It’s crazy pretty around here this fall. The dominant colors are browns and yellows, not the blazing reds of the northeast. I’m not complaining. I’ll pass on a few red maples just to avoid that one or two week period in the dead of winter when the thermometer dips below zero and the inside of my nose freezes.

The colors are made more vivid by the angle of the sun this time of year. The twinkling water of the river and the glow of the leaves makes for happy riding. I’ve been cruising around the DC area on all three bikes savoring the fading days of warmth. In the last seven days I’ve ridden over 280 miles just peeping my fool head off.

Dawn on the Mount Vernon Trail

When I ride to Friday Coffee Club this time of year, the sun is just rising when I reach the Dyke Marsh bump-out on a bridge on the Mount Vernon Trail. Sometimes the sun is peeking through the tree line across the way in Maryland. Other times its radiance is muted in the pre-dawn minutes but the river is steaming its way into the morning.

Rock Creek Park

Going to Friday Coffee Club gets me out of bed and into the city some 15 miles up river. After the working stiffs head off to make the donuts, I ride up into Rock Creek Park, an urban canyon with a bike trail and, for now, restricted car access on Beach Drive, the main road. It’s pretty splendid scenery.

Fort Hunt Park

Closer to home, Fort Hunt Park puts on quite a show. Sadly, two old large maples have died in recent years but there’s still some arboreal fireworks on display.

The C&O Canal

Last Sunday I drove up to Maryland to make for an easier 50 mile out and back ride on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath. The C&O is a terrific place for a day ride, made all the better by recent improvements to the trail upriver from Riley’s Lock in Montgomery County, Maryland. The towpath in is area used to be filled with ruts and mud and now it’s a sweet roll for miles and miles.

The Great Pumpkin Ride

After Friday’s ride through Rock Creek Park, I drove west to Warrenton for the annual Great Pumpkin Ride. The early morning state made for some cold rolling for an hour or so, but the scenery made up for any discomfort.

The Great Pumpkin Ride, like most open road bike events, has one feature that I don’t like: packs of riders going fast and passing uncomfortably close to me. After several packs blew by me, I rolled up to one such pack that had ended up in a crash. Some of the riders were sitting dazed in the grass next to the road while someone was picking up their fallen steeds and moving them off the pavement.

After about 50 miles, attention spans start to lapse. A lone rider on a matte black road bike just ahead of me drifted off the pavement into the short grass on the shoulder. My brain said “No. Don’t!’ I’d seen this happen so many times, but there was nothing I could do but watch. He tried to steer back onto the asphalt, caught the edge of his front rim on the transition, and fell hard on his side. He lay on his back until the pain subsided then got up and road to the finish 14 miles ahead.

I may be old, but I’m slow. And al this autumn riding means I’m still in one peace.

A couple of weeks ago I participated in my 14th 50 States Ride.

14? Yes, I may have a problem.

For the uninitiated, the 50 States Ride is the main event in the Washington Area Bicyclists Association ride calendar. Participants follow a course that winds all over DC as they ride on every street named for a state. The route is about 60 miles long with minor variations from year to year. Like last year, this year’s ride started at Yards Park, a small green space along the Anacostia River in the Near Southeast neighborhood.

After parking my car in East Potomac Park, I rode about three miles to the start where a posse of hardcore fools met up for the ride. Michael B., Kevin W., and Chris M. returned from last year’s group. Keith A. who I met on my very first 50 States Ride in 2006 and who I ran into on my bike tour this summer joined us. Jeff D. with whom I’ve ridden two 50-States and countless other event rides also met us at the start. Alas, Jeff and his friend Mike seemed always to be just behind our group so we only saw him at pit stops during the ride.

The returning posse members were joined by a bunch of youngsters whose names I, of course, can’t remember for the life of me. Okay, I managed to remember Sara, Julie, Catherine (sp?), and Chuck but there were two other guys whose names fell out of my head. Along the way we were joined by Claire. For much of the ride we were shadowed by Steve O., a volunteer course marshal who knows a fund group when he sees one.

