Category: Bike Commuting

It’s a Trap

I left early. In the dark. It was warmish, over 40. I wore the base layer that my brother-in-law’s family gave me for Christmas instead of the holey sweater. It was perfect, like wearing pajamas.

When I reached the Mount Vernon Trail I could see police car roof lights on the GW Parkway about 1/4 mile ahead. A speeder, a Camry with two high school kids inside ,had been pulled over. They had the my-dad’s-gonna-kill-me look. Traffic was getting backed up by the loss of the right lane. I  thought of calling my daughter to warn her about the speed trap, then decided against it figuring she can’t speed because the Parkway’s all clogged up.

The MVT uses the crosswalk at the intersection with the Hunting Towers Apartments’ access road. The crosswalk was filled for the second time in a month with a huge white SUV trying in vain to make a right on red, during rush hour with a view obstructed by buses waiting at the adjacent bus stop. In other words, there was no reason for the SUV to be blocking the crosswalk. I carefully rode around the front of the SUV trying my best to stay out of the parkway traffic. On Big Nellie, my right arm is just about even with the grill of this behemoth. I almost smacked it with my fist in protest. I thought better of it. This is a good thing because the driver of the behemoth could have made me road kill with a step on the gas. Instead I turned to give the driver a dirty look. I forgot about the light on my helmet. Got him right in the eyes.

On the north side of Old Town I saw Nancy Duley. Nancy has been out of action due to illness for a couple of weeks. “Hi, Nancy.”  She was all smiles as usual.

A slight headwind made the rest of the ride an honest effort. As I approached the 14 Street Bridge underpass, I saw a Brompton coming up from behind at surprising speed.  Thankfully, he turned off to take the ramp up to the bridge before he could pass me. Getting passed by a bike with 16 inch wheels is no way to start the work week.

At about this point I hit 100 miles for the year. Woo hoo.

At the Rosslyn Circle of Certain Doom, I cross the I-66 ramp without getting killed. Woo hoo, too. As I passed him, a panhandler said, “Nice bike.” Recumbents have fans in every demographic.

I ate lunch at Quiznos. They had really bad rock and roll Christmas music on. Midway through the meal, the Christmas music was replaced by normal, bland rock music. The holiday’s are now officially over. Thus sprach Quizno.

Last night we took the Christmas tree down. I carried it out to the curb awkwardly, managing somehow to get my face right up into that sucker. All day today my sinuses were throbbing. Guess I can add fir to my allergy list.

Since i arrived at work a little early, I left early. It was light out. Woo hoo three.

I rode down the MVT with a slight tailwind. I could tell because the planes at National Airport were taking off toward the northwest. And because I was riding in excess of 15 miles per hour. The daylight lasted into Old Town. I took the Wilkes Street tunnel at the north end of Old Town. I haven’t used it in a long time preferring the trail under the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. As I came to the far end of the tunnel, I thought “I’d better be careful.” I rang my bell and slowed. From behind the wall at the exit of the tunnel, a man with a toddler on his shoulders stepped in front of me. I said, “I guessed right.” He said with a smile, “I heard your bell.” Peace on earth. Goodwill toward bent.

Heading out of Old Town, back on the MVT, I came upon the entrance to Porto Vecchio, an upscale condominium on the river. The entrance has bicycle traffic lights that I obey because I would like to see them used elsewhere. And because traffic turning off the Parkway can crush me like a bug.

Parked across the MVT in the middle of the entrance to the condo was a minivan and a US Park Service police car.  The police officer was discussing the driver’s transgressions with the soccer mom behind the wheel of the van. I was tempted to interrupt and ask the officer why he felt it necessary to conduct a traffic stop that compromised the safety of trail users like me as well as people trying to turn into the condo complex. Clearly, the soccer mom was a menace to society or he would have asked her to move into the condo parking lot where he could conduct his traffic stop in safety.

Instead of confronting him, I rode around the front of the minivan, over a raised flower bed, and went on my way. I figured that seeing a long wheel base recumbent riding like a mountain bike might clue him to the fact that his traffic stop technique needs a whole lot of work.

