a stop. Quiet, cleaner, faster. Works for me. Finally, I cheated a bit and rode the re-built bridge through Dyke Marsh on the Mount Vernon Trail. The new bridge is wide and a bit higher that the old one. Mostly, it’s smooth, a welcome change from the beat up old wooden bridge boards.

Friday Coffee Club wasn’t the place to be on Bike to Work Day

Over the course of the last month, I have amassed a bunch of stuff for my bike tour and set it on the floor in the family room. In short order I should have it all packed away. The trick will be to not leave anything behind. (On the eclipse trip in April, I dutifully packed my toiletries in a small bag. I left the bag on the bathroom counter. Derp.) Each year I tweak the stuff I’m bringing. I probably won’t bring any spare cables since I wouldn’t know how to install them anyway. I am bringing a wrench to adjust the rear brake, a master link breaker tool, some tire valve stems and a valve tool, and some allen wrenches in place of a multitool.

There’s the rub and other things

Deep tissue massage

As my tour launch date approaches, I have been increasingly concerned about my various physical problems. The tension in my neck muscles and, more importantly, the limited range of motion in my neck have been making just moving around a literal pain in the neck. I have also become increasingly bent over, an affliction I have been attributing to my lumbar spinal stenosis.

On the recommendation of Casey, a friend from Friday Coffee Club, I booked an appointment with a message therapist for a deep tissue massage. I figured one of three things could happen. Worse case scenario: my neck and back get much worse and I end up at a surgeon’s office. Neutral outcome: as with all the other various kinds of massages I’ve had, the massage feels good but not much changes. Best case scenario: I actually feel considerably better.

(What comes next is an over simplification of the message session. I am an anatomy ignoramus and I know even less about the specifics of message techniques.)

The appointment started with a long interview about my activity and my physical woes, focusing on my neck. I also mentioned my spinal stenosis issue. Just before the hands-on part of the session, the therapist pointed out that I had obvious tightness in my psoas muscles. (The psoas muscles are an important connection between the upper and lower body. They are notoriously difficult to loosen.) I was sitting on the massage table but instead of being upright, my torso was at a 45 degree angle to my thighs. I hadn’t even noticed.

In fact, that’s my default setting; bent over as I watch TV, read, drive, and use my phone. By riding my bike tens of thousands of miles in the last few years, I’ve managed to managed to train my muscles to assume the riding position when I’m off the bike. Once you’re bent over, bent over is the norm. In fact, I can’t straighten up. I’m locked in.

We began with massaging my tight neck muscles. This involved finding knots in my muscles and pressing on them (a technique called pinning) then slowing stretching the muscle, breathing in during the stretch and exhaling on release. The therapist worked on my neck, my shoulders, my head, and my jaw. Back and forth and all around. I’ll admit some of this was pretty painful. With each pressing of a knot, the pain lessened until it was gone and the muscle was freed up.

After that the therapist worked on loosening my pectoral muscles, the ones across my chest. Riding a bike causes these muscles to be tight, pulling my upper body over when I stand. Some of this involved simply pulling on my chest muscles to the outside. The therapist also worked on knots around the edge of my scapula, a bone that sits on the outside of the chest cavity in back.

There was also a last adjustment to my psoas muscle. One leg straight. The other bent and drawn upward, just as I had been doing on my back. She pressed another point somewhere above the hip. Then the other side.

At the end of the session, I stood up. Straight. Without the slightest bit of tension pulling my shoulders forward. My lower back felt completely free of tension as well.

After the session I went to the drugstore. I parked over a block away and walked to and from the store without a cane. No problem at all. No pain. No tightness in my lower back.

I’ll be damned if the massage didn’t work.

The therapist told me I’d be sore for a few days. Day two was the worst. My neck and lower back were aching after a 50-mile ride. Today is day three and my neck feels fine. My back soreness went away. The range of motion in my neck is still a bit limited but the pain is all but gone. More importantly, I know that the stretching I had been doing will be much more effective if I pin the tight muscle down when I stretch it. As for my lower back, the onset of discomfort seems to be taking significantly longer, a very welcome development.

