Category: #bikedc

Turtles All the Way Down

Today was that kind of day that started great then ended with a thud.

Little Nellie and I have been getting along splendidly ever since I put H-bars on the bike. My hat’s off to the crew at Bikes at Vienna for transforming this bike that had become, quite literally, a pain into a bike that feels like a magic carpet. It’s quite a lot of fun to ride and the wide handlebars that I selected do an unexpectedly good job of absorbing road shock.

I knew today would be the first mow of the season so I wanted to get in at least an easy ride beforehand. (You gotta have your priorities straight, you know.) Parts of the lawn have barely begun to grow while others have deep, thick grass. I expected the latter to be rough going.

After riding Little Nellie 35 miles yesterday north to the DC cherry blossoms, I decided to ride south to the neighborhoods of Hybla Valley and Woodlawn. As I walked into my backyard to fetch my bike I came upon a visitor, a box turtle. He was stopped in one of those spots in the lawn with barely any spring growth. The turtle didn’t shy away as I took its portrait. Box turtles can live anywhere between 50 and 100 years so there’s no telling if the turtle was visiting my house or I was visiting his. Since my neighborhood was developed about 60 years ago it is entirely possible that this little critter has been around longer than my house.

Backyard buddy
Just passin’ through.

Last summer I did an odd maneuver on a two-lane highway in Kansas to save a box turtle from getting run over. I crossed over to the left lane to force an on-coming driver to drive around me and miss the turtle in the process. It worked, but a few minutes later the underage driver’s parents came after me and went all kinds of crazy with road rage. It was an incident that was truly alarming, especially in light of the fact that Kansans are generally the most chill drivers in the country. The scary encounter was well worth it though, because the box turtle was spared a grim fate.

I was slightly underdressed for today’s breezy 50s but that didn’t subtract much from the joy of spinning along the flat roads of Hybla Valley. I crisscrossed the suburban landscape, traffic-free because the entire western boundary of the neighborhood is a nature preserve. I saw a half dozen retirees mowing their grass, giving me a good case of the guilts.

The Woodlawn area located between Fort Belvoir and Mount Vernon is another low traffic place that features a few gentle hills that keep things interesting. There’s also a backyard bald eagle nest that I like to check out. Nobody was home in the nest so I’ll have to go back another day.

I arrived home a bit chilled after 31 miles. I put Little Nellie back in its storage spot and looked around the backyard for my little friend. The turtle was nowhere to be found. I suspected in the three hours since I encountered the little guy, he had made his getaway onto the farm next store. Over the years I have seen a turtle – perhaps even the same one – wedged along the bottom of the fences around our yard. I assumed he had headed to the farm because beyond the farm fence, there are all kinds of places that a turtle can hide, safe from the neighborhood predators (foxes, raccoons, dogs, raptors).

A big bowl of hot soup and some indoor time allowed me to warm up a bit before heading back out to mow the lawn. After about 30 more minutes of prep, I was underway in the backyard. All was going well until I hit the tall dense grass in the back left corner of the yard by the fence along the edge of the farm.

The grass was really thick and I was laboring to push the mower through it when I felt and heard a thud from under the mower. I pulled the mower back expecting to see a ball or some other obstacle but instead I saw the turtle. It had been hunkering down in the tall grass only a few feet from the fence. It had made it about 150 feet across the yard since I saw it in the morning.

The poor thing never stood a chance. Its end was brutal and quick. Looking at its remains almost made me throw up. How could I be so stupid. Ugh.

I gave my friend a proper burial in the garden then went about the rest of my business.

What a horrid end to a beautiful day.

Rolling Isolation

I tested positive for the Covid virus about 72 hours ago. I still have no symptoms other than those from my seasonal allergies. It seems that every lawn crew around is spreading shredded bark mulch which causes my sinuses much distress. I found out the hard way by spreading it in my garden years ago. A good snout-ful makes me seriously sick. I am also allergic to tree pollen, specifically pine and cedar. It’s a bit ironic that my childhood home was down the street from Pine Tree Lane and that I moved to Mount Vernon which is full of cedar trees.

In any case, I have been vaccinated five times, have had Covid once already (a very mild case), and I am taking Paxlovid. I must have antibodies out the wazoo.

Other than the allergies, I feel fine. So I took The Mule for a ride to DC to take in the cherry blossoms on Wednesday. It was a day before full peak bloom and the Tidal Basin area was packed. I had masked up on the Virginia side of the river and was otherwise careful to hold my breath whenever I passed or was passed by someone on the trail.