The rest of the ride featured many moments of blindness thanks to the headlights of cars on the parkway. We’ve only got about a month to go before this annual annoyance is over.

When I arrived at home, I mentioned to my wife that there seemed to be a lot of speed traps out today. She responded by telling me that on her way home from school my daughter got her first speeding ticket courtesy of Fairfax’s finest. We live 1/2 mile from the Mount Vernon District police station.

Should have called her afterall.

 

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…..

Looking Backward 2012

In a lot of ways, 2012 was a very difficult year. My mother passed away of old age, my wife worked hard to recover from being hit by a car in 2011 only to have to endure cancer surgery, radiation treatments and a long slow recovery that is still ongoing. My son cut his leg open in an accident at work. Somehow the lightning bolts missed a direct hit on me.

Exercise is my coping mechanism. When I don’t ride (or, in the past, run) stress wears on me. It’s probably a blessing (and no coincidence) that I cranked out 7,350 miles in 2012.

Where did I go? What did I see? Who did I meet? Here’s a list:

Bike Commuting: With my daughter driving herself to school and limited school functions to deal with, I rode to work, a lot. 162 times, in fact, I figure that I did somewhere near 4,800 miles just getting to and from the office. I saved around $650 in gas. Other than family commitments, I missed only a handful of opportunities to ride.

Odometers Gone Wild: The odometers on my bikes are getting insane. I broke 32,000 miles on The Mule and 31,000 on Big Nellie. I am almost at 9,000 miles on Little Nellie. That $650 in gas savings will go toward lots of bike maintenance this winter. I do tires and brakes. I’ll leave the new drive trains for the pros.

Bike Crashes and Calamities: During the late winter, I was running errands on my bike in a fierce wind. I put my head down and, in an amazing act of stupidity, I proceeded to ride The Mule into the back of a parked car. A few weeks later I lost control of Big Nellie on a slick section of bike path and wrenched the heck out of my right knee. (I still have a big red welt just below my knee cap.) I was nearly run over three times by red light runners while riding through the Rosslyn Circle of Doom. In separate incidents, I broke the chain and had the rear tire blow out on Big Nellie. I bent the derailleur hanger on Little Nellie. I also had the usual array of flat tires but that’s pretty much it. All things considered, not a bad year.

Friday Coffee Club:  Ed is an espresso junkie. He and his stoker/spouse Mary started going to Swings coffee house near the White House on Fridays before work and invited others to join them. Word of mouth and Twitter took it from there. I started going and was welcomed into a motley crew of cycling ne’er do wells comprising journalists, economists, lawyers, graphic artists, librarians, university administrators, students, bike sellers, police officers, bike advocates, Segway tour guides turned bike rack installers, and policy wonks. We even have a naval meteorologist. We are still looking for some arc welders and lobstermen to join. Long story short, it gets my ass moving on Friday mornings, the people are impossibly nice, and the conversation is always interesting.

Rides with Friends: About 15 years ago I hired a guy to paint the house. About two years later, the paint was peeling off. I thought, “I can do better.” Over the course of the next decade I did two laps around the house. And the paint is still peeling off. Fuggit. Riding on the weekends is infinitely more enjoyable than futile house painting. Suffice it to say, my next expensive bike-related purchase will be a vinyl siding job.

So you might ask, “Where did you ride when you should have been doing something productive around the house?” Here’s a list:

  • The Utilitaire of Ignominy: The Utilitaire Challenge was the brainchild of Mary the Mad Randonista. As a willing participant, I rode trips to the store, the barbershop, the car dealer, the dry cleaner, and, as mentioned above, into the back of a parked car. Fail.
  • The Quest for Blueberry Soup: Every March WABA and the Swedish embassy collaborate on a ride that culminates in a cup of warm blueberry soup. My name is Rootchopper and I’m a soupaholic. I did a little over 30 cold miles and had 2 cups of hot soup.
  • Default Day:  Most people call it Bike to Work Day. I feel a bit like W.C. Fields on New Years Eve. Still, it was nice to see all the newbies out on the trails and roads. As a bonus, I ran into Ed, Mary, and Laura (and her buddies) at the Rosslyn pit stop.
  • Bike DC: There is something about this event that is always FUBAR. This year was no exception. I wasn’t expecting much and I got what I was expecting.
  • The Hoppy 100: Friday Coffee Clubber and craft beer lover John Roche designed a route that would traverse 100+ miles of hill and dale, a ride on a cable ferry across the Potomac, and some snorkeling through torrential rains all for a few cold glasses of craft beer. The man is brilliant. Kevin, Chris, Crystal and Lisa, Coffee Clubbers all, joined in for the day-long festivities.
  • The Indian Head 100: I did this metric century alone and it made me realize that it’s not the rides you do, it’s who you do the rides with that makes them memorable. Still, the route is an interesting one and it’s the closest rural ride to my house.
  • The 50 States Ride: I used to have a love hate relationship with this ride. I’ve grown to love it. It’s hard, but, what can I say, I am a sucker for a gimmick. There’s no better way to understand the place you live than to ride it on a bike.  This ride proves it. And, as usual, the company was excellent.
  • The Backroads Century: This was a tough one. This metric century is my favorite ride around these parts. Unfortunately it was the day after the 50 States and the 5 a.m. wake up call didn’t help. After some logistical snafus, I ended up riding with Lisa from the Coffee Club, her friend Jane and their hubbies.
  • The Tour Du Port: This is Baltimore’s intracity bike ride. I planned on doing it solo but, thanks to the SharrowsDC pin I bought from Coffee Clubber Brian, I was id’ed by Bec and Alex, two DC-based cyclists. We rode together for most of the ride, got lost, and experienced lots of underfunded bicycle infrastructure.
  • The Great Pumpkin Ride: Another early morning wake up for a ride in the exurbs. I met Veronique, an old friend who works at a bakery in Warrenton, then rode 70+ miles of the Virginia Piedmont alone. It was quite a slog, but the late autumn scenery was so pretty. After the ride I met up with Friday Coffee Clubbers Rachel and Kate, and their friend Katie Ann for vittles and grog. Suffice it to say, I enjoyed the after party as much as the ride.
  • The Coffeenuering Challenge: Not content to nearly get me killed with her Utilitaire Challenge, Mary the Mad Randonista drew up another cycling contest. I managed to survive this one intact by riding to eight coffee shops for coffee and cookies and one kick ass muffin.
  • Hubs and Pubs – DC has recently given birth to three microbreweries. My friend Crystal decided to organize a social ride that connected three of the breweries. Although I only made it to one of the breweries, it was fun to ride to DC and see areas of the NE quadrant of the city that I had never seen before. Oh, and the beer was tasty, too.
  • Chocoride – Beer isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, so to speak. So Crystal and Lisa put together a ride within DC that rode from one hot cocoa place to another. The ride took place on December 30 nearly guaranteeing cold temperatures would lead to warm liquid refreshment. It was a blast, and so was the wind. This was my fourth ride of the year with Lisa, so she wins the Rootchopper Sidekick Award for 2012. He prize is she gets to call me Kemosabe for all of 2013.

The Woodrow Wilson Bollard Farm: Bike commuters and other users of the Mount Vernon Trail endured one dangerous detour after another during the rehabilitation of Jones Point Park and the MVT underneath the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. As the project was about to be completed, it became obvious to frequent users of the trail that the final result was an incredibly dangerous design featuring an obstacle course of poorly placed black bollards, sharp turns, and high curbs. After much bitching, local advocacy groups stepped up and got some very useful last-minute modifications made. Thanks to Mark Blacknell and Shane Farthing of WABA and Jonathan Krall and the other folks at the Alexandria Bike/Ped Advisory Committee for their efforts. Ironically, the rest of the project turned out to be pretty darned awesome.  

Car Hell: I spent a week driving my daughter among six colleges in the Los Angeles area. I have seen hell on earth and it is Los Angeles. Over 30 years ago, I spent a week in Davis CA. Even back then, Davis had bike infrastructure out the wazoo. I am very happy to see DC and Arlington making major strides to support the use of bikes as transportation with bike sharing, cycle tracks, bike lanes, and, most importantly, an evolving attitude.