That’s a pretty big pack of riders. I believe some of the new people work with Chris at a federal government agency while others are known to Kevin from the Thursday night PubRoll. The PubRoll was started by posse expat Peter K., who moved to Barcelona this summer. (We miss you Peter!)

I would post a picture of the group but Kevin has it and is not giving it up. Maybe he’s got Big Nate class picture issues. I didn’t take any pictures except those below so you’ll have to believe me when I say this was one good looking group.

The route goes up and down and all around. Through neighborhood streets and on main roads, into traffic circles, and on bike paths. There are countless stops at stop signs, traffic lights, and pit stops. Usually this causes a group to splinter but this year’s posse was as cohesive as any I’ve ever ridden with.

Usually we are treated to a cloud burst or horrible humidity but not this year. The weather was splendid.

The pit stops – staffed rest areas with snacks, water, and restrooms – were fewer this year. There was no stop until the halfway point in Eastern Market on Capitol Hill where I managed to fall when dismounting and got a boo boo on my elbow. Michael got me a bandaid from the WABA first aid kit that caused an earnest WABA person to fill out an incident report. This took longer than the incident but this is DC and whenever we have a chance to fill out some paperwork we get rather excited.

We also stopped at Mike and LIsa’s house, the Tacoma pit stop near the northern most part of DC. Mike and Lisa open their home, well, their bathrooms and front lawn, to the pedaling horde every year. They are super nice and ride a mean bike when not handing out snacks. They are also serious Washington Nationals fans.

After Mike and Lisa’s we continued on and had our pictures taken as we turned onto Alaska Avenue by Patti Heck. She stands there, rain or shine, all day taking photos of the riders. Follow the link and you can find scads of pictures of this year’s riders (and, for that matter, riders from previous years).

After descending to MacArthur Boulevard we climbed back up Cathedral Heights. This involves two challenging hills, one on Garfield Street, the other on Cathedral Avenue.

The rest of the route was a meander through the flat core of the city, then on to Hains Point along the Potomac River and the big finish back at Yards Park. We tried to join the official afterparty at a bar near Nats Park The bar is located between the Metro and the ballpark. It was no surprise that with a Nats game about to start the bar was packed. So we rode to Solace, a bar located on the opposite side of the ballpark where we had a celebratory beer and finger food.

From the sound of things the posse will re-assemble for WABA’s Cider Ride in early November. Stay tuned.

While I was at the Tacoma rest stop I talked with Lisa for quite a while. She has a collection of Nats bobbleheads and is missing only one, Sean Doolittle. I just happened to have one so I rode back up to her house a couple of days later. On the way home I coincidentally ran into Mike. We chatted for long enough for me to take a picture of him in his summer bike cap.

Just before the event we were handed an addendum to the cue sheet. There was a street festival on H Street NE that the ride organizers wanted us to avoid. The route normally passes by the ghost bike that stands as a memorial to Dave Salovesh a friend who was killed by a driver on Good Friday of 2019. A few days later I went back to see the bike and take a moment to remember him.

And so another 50 States Ride is in the books. Will I do it again? As Rachel Maddow says, watch this space.

Plugging away. That’s all I do. Just keep riding and riding. I managed to pull off my fifth straight 1,000 mile month. And probably my last for the year. I’ve got less than 1,100 to go to reach 10,000 for the fifth straight year. Pedal on.

This month I rode 1,014.5 miles, split among my three main bikes. As I;ve been riding, I’ve tried to identify all the repairs that will be needed over the winter. Already, I know that The Mule needs new brakes (again!) and a new front rim. The Cross Check has a strange shuddering of the front brake. I think the rim is defective but I’ll let the bike shop folks sort it out. Big Nellie doesn’t need much; because it uses 2 1/5 chains, the chains and cassettes tend to last a bit longer than my conventional bikes. (Little Nellie doesn’t need any work except for a good dusting. I really need to sell it.)