Even though I was masked I avoided the throngs at the Tidal Basin, surfed through the cars in East Potomac Park and made my way to Hains Point which had surprisingly few people. After returning to the Tidal Basin area I made my way away from the crowds to the National Mall. On the north side of the mall, with fewer people around, I rode west to the Lincoln Memorial and then home. A 36 1/2 mile jaunt. Not bad for having a supposedly deadly disease.

For what it’s worth the best time to see the blossoms at the Tidal Basin is at sunrise when there are few people and slanting rays bouncing off the blooms and the water. Of course, the best way to get there is by bike. I am not just saying this because I ride. The area becomes an epic car sewer as the day progresses. (Walk around the basin (never ride on the sidewalk.)

Yesterday I rode to the Kenwood neighborhood of Bethesda, Maryland. All the streets in this stately old slice of suburban heaven are lined with cherry trees, mostly quite ancient, in full bloom. WOW. It is really much nicer than the Tidal Basin. There were very few cars and just some folks rolling and strolling beneath the canopy of white. It is incredibly peaceful and beautiful. It is easily accessible off the Capital Crescent Trail which runs from Bethesda Row to the Georgetown waterfront on the Potomac River. (Turn off on Dorsey Road, midway between River Road and Bethesda Row.)

After my half hour of zen, I stopped for a snack along the Capital Crescent Trail, once again away from others. Then I rode the trails home. Another 46 1/2 miles in the books on The Mule.

The only down side to the day was the lousy shifting on The Mule, caused most likely by stretching shifter cables. I will deal with this in a day or two.

On the way home I received a text that my wife’s car battery had died. When I got home I tried a few tricks to get it started. I scraped some corrosion off the battery’s negative pole. Then I turned off all the accessories in the car. I turned the key in the ignition. Click. No luck. Dead battery.

This morning instead of riding to Friday Coffee Club, I jumped the battery using my car. It’s a bit of a hassle getting the cars to line up and to figure out the proper positioning of the cables. I took off my mask to read the instructions on the cables. The instructions were ambiguous. As I was futzing around with the cables my helpful neighbor Ted saw me struggling an came over to help, looking up the proper procedure on his phone. He then walked me through it standing a few feet away, the cars awkwardly angled between us.

Success. Then the perils of being asymptomatic struck. I went to thank Ted and as I shook his hand I suddenly realized “Oh no. I have Covid.” Derp. He went inside his house to wash his hands. Being outdoors I doubt I infected him but it was a reminded that I need to be more careful.

We next drove to the mechanic. I had the windows in my car open and my wife drove her car. I masked and stayed outside, well away from the mechanic. I drove my wife home, she being masked and recently recovered from Covid herself.

This illness would be a lot easier to navigate if I was actually, well, ill.

I contacted my bike mechanic to let them know I won’t be picking my bike up until late next week.

According to the CDC I should be in the clear by Sunday and non-infectious by next Friday or Saturday.

Cherry trees at peak in Kenwood
Kenwood – note the temporary pink no-parking signs.

The Mule cracks me up

When I go on bike tours I try to think of everything that could go wrong and plan accordingly. I carry a kevlar spoke in case one of my spokes breaks. I bring along a folded tire in case I have a catastrophic tire failure. There are, however, some problems that you can’t do much about. Number one is a break in your frame or fork. Theorerially, if your frame and fork are made out of steel, you can find a welder to repair it.

Yeah right.

Basically, if your frame or fork breaks, your tour is over.

Another tour killer is a broken rim. On my 2005 tour, I felt something fishy going on with the rear wheel of my recumbent. I limped into the town of Frostburg, Maryland and got very lucky. I found a bike shop, one that had not yet even opened for business, that had a wheel builder. The manager found a rim in the basement (they didn’t even have their stock displays finished in the store) and built me a rim overnight.

That wheel eventually failed but it got me through the tour and several thousand miles more.

I replaced it with a Velocity Dyad rim which is still on the bike,

I haven’t looked closely at a rim in a long time. I can tell when the sidewalls of a rim are worn out when the start cupping. The concavity grabs brake pads. Because of this I knew that The Mule needed a new front wheel. When I dropped it off at Bikes at Vienna I told Beth the mechanic to replace it. She recently returned from bike mechanic school and was eager to test out her wheel building skills,

Whenever she gets a bike she looks it over closely. She knows that I’m going to ride thousands of miles on the bike so I appreciate her attention to detail. A day after I dropped it off she contacted me and said I needed a new rear wheel too.