I’m going to go back for another session after my tour. In the meantime, I’ve added pinning to my neck stretches. Also, I have two stretches for my pectoral muscles that are pretty easy to do. The scapula stretching requires a tennis ball and a sock (to keep the ball from falling as I work with it). I haven’t tried that but I have a massage gizmo that can do the same thing. So far all the stretches for the psoas muscles seem to require the body of a contortionist. (Lunge, raise your arm, lean back. Fall over.)

Other news

I decided to change my rear tire. I removed the Schwable Marathon with about 6,000 miles and replaced it with an comparably old Schwalbe Marathon Plus. The latter last several thousand more miles and are extremely resistant to punctures. I will notice more rolling resistance but that’s the price you pay for not having to deal with flats every 1,000 miles. (Knock wood.) The beefier tire should serve me well on the rough roads of eastern Kentucky.

When changing the tire, I used a new tire lever that I recently picked up at Bikes at Vienna. The tire and rim combinations make for difficult installation, frequently resulting in loss of skin on my thumbs. Although the copy in the link says this lever is designed for narrow tires, it worked fine on my 700×35 Marathon Plus tire. My thumbs are grateful.

Going longer

In the last nine days, I’ve done 323 miles with rides of 42, 50, 52, and 53 miles and a day off. The 52-miler was yesterday. I could have easily gone farther. Every year I get to late April and think, I’ve lost it. Every May, I find it.

I haven’t picked a launch date yet.

April flowers bring…

Nothing says Spring quite like the beauty of flowers and blossoms on a warm, sunny day. Right? That was the idea when the minds at the Washington Area Bicyclists Association (WABA) thought up the Bloom Ride, 20-mile meander through the lovely trails and lanes of Arlington, Virginia. Here’s the elevator pitch: Happy bicyclists enjoy sunshine and warm breezes as they pedal past endless tulips, azaleas, and other colorful flora.

Sadly, WABA doesn’t have an elevator so they could only hope for the best. What we got for today’s ride was cool mid-50s temperatures with intermittent light rain. Whoopee!

Oh, and thanks to global warming, our early spring was exceptionally warm, meaning that the tulips and azaleas did their blooming thing about a week ago. Our floral booby prizes were soggy roses and wisteria. And beds of dirt and mulch. I don’t suppose calling this the Wet Mulch Ride would have brought in much in the way of donations though.

We met up at the recently renovated Franklin Square Park in downtown DC. This park is an absolute gem. It must be jammed at lunchtime during the week.

Chris showed up. Then Monica. We waited for Domitille and Timothee but, alas, Domitille was felled by Covid and decided not to come and infect us. Well played, mademoiselle.

Before leaving, we made the rounds of the various soggy tents under which WABA employees and volunteers ignored the gloomy weather and cheerfully saw to our various needs: food, bike repairs, stickers, fake tattoos and more. Under one such tent was Erika whom I hadn’t seen in ten years. Big hugs and smiles. I mentioned how I remember her little girl Charlotte when she was around five-years-old. Erika laughed, looked to her left, and nodded at the pretty teenager peering out from under the hood of a rain jacket. Charlotte! Ack! She’s taller than mom! I’m so old. (By the way, Erika hasn’t aged a day. Sucks, doesn’t it?)

After Charlotte put a temporary tattoo on my cheek, I joined Chris and Monica and we began the ride. We took the 15th Street cycletrack down past the Tidal Basin (cherry blossoms peaked weeks ago) then over the river to the Navy-Merchant Marine Memorial on the Mount Vernon Trail. (They have memorials for every thing. It’s a shame they took down the Navy-Tailhook Memorial.) Fun fact: the Memorial is on Columbia Island which is actually in DC.

The Memorial is surrounded by a circle of tulips. It’s really stunning. Or was. Last month. Today it was surrounded by a circle of lovely brown mulch.

Under the Parkway, through the scenic parking lot we rode. Once in Lady Bird Johnson Park we came upon a cute site: a Canada goose was sheltering a scrum of goslings under its hind feathers. The goslings were all shivering and pecking at one another.

We rode across a wooden bridge into Virginia and along the roadway around the scenic Pentagon Parking lot. We left the acres of glistening concrete to follow Washington Boulevard past the site of the 9-11 attack. Then we rode onto Columbia Pike and along the sidewalk past Arlington Cemetery. Are we depressed yet?