Be Careful Out There: One of the most experienced bike commuters/riders I know, Charmaine, was run over by a pickup truck while riding to work. If it can happen to her, it can happen to anybody. Here’s wishing Charmaine a speedy and complete recovery in the new year. As for the rest of you, may the odds be ever in your favor.

I thought about including links to all these events in the blog but ran out of gas. It was a busy year.  You can find posts about all these things in the list on the right. Or if you’d rather look at some pix, check out the bike-related sets on my Flickr page.

See you in 2013. And thanks for reading.

DNR – Old

Last year the coach of the San Antonio Spurs did not play their aging power forward Tim Duncan in a regular season game. Next to his name in the box score was this: DNP-Old. DNP means did not play.

Today I woke up in a haze. After doing my morning routine of back exercises and eating breakfast, I decided to eschew my morning bike ride to work. I grabbed a couple of CDs and drove. 

Today’s box score reads:

Rootchopper: DNR – Old

I haven’t driven to work for the hell of it more than a handful of times in the past year.

So I gave myself a bike commuting vacation.

I end 2012 with 162 bike commutes (I am working from home on Monday.)

Nasty Commute…Not

There was a high wind advisory for tonight’s ride home.  20+ mph winds with gusts up to 50 mph. I love a challenge.

The wind was blowing in my face as I made my way north on North Lynn Street in Rosslyn. Once I cleared the highrise canyon the winds died down. I turned onto the Mount Vernon Trail and it was clear sailing. The wind was a firm hand on my back and I cruised down the trail with ease. Every so often I’d get buffeted by a cross gust but these were nothing extraordinary.

Truth be told, if I stopped I’d probably freeze my ass off, but the steady pedaling was just the right amount of exersion to keep me feeling toasty. I left earlier than usual so I for the second night in a row I didn’t have to play dodge-a-ninja. (That would make a fun video game, come to think of it.)

I have to admit that cold temps and little sleep make my normal 29-30 mile bike commute seem much longer. I hope to get in a good 8 hours of sleep tonight.

I put in a request to work from home on Monday. Assuming I ride tomorrow, that will make 163 bike commutes for the year. That’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,800 miles of back and forth riding.  Some day I hope to put my superpowers to good use. I’m thinking maybe I should ride toward work and not stop until I reach salt water.

That would be nasty!

Sleepless in Mount Vernon

After yesterday’s epic bike commute, I thought I’d sleep like a log. Did not happen. I was up all night. Never mess around with a new laptop with an unfamiliar operating system before going to sleep. I am sure I will enjoy using it as soon as it is set up to my liking and I have a better idea of how to do simple things (such as specify my default search engine.)

The two college boys in our family room playing video games until 3 a.m. didn’t help a whole lot either.

I finally drifted off to sleep a little after 5 a.m. only to be blasted awake by my alarm clock.  It seems this same scenario plays out about once a month so I think it’s a circadian rhthyms issue. I am pretty sure that tonight sleep will not be an issue.

I had expected ice on the pavement when I went out to get the newspaper but there was only water meaning that I could ride to work. Because the aforemention college boys were asleep in front of the TV, I skipped my morning ritual of back exercises while channel surfing and headed out the door into the pre-dawn darkness. I was expecting fierce headwinds but what I got was a rather welcome tailwind. With this assistance, I chose to bypass a portion of the Mount Vernon Trail and take the somewhat hillier Fort Hunt Road to the beltway instead. There were only a few cars using the road so it was a peaceful ride all the way to Old Town.

North of Old Town, the oddest thing happened; my tailwind was becoming a headwind. Once I was clear of the protection of buildings and trees, I had an invisible hand on my chest. I ground the ride out with my head focused on the ground in front of my bike. Opposite the Washington Monument I was startled. A bike coming from the opposite direction passed me going fast. Where did he come from?  Better look where I am going.

I made it to the office in reasonable comfort. I attribute this to the balaclava, the mittens with liner gloves, and the overboots that I chose at the start of the ride. My extremities were toasty.

The ride home promises to be a breeze. Sustanied tailwinds of over 20 miles per hours with gusts of up to 50 miles per hour are in the forecast. Little Nellie will be pleased.