Hmm. I hadn’t noticed any problems.

I told her to go ahead and build another one.

I picked up the bike yesterday. It has two shiny, new, Beth-built Velocity Dyad rims.

She kept the old rims for show and tell. Here’s what my rear rim looked like.

The rim on my #specializedsequoia touring bike. Kinda glad it held together during my tour last year
Let’s put 40 pounds of gear on that bad boy and ride to Maine. NOT.

This kind of damage doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, it probably takes a good 10,000 miles of loaded touring. It doesn’t help that I’ve hit hundreds of potholes, tar patches, and root heaves during the time this rim was on my bike. I’m willing to guess these cracks were in place during the last part of my 2022 tour. Now imagine you’re riding along on this wheel with 40 pounds of gear and you hit a bump or a pothole. Eek. It’s safe to say that a catastrophic wheel failure while descending a mountain pass at 35 miles per hour would ruin your whole day.

Incidentally, as I mentioned, Beth is meticulous. After she built the wheel she had someone else check it over. My job is to put the bike through its paces to stress test the wheels in the next week or so. I already did a 7-mile test ride. So far. so good.

Meanwhile, Beth is giving the CrossCheck it’s winter physical. I already know t needs a new front wheel.

Pedaling through History

One of the unexpected pleasures of bicycle touring is the opportunity to stumble upon historic sites of great interest. Mostly, I confess, these sites are interesting because of my woeful ignorance of U. S. history. How many times have you stopped the car to read the roadside markers that explain some nugget of “what happened here”? When travelling by bicycle, especially east to west, these roadside markers give a sort of commentary on how America was founded.

Take for example the markers on the TransAmerica Bicycle Trail in central Kansas. One marker commemorates the homestead of George Washington Carver. He was born in Missouri and spent most of his life in Alabama. It seems life on the prairie was not to his liking.

Another set of markers further to the west described the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864. I don’t know if I ever learned of this in school. How sad for this country that there were so many of these attacks on native encampments that it’s nearly impossible to remember them all. As I stood there looking north toward the site some miles distant I couldn’t help but think that I was standing in the middle of literally millions of acres of land, much of which was utterly unoccupied. What a stain on this country that the white settlers could not figure out how to share peacefully this massive canvas of prairie. Of course, I also could not see the native prairie grasses, the millions of bison, passenger pigeons, or other wildlife that the settlers wiped out in the name of progress and Manifest Destiny.

In Montana and Idaho we came upon sites connected with the Nez Perce War. We spent about an hour at the Big Hole Massacre site shaking our heads in disbelief. The massacre was directed by General O. O. Howard. Howard had made a good name for himself as the director of the Freeman’s Bureau which helped formerly enslaved people of the South transition to life during Reconstruction and who founded Howard University in the District of Columbia. History is complicated, it seems.

These sites are not without comic relief. Later on the way up Lolo Pass into Idaho, we came upon the site of Fort Fizzle, where the Nez Perce outfoxed the Army that was lying in wait. Rather than take the trail right past the army’s position, the Nez Perce simply stayed higher up in the mountains. I’d like to have seen the look on the fort commander’s face when her realized he’d been punked.

In 2022 I stopped to check out the remnants of the Sante Fe trail near Cimarron, Kansas. Many hundreds of miles later my route intersected with the Oregon and Mormon Trails where they coincide at Split Rock, Wyoming. Riding is hard but I can’t begin to imagine hoofing it across these plains.

In Wyoming, we came upon the gravesite of Sacagawea, the famous guide for the Lewis and Clark expedition, on the Wind River reservation. The gravesite itself wasn’t nearly as interesting as the rest of the still operational graveyard. As we moved west we encountered the ghosts of the Lewis and Clark expedition time and again, ultimately reaching their winter encampment at Fort Clatsop near Astoria, Oregon.

Yet another oddity encountered on my tour was the Supermax Prison near Florence, Colorado. You can see two or three lower security prisons from the road and they are quite massive, but the Supermax is out of view. In it, are the baddest of the bad. (The county includes a total of ten prisons which is a pretty creepy statistic.)