After a brief return to the Columbia Pike traffic sewer we turned on a side street and began to wend our way on neighborhood paths and quiet streets past lovely small homes that would cost $1 million less in any sane real estate market. The homes were nestled in endless azalea and flower gardens. All past bloom, of course. I used to run through this area back when I lived in Arlington and had cartilage in my left knee. Even past peak in the rain it’s a gorgeous place to be.

We rode through Columbia Gardens Cemetery and stopped for a selfie. Afterwards we realized we were standing in front of the gravestone of Senator Robert Byrd, God’s gift to West Virginia. He served in the Senate for over 51 years. We continued through North Arlington and made our way down the Bluemont Junction Trail past the site of a house that exploded over a month ago. No lie.

Monica, Chris, and me obstructing the view of Robert Byrd’s gravestone.

The Bluemont Junction Trail took us to the Washington and Old Dominion Trail. We left that trail to ride through Bon Air Park which has a lovely rose garden – not bad – and the most amazing hill of azaleas -no blossoms. Sad face.

Next we took the Custis Trail back toward DC. We rode past Erika and Charlotte’s house. Dad Geoff and son Henry were no doubt somewhere inside like sane people. We forged ahead to the Ballston neighborhood where we arrived at a pit stop at Conte’s Bicycle shop. Last year I was surprised to see my friends Mike and Jesse volunteering here but this year they stayed dry. Instead, Sara, whom normally rides with us, was volunteering in the rain. She is the most energetic, enthusiastic person you’d ever want to meet. She gave us massive hugs. It was great to see her.

Buoyed by Sara’s energy, we began the ride back to DC through more lovely neighborhoods. We made our way around Fort Myer where Orville Wright crashed his flying machine, resulting in the death of Thomas Selfridge, the first passenger killed in powered flight. On the eastern side of the fort we entered the grounds of the Netherlands Carillon, near the Iwo Jima Memorial. (I once heard a young radio newscaster refer to this as the “Statue “of the Two Jimas”. I suspect she ultimately found employment in another line of work.)

After taking in some mulch where some lovely tulips once blossomed, we followed a path around Arlington Cemetery and then across the Memorial Bridge to the Lincoln Memorial. We slalomed through tourists past with the Reflecting Pool on our left and a flag football tournament on our right. One of the teams displayed a banner that said “ZU”. This is a tribute to a Mesopotamian bird god or a the fraternity Signa Delta Rho. Go figure.

After inadvertently crossing Constitution Avenue against a DO NOT WALK sign, I survived to arrive at the Flower Library at the Tidal Basin. They had no flowers, but their wet dirt was interesting.

We returned to the start, soggy and hungry, where dined on lunch boxes from Potbelly. The sandwiches really hit the spot. After our snarf and chat, I headed home, 15 more soggy miles. I pulled into the driveway with another 50-miler under my belt. Little Nellie was rode hard and put away wet as my mother-in-law likes to say.

After a big cup of hot tea, I put on some sweatpants, curled up on the couch, and took a nap. Free as a bird. Home and dry.

Despite the rain, it was a fun day. It was great to see Erika and Charlotte and encounter the Sara hug machine.

The posse will re-assemble in full force in September for WABA’s 50 States Ride. Stay tuned, y’all.

Thanks to all the WABA folks and volunteers for working in the cold rain all day.

Down a pint

With warming weather, I am starting to bump up my mileage. On April 28 I managed 52 miles on Big Nellie. I chose the hilly route to Falls Church to buy some Halt pepper spray at a bike shop. It was closed. Derp.

I continued west to Vienna to see if Bikes at Vienna sold any. Nope. I did get to chat with the ever- loquacious Beth. She was dying to get her hands on Bike Nellie for service work, but that will have to wait until I wear out the chain later this year. She mention that she had a recent chat with Lawyer Mike, a loyal customer who is a regular at Friday Coffee Club. Mike bought an electric assist Hase Pino tandem. The front is a recumbent, the real conventional. Mike’s son is developly disabled so the bike allows them to go on weekend excursions. The son is the stoker, which means he sits up front on the recumbent half of the bike. Mike is the captain in back. It’s an amazing design and works great for them.