The Rides

I did two rides over 60 miles. One was in Dorchester County, Maryland on the Eastern Shore. It was an out and back route that I found online. There were several side roads that went down necks to views of the Choptank and Little Choptank Rivers. These little excursions doubled the length of the route. My other long ride – which I keep meaning to blog about – was my 14th 50 States Ride. We had a posse of ten or so. I fell down as I was dismounting at the pit stop at the half way point. Otherwise it was a pretty nice ride through DC.

Social Stuff

I started attending Friday Coffee Club again. It gets me rolling by 7 in the morning and after I get to DC and hang out I’m good for another 40 miles or so. Also, riding along the river at daybreak is a mighty way to wake up.

I met up with Keith and Charmaine to talk bike touring and bikes. We met on the 50 States Ride in 2006 (I think). Keith cooked brats which I don’t normally eat. They were bueno. Keith is buying a new custom touring bike so we measured him for it.

Watching

Aside from watching the Nats lose a lot on TV, I watched three Marvel stories. Thor – Love and Thunder was a disappointment. It wasn’t nearly as witty as Ragnarok and relied way too much on one of my least favorite actresses, Natalie Portman. Ms. Marvel was not a whole lot better. The lead actress was a novice and did very well. To some extent it’s the Spider-Man story moved from a white male teenager in Queens to a Pakistani-American female teenager in Jersey City. I also watched the first several episodes of She-Hulk. I keep thinking it has to get better. So far, nope. In addition to these less than super hero stories, I watched Andor, a new Star Wars series. It’s a prequel to Rogue One, an overlooked gem among the Star Wars movies. Andor benefits from a coherent story and great acting from Diego Luna and Stellan Skarsgard, who has yet to turn in a performance I didn’t like. (Alas, even he couldn’t save Thor – Love and Thunder.)

Reading

I dug into the pile o’books that built up after my birthday and bike tour.

The Guest List by Lucy Foley was an entertaining beach read that was an Agatha Christie novel set on an island off the coast of Ireland. I enjoyed it mostly because of all the scoundrels in the cast of characters.

How the Post Office Created America by Winnifred Gallagher describes how the post office was used to bind the new nation together and help it extend out west. In some ways it dovetailed nicely with what I’ve been learning about the western U.S. on my bike tours. When I used to write for a living, I struggled with what to do with all the interesting tangential facts that I came across while doing my research. They often were edited out. Gallagher tosses hers in parenthetically to interesting and amusing effect. (Full disclosure, I read and commented on the last chapters of this book while she was writing it. A friend of my wife bought it at a used book shop and thought I’d be interested in it. She was floored when she found out I was mentioned in the Acknowledgements.)

86 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff is a collection of correspondence between and American writer based in New York City and a rare book shop in London. It’s surprisingly interesting. I wished it was longer,

The Post Roads Act of 1866 by Bob Cannon, an expert on Internet law, is a self published monograph of Bob’s research into the regulatory law that intended to make the U. S. telegraph industry more competitive. Suffice it to say, it backfired big time and all but allowed Western Union to monopolize the industry. The fact that Western Union could buy up its competitors, consumers be damned, ultimately to the enactment of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission, the expansion of the federal judiciary, and the Federal Communications Act. Dang. (Personal disclosure again: Bob’s a personal friend who rides and often crashes bikes. He should not be confused with Rachel Cannon who is no relation to either of us.)

The Maid by Nita Price is a whodunit set mostly in a boutique hotel. The story is told from the perspective of the peculiar and naive titular character. Her odd and engaging voice made me recall Amor Towles’s first two novels. That’s high praise. Unfortunately the resolution of the mystery read like a screenplay. Also, after the big reveal the book carries on for far too long, as if the author couldn’t bear to part with her characters.

August is usually a slow month for me. I tend to ride less for reasons that vary. This year I took four days off to go to Asheville, North Carolina with my wife and daughter. We toured Biltmore for the second time. If you haven’t seen it, you really should. We also did a lot of hanging around in Asheville and came to the conclusion that we’d never want to live there.