David Goodrich took a different approach to bicycling through history. He intentionally rode three sections of the underground railroad. I had seen roadside signs describing where Frederick Bailey – who would become Frederick Douglass once he escaped enslavement – and Harriet Tubman on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Goodrich rode Tubman’s route through Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York to her ultimate destination of St. Catherines, Ontario in slavery-free, British-controlled Canada. Amazingly, she passed through and stayed at a safe house in Albany, New York where I grew up. I had absolutely no idea that the underground railroad came through Albany. This may be because Albany was about as racially segregated a place as you could find in the north. Redlining will do that.

Goodrich’s travels also took him places in Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio. In Mississippi he toured Civil War sites and checked out the early locations where delta blues music took root and flourished. His account of these travels is contained in his new book, On Freedom Road. It’s wonderfully written and informative. After I finished reading it, I immediately ordered his two two other books about the intersection of his bicycle touring and climate change.

I met the author at a book signing event at Bards Alley bookshop in Vienna, Virginia. My thanks to the good folks at Bike at Vienna for bringing it to my attention.

No Pain, Big Gain

My last post I described how I swapped handlebars on Little Nellie in an attempt to make the bike useable again. When I bought the bike in 2007, I ordered tit with drop bars. because that’s what I had on my other bike, The Mule. Despite having ridden Little Nellie well over 22,000 miles with drop bars, the bike never felt right, even after buying a shorter stem and changing brake levers. Worse, in recent years the impact shock from the bike’s little wheels and single beam frame made it increasingly painful to ride. I figured that maybe the problem with the drop bars was that they were causing me to reach too far, extending my lower back, and leaving it vulnerable to road and trail imperfections.

I had H-bars installed. H-bars are essentially straight, horizontal handlebars with a short vertical bar welded to either end. They allow me to have two hand positions – either on the horizontal bar or on the risers on the vertical part of the bar – and keep me from overextending my lower back while riding.

Little Nellie's New Look
Little Nellie with H-bars

I really thought this new handlebar idea was a long shot. If it didn’t work, I’d sell or donate the bike. I felt pretty foolish spending over $400 on the conversion (plus some while-were-at-it other work including a new front wheel). I expected the H-bar to be a minor improvement at best, allowing me, if successful, to use the bike for running short errands.

When I picked the bike up on Saturday, I did a 15-mile test ride. It went well, but the real proof of the pudding would come in longer, repeated riding. I woke up Sunday with no lower back problems. In fact, to my surprise my lower back actually felt better than the day before.

This week I rode the bike three days in a row, for 30, 31, and 32 miles. The last time I rode this bike more than 100 miles in a week’s time was in November 2019. In fact, I rode it less in all of 2022 than I did the last five days.

The only time I’ve felt discomfort while riding was when I hit a bump awkwardly during today’s ride. Otherwise, the riding has been fun and pain free. When I got off the bike, Monday and yesterday, my back was a bit stiff. This may have more to do with lifting a heavy box on Monday and doing maintenance on my ungainly gas-powered lawn mower yesterday. The stiffness went away once I sat down for a few minutes, which suggests that it was just my spinal stenosis acting up.

As before, I found that riding my Bike Friday is a bit more tiring than a conventional bike like The Mule. That said, I feel like I could peel off a 40- or 50-mile ride in reasonable comfort. That’s easily enough to do errands.

I think part of the difference in comfort is the width of the H-bar. Having my hands out a bit more to the side allows the bar to flex a tiny bit when I hit bumps. My butt is also a little further back on my saddle where it can benefit from the saddle’s suspension springs.

I plan to experiment a bit with fine tuning my saddle position, moving the saddle up and/or back a couple of millimeters (it makes a surprising difference.)

I am declaring the transformation a success.

While out tooling around today, Little Nellie decided to celebrate by turning 23.

Little Nellie turns 23 #bikefriday #newworldtourist #odometer

If you are considering buying a Bike Friday, I highly recommend getting H-bars.

Old Bike, New Look

Little Nellie is my Bike Friday New World Tourist folding travel bike. I bought it in 2007 and have ridden it over 20,000 miles. It was custom made to mimic the dimensions of The Mule, my full-sized Specialized Sequoia touring bike.

Little Nellie’s wee wheels make it a blast to ride. It darts about on the road and accelerates fast. Those wee wheels have a downside: they transmit road shock like nobody’s business. My aging and decrepit lower back had become increasingly unhappy with this feature.

I knew I had to make changes from the very start. I ordered a fit stem from Green Gear, Bike Friday’s company. This was an ugly stem that could be adjusted in various ways. Once I was satisfied with a particular configuration, I sent it back to Green Gear and they made me a proper stem to mimic the fit stem’s settings.