Well, that was fun

The ride home was everything I hoped for and, as they used to say in those Miller Lite ads of so long ago, less.

My boss, a bike commuter himself who decided not to ride in during today’s winter storm, came around to my desk at 3:30 and told me that if I saw a break in the weather to head for home. I immediately checked weather.com and saw that they were predicting clear sailing to Mount Vernon at around 4:45.  This happens to be almost my normal quitting time so my boss’s largess went in the meteorlogical round file.

At around 4:30 I changed into my bike clothes and decided to head out. I was stunned to see daylight as I left the garage. Commuting home in daylight, even gray, fading daylight, made me a happy guy. Off I rode on Little Nellie, now freed from it’s iced over brakes. I made it through Rosslyn without encountering the slightest trouble from the automotive crowd, mostly because the streets were nearly empty.

I headed down the hill to the Mount Vernon Trail. My first sign of trouble was the enormous puddle just before the bridge that would take me from the Rosslyn side of the GW Parkway to the Potomac River side. I rode right through it but it was brown water. I couldn’t see how deep it was. I got lucky. It was only a few inches. The boardwalk under the Roosevelt Bridge was covered in a thin layer of snowy slush.  I navigated the mess without difficulty and hoped that the remaining boardwalks on my commute would not be frozen over. (They weren’t, thank god.)

From the boardwalk to the Memorial Bridge underpass was a mile of huge puddles. Despite having fenders on my bike, my feet were soaked, and there were 12 miles left to ride. These puddles were actually small scale flooding. The grass couldn’t hold all the water that had accumulated throughout the day. The spill over left the trail with some long stretches of deep puddles, impossible to ride around.

For the first couple of miles the rain was very light. Once I cleared the 14 Street Bridge it began to pick up. I had a very welcome tailwind and the few planes taking off from National Airport were heading my way. I could barely make them out in the spray and the gloom.  It reminded me of the Air Florida crash in 1981 which took place right next to the trail next to the 14th Street Bridge.

My feet stayed warm despite the wetness. I attribute this to the tailwind and the 40-ish temperatures. I slogged along, having increasing difficulty seeing through my glasses. This became a serious problem once the trail took me close to the GW Parkway and I had to deal with the headlights of the cars. Shading my eyes with one hand meant that I had to take a hand off the handlebars, not the safest thing to do in these conditions. Fortunately NOBODY else was on the trail. No ninjas tonight!

The more I rode the more the weather.com forecast proved wrong. Instead of a gap in the storm, the rain intensified. The streets of Old Town, like the MVT were deserted. I intended to take the shortest route home but by Old Town I was on autopilot. I followed my normal fair-weather route.

South of the beltway the rain kept a comin’. To kill the tedium I started thinking of songs with rain in them. Rain, Rain on the Roof, Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head, Let It Rain, and, the one I really needed, Who’ll Stop the Rain. Mind games can get you only so far. Soon I was south of the beltway slogging through puddle after puddle. Some of the trail was just flat out submerged. My feet felt like saturated sponges.

By the time I reached the stone bridge, back on suburban streets, I decided to finish the commute just as I normally do, rather than taking a short cut home. I arrived completely drenched and proceeded to walk Little Nellie to the backyard shed. The lawn in the back yard was saturated with cold water. Once in the shed, I dried my steed off as best I could. Then it was into the house. Off came my soaked shoes, socks and gloves. The rest of me was surprisingly dry.

So bike commute 161 is in the books. Tomorrow, high winds are expected. If it is below freezing, I’ll probably drive. All that standing water on the MVT will be a skating rink. I do rain, I do sleet, I even do thunder but I don’t do deep snow, ice or lightning. You think I’m crazy?

Rootchopper: Ninja Hunter

I rode Little Nellie today. The ride in was cold but quite fun owing to the fact that the Mount Vernon Trail was practically deserted. If evil doers want to invade Washington, now’s the time to do it. Car traffic on the George Washington Parkway looked like a Saturday afternoon. There are no DC natives; just immigrants from the 50 states and beyond. When important holidays approach, everyone goes home.

Except me.