As for reading, I polished off some of my backlog of magazines that piled up while I was riding across the country. My brother Jim gave me a book of essays on bicycles and bicycling called Two Wheels Good by Jody Rosen. I found the chapter on Bikecentennial to be especially interesting. There was also a good account of the claims by many to being the inventor of the bicycle. On the watching front I managed to sit through Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, two hours of my life I wish I had back. I also binge watched in one sitting Obi Wan Kenobi which I thought was surprisingly good. I had low expectations, I suppose, after The Book of Boba Fett and The Mandalorian. Also, Hayden Christensen didn’t totally suck.

Big Nellie and I went to see the Nationals play a game. They didn’t totally suck either and they won.

As for riding, I managed to squeeze out 1,070.5 miles, exceeding 1,000 miles for the fourth month in a row. I started doing 60 mile rides every other day. I find that I can just put my brain into touring mode and ride all day. I discovered a brochure that includes six loop rides in Talbot County, Maryland on the Eastern Shore. The rides are flat and mostly car free. The maps in the brochure are color coded so that you can easily construct rides that are two or more loops long or add or subtract pieces of rides to make shorter loops.

I did my long rides on my Cross Check (679.5 miles). Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent did most of the short days after my 60-mile rides (243.5 miles). The Mule contributed 100.5 miles until it made it to 68,000 miles. The rest was from riding Little Nellie to and from the car repair place. (My 2009 Accord was in need of new rubber and a working air conditioner. Suffice it to say, my wallet took a hit.) I use the car mostly for driving to places where I can ride my bike.

So far this year, I’ve ridden 7,910 miles, more than half of that was on The Mule because of the 3,400+ mile bike tour. I’m on a pace for 11,881 miles this year.

Riding

Well, July was an interesting month. I managed to ride 1,321 miles even while taking a week off because of travel and quarantine. All but 60 of those miles were part of my bike tour. I finished the tour with 3,449 miles, my second longest tour ever. And it sure felt like it. 66 is not the new 62.

The longest ride was 95.5 miles from McKenzie River to Corvallis. Corey had started the day joking about riding 100 miles. We nearly pulled it off.

This was my third month in a row with over 1,000 miles. I didn’t come close to breaking my month record which was over 2,000 miles on my 2018 tour.

For the year I have ridden 6,839.5 miles, on a pace for 11,776 miles for the year. If only I can squeeze in another tour, I might just make it. (Not gonna happen.)

Reading

After two months on the road I bought two books for my trip home. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien us about storytelling and about being a kid soldier in Vietnam. I was watching an episode of the old WWII TV show Combat! and one thing stuck out: all the actors are in their 30s and 40s. O’Brien’s book is about kids just out of high school. It’s also about the art of telling a story. Strangely the book works really well.

The other book I read was Larry McMurtry’s Horseman, Pass By. It was the basis for the old Paul Newman movie, Hud. I am now interested in watching Hud to see how much the original material was changed. It was McMurtry’s first book and he captures life and language on a ranch in north Texas with great skill.

I have a stack of reading – Adventure Cycling Magazine, National Geographic, and two books that arrived while I was away. It’ll take me all of August to get through it all.

Watching

I watched two movies this month. The Fundamentals of Caring. It has Paul Rudd. I’ll watch Paul Rudd in anything. The Bucket List is a weird buddy movie about two old guys on their last legs. It was directed by Rob Reiner. Mediocre with Nicholson chewing the scenery in every scene. The chemistry between the two leads was never quite right. Also, there were multiple continuity errors that were really annoying.

I have fallen behind all the Star Wars and Marvel shows. Once I can be in the same room as my wife (three more days of masking) I’ll cue them up.

Recovering

I am out of quarantine but still need to wear an N95 mask. My wife and I are living on separate floors to the extent possible. Next Thursday we can revert to normal. Unless I relapse.