The new stem helped some with my back problems. As time passed, my back complained anew. I tried new brake levers, hoping to compensate for the long curved horns of the drop handlebars. Again this helped a bit, but the back pain came back yet again.

As I do day rides around my neck of the woods, I frequently see a man with gray hair riding a green Bike Friday. He seems quite comfy. I noticed that, unlike Little Nellie, his bike has straight bars. Bike Friday sells handlebars that have an interesting feature; they are split in the middle. This allows easy packing when travelling.

This got me to cogitating. It seems I had three choices. (1) Keep riding Little Nellie as is and incur increasing levels of back pain. (2) Sell it. (3) Swap out my handlebars for flat bars and use the bike more as a utility bike.

So I decided that, at the risk of throwing good money after bad, I’d go for what was behind door number (3). I also decided that I would pay a bit more for split handlebars.

I drove to Mount Airy, Cycles in Maryland some 50 miles from home and looked at an array about eight different flat bars with the split feature. I decided on a pair of Bike Friday H-bars. These handlebars have a flat section but also have risers on each end. this provides more places to put your hands, thereby avoiding fatigue in the hands, arms, and shoulders. the bottom of the risers extend beyond the flat part of the handlebar. This would allow me to use my bar end shifters, saving some money on the conversion.

The Mule came with narrow handlebars. After many years, I realized that wider handlebars would give me more control, add to my comfort level, and open up my chest for easier breathing. When selecting the new bars for Little Nellie, I chose the widest ones with the H-bar design.

On the way home I dropped Little Nellie off at Bikes at Vienna, a bike shop that specializes in bikes of unusual design, such as folding bikes, recumbents bikes and trikes, and such. Over the course of the last few weeks they worked on the bike. It turned out that my front rim was toast so a new one had to be ordered, which delayed things a bit.

Today, I went to pick up the new Little Nellie. I must say the mechanics did a darned nice job. I immediately took off for a test ride on the Washington and Old Dominion Trail. The wider bars combined with the small wheels made the bike even twitchier than before. Also, I found my hands gravitating to the riser portion of the bars. As I came upon some people on the trail, I reflexively reached for the brakes. Uh Oh! The new handlebars had brake levers on the flat portion, not the brake hoods as I was used to.

No worries. I managed not to take out any trail users. This ain’t my first rodeo, you know.

There are other subtle features that will take getting used to. The shifters can sometimes make rather unpleasant contact with my knees. My handlebar back doesn’t fit anymore so I’ll have to switch to a fanny pack. And my bell was on the right side instead of the left. I whiffed on the bell a few times. (I switched it over to the left side when I got home.) I will have to be careful loading the bike into the trunk of my car because the wider bars can make contact with the underside of the trunk lid. Finally, I have to find a good place to put my mirror. (It was left loose probably knowing I’d be fiddling with it.) These are all quibbles though.

The good news is that the new configuration is definitely more comfortable. The bar tape is fake (I think) cork which feels soft. The brakes – once I found them – gave me plenty of stopping power. And I rode up and down hills like I was on a big boy’s bike. The new front wheel rode like butter.

In the weeks ahead I’ll take Little Nellie out for longer rides to see how my back better tolerates repeated use.

New Bag Rear
Little Nellie’s original cockpit. Note the mirror is missing. I was mounted on the left side just above the shifter.
Little Nellie's New Look
Little Nellie with H-bars.

Winter (?) Work

It’s been a snowless winter so far here in the DC area. Temperatures have been warm-ish, with only a couple of days below freezing. I’ve been riding nearly every day which means that my legs think it’s April. My bikes are another story.

I have four bikes and every year I use the winter to get them fixed up. Bike shops are generally not as busy this time of year. Of course, if I had a shred of mechanical skill, I’d do the work myself but as Dirty Harry once said: a man’s got to know his limitations. Or, in other words, my best repair tool is my credit card.

I am fixing my bikes in the following order: Little Nellie, The Mule, the Crosscheck, and, maybe, Big Nellie.

Little Nellie is getting a makeover. The bike is in pretty good shape but I have never liked its drop handlebars. As I get older, I find that riding Little Nellie is really hard on my lower back. A contributing factor might be the long reach to the brake hoods. In any case, it has never felt comfortable, even after getting a shorter stem. Nearly every day I see a man of a certain age buzzing about on his Bike Friday. He has flat handlebars and seems to be quite comfortable. So, I decided to swap my drop bars for handlebars. I could have bought some run of the mill flat bars from a local bike shop but, unlike Bike Friday bars, they are not split in the middle for easy packing. I frequently stuff the bike in the trunk of my car and a single-piece straight bar might not work. Moreover, the bike is designed to be disassembled and put into a suitcase so having split bars would make this much easier.