I had intended on continuing west of the W&OD trail to check out a new bridge over Wiehle Avenue in Reston but Beth told me it isn’t installed yet. So I headed back east. Not a half mile later Mike and his son passed me going west. (They stopped at Bikes at Vienna on their way to a milkshake place in Reston.) I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen someone I know on a bike in the last year.

Temperatures were unseasonably warm but I made it home in decent shape, making sure to take a swig of pickle juice to ward off leg cramps.

I did an easier 30-mile ride the next day, again on Big Nellie. I finished the month on Tuesday with a day off the bike and a blood donation at the Bloodmobile parked at the hospital down the street. Back at home, I set up my tent to make sure I remembered how to do it. I slept in it overnight. It rained. I stayed dry. I slept very deeply in three roughly two-hour stages. I guess the blood donation factored into that.

The weather on May 1 was perfect so I got on The Mule and headed out for what turned out to be a 52-mile ride from my house to Bethesda, Maryland and back. After emerging from the new tunnel under the Humpback Bridge on the Mount Vernon Trail, I noticed a couple of people standing around checking out some Canada geese. Among the adult geese were a handful of yellow-green goslings busily snarfing up grass. The first goslings of the year are always a welcome sight.

I continued onward up the Capital Crescent Trail, stopping in Bethesda to snack on a few cookies I brought then I headed back, down Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park. The temperature was in the 80s but the shade in Rock Creek Park took the edge off the heat. Seeing all the green made me all but forget that stick season is barely over.

On my return, I crossed the Potomac River on the 14th Street Bridge. The ramp connects to the Mount Vernon Trail pretty much exactly were I saw the goslings. This time there were 20 of the fuzzy little critters being tended to by a pair of adult geese. As I stopped to enjoy the goings on, Miles, another Friday Coffee Clubber, came by on his electric-assist Brompton. What’s with these encounters? Miles was on his way home from work and he sped off south on the trail.

After some gosling zen, I headed south as well. About four miles later I came upon a horrific scene on the adjacent George Washington Memorial Parkway. A crash had just occurred. (Miles passed the site before the crash and I arrived just after it.) A BMW was speeding north on the Parkway. The driver passed two cars in the right lane. The driver of the van had entered the Parkway from a perpendicular side street. Eye witnesses said the BMW was going “about 100 miles and hour”. It hit the van and sent the van airborne for what witnesses said seemed like three seconds before it landed on its roof on the Parkway. The BMW ended up upright in the wide median between the north and southbound lanes.

The force of the impact destroyed the front end of the van, sending parts, including the entire engine, off into the grass on my side of the roadway.

The elderly driver of the van had been removed from the vehicle by passersby and was being attended to. He was in rough shape, but was conscious. A school-aged boy who had crawled out of the van was sitting on the grass about 20 yards away, surrounded by some super nice folks. He didn’t have a mark on him and seemed remarkably calm. (He complained to the ambulance crew that his back was sore but there were no surface injuries visible.)

It is amazing to me that no one was killed. (As far as I know, that is; the elderly driver, the boy’s grandfather, is in critical condition.)

The rest of the ride home was blessedly without incident.

Thursday I rode The Mule to a big box hardware store for some home repair supplies. I wanted to take it easy but the store was on top of a big hill so climbing was involved. After shopping, I went for an exploratory ride through Kingstowne and the Fort Belvoir areas The Kingstowne part of the trip was intended to avoid a brutal hill on the direct route to Fort Belvoir. The roundabout route I took cut the one big hill into three manageable ones.

It was hot and muggy during the ride. I drank all my fluids. At home I hit the floor to do my physical therapy exercises. When I went to stand up, the back of my left leg seized up with a humungous, very painful cramp. After it calmed down, I went straight to the kitchen for a shot of PJ.

Today I rode to and from Friday Coffee Club on only four hours of sleep. The weather was fantastic: 70 degrees and breezy. The pollen, however, was not. I had three coughing fits brought on by pollen coating the back of my throat. I used albuterol to calm my lungs and managed to ride home without incident. PJ was imbibed.

I was going to attend to a home repair project but the weather was perfect for napping on the deck and so I did.

Tomorrow I plan on riding 50 miles in the cold rain.

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