I rode to work. No eagles. No possums. No Nancy Duley. Just the three step runner. (She runs three steps, then walks for a bit. Then runs three steps…) Near the Memorial Bridge I was passed by a guy on a Bike Friday. It didn’t have any racks or fenders or bags. It looked naked. And it had an AWESOME paint job. It was some sort of metallic shiny light green color that’s not listed on the Bike Friday website. I resisted the urge to whack the guy with one of my weighty panniers and steal his bike.

The ride home was windy and, as usual, dark. It’s always a challenged to ride into the headlights of the cars on the Parkway. I was doing fine, given the light traffic on the trail. As the trail runs between the airport and the Parkway, the car headlights are particularly bad. Then I saw something move and I instinctively moved left. It was a ninja. A man dress in a black watch cap, a black coat, dark blue jeans, and black boots. He was back lit by the headlights. I yelled as I swerved past him. I missed him by little more than a foot. As I passed I realized that what caused me to react was the bend in his leg as he strode forward. If he had been standing still, I would have hit him for sure.

After the adrenaline wore off, I settled into a nice rhythm, staring at the white circle painted by my helmet mounted light. I heard him before I saw him. A running coming my way on the opposite side of the path. Then I saw the white trim on his sneakers. He was dressed in dark clothing.

Onto the streets of Old Town, Little Nellie and I rolled. I was pretty happy to have the darkness and the ninjas behind me. As I cleared the commercial area, I made my way past a row of townhouses. A car was waiting, double parked on the left side of the road. Out of the shadows to my right, a man dressed in black ran straight for the car. He pulled up when I yelled and I swerved to avoid him. “Sorry!” he said. Great, dude. Little Nellie and I are practically Las Vegas on two wheels and you can’t see us coming!!!

Here’s the complete Rootchopper Vegas biking package: Front reflector on bike. Front reflective patch on handlebar bag. Front LED light on stem. Headlight on helmet. Reflective bands on ankles. Reflective tab on shoes. Reflectors on pedals. Reflective vest over my torso. Reflective fabric on the fingertips and palms of my gloves. Red light on back of helmet attached to a yellow reflective band. Red light facing rearward on my seat tube. Reflective patch on my saddlebag. Red LED light on the back of my rack. Reflective patches on my rear panniers facing both forward and rearward. Reflective sidewalls on both tires.

How could this guy have missed me?

I was beginning to think all these near misses were my fault. Then I rode into the pitch black of Belle Haven Park. Up ahead, well over 50 yards I spotted someone walking. He had an reflective band around his right forearm. It probably cost a few bucks. Why don’t more people wear them?

I made the rest of my trip home with no more incidents.

My goal for the rest of the winter is to bike commute without hitting a ninja. It’s not a very good bet, I’m afraid.

Playing Possum

I’ve been riding to work along the Mount Vernon Trail now for over ten years.  Today I saw my first possum. He was walking from some underbrush out onto the trail on the edge of Belle Haven Park. When he spotted my approach, he calmly turned and walked back to the underbrush. He was taking his time. I don’t know much about possums but I suspect this one won’t last very long. Somebody higher up the food chain is going to have him for a meal.

I occasionally see possums in my yard. Shortly after moving in I saw a big one lying in the grass in the back yard. I ran in the house to tell Mrs. Rootchopper that there was a dead possum in the back yard. She cracked up. When I went back outside it was, of course, gone. Nature’s oldest trick. My college friend Becca used to say I was the most gullible person she knew. She was right.

The rest of my commute was uneventful. I did confirm that Nancy Duley in fact reads this blog. As I rode past her this morning she said something about a bourbon flask. (She probably dropped hers on the trail and wanted me to look for it.)

If it had not been for three meetings today, I would have called in sick. My head and chest cold has returned.  I am glad that I went to the office though because the first two meetings went well, and the third was canceled. Our consultants in Wisconsin were preparing to get slammed by a blizzard and were closing their office. It’s good to see that somebody other than residents of the DMV panic at the thought of impending snow.

Ahead of the massive Midwest storm, winds were kicking up. I had a mighty tailwind on the way home. This, an a couple of hits of albuterol, made for a pleasant ride home aboard Big Nellie.