I contacted Bike Friday to buy a set of handlebars from them but amazingly they blew me off. Their web site no longer has a shopping page. Since they are still selling bikes, they obviously must have bike parts but they wouldn’t sell me a handlebar. I got online and found a bike shop in the DC area that sells Bike Friday tandems so I called them. They had several split bars that I could check out. I drove about 50 miles and compared about six or seven bars. I originally had planned to use straight bars but the shop had set of H-bars, straight bars with vertical end bars. I bought them then brought the bike to Bikes at Vienna for the work.

After a few days, Daniel the mechanic at B@V called me to tell me that I need a new front wheel. The rim is original and has almost 23,000 miles on it so I am not surprised. Between the cost of the bar, the new wheel, new brake levers, cables, housings, and such the total cost of the conversion is about triple what I had planned on. I hope it works. It should be ready sometime this week.

When I pick up Little Nellie, I’ll drop off The Mule. The Mule needs a whole lot of work. The bar tape is shot. The front brake has a skipping action which I suspect means the wheel needs to be trued. I had some problems adjusting the tension on the rear break and may need to replace it. A few months ago I destroyed both fenders and will need new ones. I’ll probably replace the chain and cassette too. They still have some life left in them but changing them now means I won’t have to change them again until after the summer. Finally, the front derailer gave me trouble last summer. It may just be the nature of using aftermarket chainrings that have no ramps (which guide the chain during shifting) combined with shifting under stress. Anyway, it’s worth checking.

Once that is done, the CrossCheck goes in for service. Because I don’t tour on it, it gets a lot less stress than The Mule. Still it needs new wear items: bar tape, chain, and cassette. Maybe brake pads. It has a weird front rim that has a notch between the braking surface and the part that the spokes connect to. That notch eats brake pads. I’ll probably live with the rim since brake pads are cheaper than rims.

Big Nellie is down in the basement on the resistance trainer. It’s in pretty good shape. The shifting is a little sloppy but I can live with it as is. I’ll evaluate it once the weather gets warmer and I can take it for a long ride outdoors.

While all this work is being done my thoughts are turning to a summer tour. Stay tuned.

Comments on Improving the Mount Vernon Trail and the George Washington Memorial Parkway

The George Washington Memorial Parkway, despite its name, includes many other facilities besides the roadway. This component of the National Park System is a hodgepodge of disparate things that were thrown together years ago. One of these facilities is the Mount Vernon Trail. Plans are underway to rebuild the Parkway and Trail. Parkway construction upriver from Washington has already begun. The Park Service is taking comments from the public as part of the project’s required environmental assessment (EA). I took the opportunity to provide some. (I subsequently made one more comment that I neglected to save.) A few comments relate to the roadway, most discuss opportunities to improve the trail.

As the comments show, I am not a big fan of the GWMP administration. It’s nothing personal. Like the rest of the National Park System, the GWMP is grossly underfunded and has been for at least a couple of decades. Cutting taxes has its consequences. The problem which I will discuss in a future post go well beyond funding.

I am a 39 year resident of Northern Virginia and a 33 year resident of Mount Vernon. I have logged tens of thousands of miles on the Mount Vernon Trail on my bike. Years ago I also used the trail for running. Before retiring in 2017., I commuted by bike year round from roughly mile 5 to DC and Rosslyn. I am a long time member of the Washington Area Bicyclists Association and the Adventure Cycling Association.

The trail is subject to flooding in the Dyke Marsh area, about 1 mile south of Alexandria. In the area immediately north of the long wooden bridge, the depth of the water already approaches one foot (it came over the top of my hiking boots while I was riding through it on the way to work one morning). You may want to refer to the re-routing of the trail north of Slaters Lane about 25 years ago. Any trail improvements must include raising the trail. At today’s water levels, a few inches is insufficient in Dyke Marsh and many other areas. Future water levels will surely be higher and the trail redesign should take this into account. In addition to the Dyke Marsh area the trail should be raised wherever the trail is in close proximity to the river as it is in spots south of Fort Hunt Park,  in the Daingerfield Island area, on the northbound approach to the Memorial Bridge, and between the Memorial and TR bridges.

The trail needs proper drainage. Especially in the area north of Northdown Road. The trail in this area is subject to stretches of black ice in winter. In the short term this area would benefit from signage that warns users of icy conditions on the trail. (The current signage only refers to bridges.)

The trail needs to be level, except where curves in the trail require otherwise.  In many places the trail is canted toward the river, presumably to provide drainage. The slant in the trail causes inexperienced riders to veer off the trail and is particularly hard on runners’ knees.

The 2020 NPS report on the trail did not properly consider trail use during non-daylight hours. There are numerous areas where southbound nighttime riders are blinded by the headlights of northbound vehicles on the Parkway including along the pinch spot near the auxiliary runway at DCA, at the oxbow at Daingerfield Island, and at the southern most point of the Four Mile Run bridge. I have nearly hit other trail users because of this and have witnessed collisions. This is a BIG problem for commuters. In the short term, inexpensive remedies such as snow fences or other barriers such as bushes should be installed.

The trail surface needs to be treated in winter. Just like the Parkway. Trail users can’t safely commute on ice and snow anymore than drivers can.

Light use of the trail in Fairfax County is not a reason to delay the renovation of the trail. Light use is a consequence of neglected maintenance and the shoddy condition of the trail. 

The trail is part of several long distance bicycle touring routes.There is no viable alternative to the Mount Vernon Trail for north-south bicycle tourists in the DC area. Bike tourists (and others) have complained to me that the condition of the trail is so bad that they asked me for alternatives. One southbound tourist I talked with was even considering riding south on US1 in Fairfax County.The extensive damage to the trail south of the Beltway constitutes an unsafe condition for park visitors and needs immediate attention. I have advised Adventure Cycling of the trail conditions so they may warn their members.

Most of the bridges on the trail are made of wood. Other surfaces need to be considered. A particular shortcoming is the fact that the wooden bridges cannot support emergency vehicles or maintenance vehicles such as those used to plow snow or spread surface treatments in winter. To avoid damage to a wooden bridge. I once guided an ambulance carrying a crash victim in reverse about 1/4 mile up the trail to Northdown Road. At a minimum the Park Service should establish access points for emergency responders so that this doesn’t happen.

The trail now functions (if it didn’t already in the past) as a fifth lane of the GW Parkway and should be maintained, operated, and funded as such in the future. When the Parkway incurs damage that is dangerous to motorists, the damage is repaired and removed promptly. This hasn’t been the case with the trail for many years. Contracts for trail storm damage remediation should be in place year round. For example, there is extensive trail damage between Alexandria Ave and Tulane Drive. A massive root ball and  tree trunk have obstructed the trail since late 2020 (or earlier). The damage worsened after a January 2022 storm. obstructing the trail. One half of the trail is obstructed. (Would you allow a lane on the Parkway to be in this condition for this long? Bridge 19 was damaged by a fallen tree in January 2022. It is missing a section of railing and two other sections of railing were damaged. The Park Service should at least install some yellow safety tape to alert trail users of the hazard.) And there is extensive washboard from root heaves and potholes from one end of the trail to the other. 

Over a decade ago the Park Service considered building a bypass at Gravelly Point. For visitor safety, the bypass obviously is needed and should be built as part of this project. The airplane viewing area is one of the busiest parts of the trail and a permanent restroom facility is needed here. Porta potties are inconsistent with the aesthetics of the GWMP. 

Much of the routine maintenance of the trail is now performed by volunteers, many of whom are affiliated with The Friends of the Mount Vernon Trail. For all their hard work, the Friends provide only one full time equivalent worker each year to trail maintenance. The Park Service doesn’t even fund their equipment. This is not nearly enough. Much of the work they do used to be performed by park employees and landscape contractors. Unlike DC, we have no Trail Rangers on this side of the river. In the short term the Park Service should amend its landscape contracts to require edging of the trail. (The contractors currently do this on the loop road in Fort Hunt Park.)

Recent re-striping of the Parkway between Tulane Drive and Morningside Lane runs along the right side of the roadway. In the area leading up to Morningside, this section of the road floods on a regular basis. In winter this often turns into thick ice. The striping should be moved to the left lane (as it is at Alexandria Avenue) for safety.

Turning north onto the Parkway at Morningside Lane is inherently dangerous. Absent installing a traffic light, I recommend eliminating this turn.

The situation at Belle Haven Road and Belle View Boulevard cries out for much more than some paint, stop signs, and flexposts. Unless legislation specifically prohibits them, traffic lights should be installed. Absent that, traffic circles of the type used on nearby Oxon Hill Road south of the outlet mall should be considered. 

At-grade crossings for bicyclists and pedestrians are not likely to succeed. Build a bike/ped overpass that connects to the trail. Even an at-grade crossing should have a paved connection to the trail. And flashing lights that are passively activated such as at the northbound Parkway approach to the Memorial Bridge should be included in the design.

The entrances to the trail at Daingerfield Island and Belle Haven Marina merit stop signs for motorists. Trail users’ safety should take precedence over motorists’ convenience. (I was hit by a car on the trail at Porto Vecchio condominium a few years ago. After I presented testimony at a city meeting, the city changed the signage and traffic light sequence.) 

Oxbows such as the one at the old Bridge 12 location near Fort Hunt Park are inherently dangerous. The similar trail configuration at Bridge 1 should be removed as part of the rebuilt trail. I crashed there and my injuries resulted in a visit to the Mount Vernon Hospital emergency room. My bicycle was ruined. This bridge and the approach from Mount Vernon replaced an even more dangerous original design. Clearly, half measures are not enough to ensure public safety. Another oxbow exists at Daingerfield Island. This one does not involve a bridge but I have witnessed far too many crashes and near misses as south-bound bicyclists come downhill into a sharp curve. A simple solution is to make the approaches gradual. This would also bypass the area of flooding immediately south of the oxbow.

In general, changes to the road and trail that improve visitor safety are in the public interest and should be given precedence over aesthetics. 

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this project. Feel free to contact me for clarification of any of these points.

Butt My Face

I’ve finally come to the end of 2022’s medical merry-go-round. A few days ago I received the report about my colonoscopy. I had one polyp biopsied. It was pre-cancerous which is no big deal but it does mean that I get to have another colonoscopy in three years. That’s about what I expected.

Today I went back to the dermatologist. He froze five more lesions from my face. That’s 16 fewer than last time. At this pace he’ll be putting them back on in a few months. Basically, the lesions are regarded as precancerous so they have to go. He prescribed some hydrocortisone cream that he expects will help clear up my skin. I’m supposed to use it until my skin improves. Since I really don’t know what that looks like, I intend to use it for a while then stop. (Prolonged use is not recommended.) Then I’ll go back to see him in 2024.

I think that my entire body is precancerous. Maybe I should rename this blog A Few Lesions Shy of a Tumor.

Humor beats tumor.

Now it’s time to inflict the medical merry-go-round on my bikes. First up is The Mule. Touring is hard on a bike, Although it rides wonderfully, The Mule needs quite a lot of work. I’ve pretty much destroyed the bar tape, fenders, chain, and cassette. The front rim, rear mini-v-brake, and brake pads need looking at. The wheels need to be trued. Hopefully nothing is cancerous.

Once The Mule is back in the stable, I’ll take the CrossCheck in for its annual maintenance. Same deal: chain, cassette, and bar tape. The front brake cable seems to be catching when I apply the brakes. Everything else works fine. My only complaint is the weird notch in the front rim. It tends to catch brake pads. I’ll probably live with it until I wear it out.

Big Nellie gets less use and has 2 1/2 chains so the chains and cassette tend to last longer. I’ll take a closer look at this bike in March when I bring it out of the basement.

Viewing in 2022

January

The Rescue

The Tender Bar

Eternals

Encanto

February

Jim Allison, Breakthrough

The Book of Boba Fett

March

Le Vent du Nord (Live concert)

April

Not a thing

May

Ditto

June

Ditto

July

The Bucket List

The Fundamentals of Caring

A bunch of Top Gear episodes

August

Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness

Obi Wan Kenobi

September

Thor – Love and Thunder

Ms. Marvel

She Hulk

October

Andor

Anxious People

November

The Crown

December

Call Me by Your Name

Glass Onion

If These Walls Could Sing

The Snowman

The Banshees of Inisherin

Bullet Train

Georgetown

With the notable exception of Andor and maybe Obi Wan Kenobi, I would like to have all the time I spent watching Marvel and Star Wars films and series back. The Rescue and Jim Allison, Breakthrough were great documentaries. If These Walls Could Sing wasn’t a bad one either. Anxious People, a miniseries from Fredrick Bachman, took a while to get going but was worth it in the end. Encanto is fun but we don’t talk about Bruno. Bullet Train was a pleasant, goofy, gory surprise. The Banshees of Inisherin was entertaining, if dour. The new season of The Crown was a disappointment.