I took The Mule to Bikes at Vienna for some TLC in late July. Among other repairs, the bike came back with new tires, a new chain, and a new cassette. The tires are 700 x 35 Schwalbe Marathons. They are not as flat resistant as the touring tires I normally use, but they roll much easier. My cassette has a tweak too. The big cog is now two teeth bigger, affording me a better climbing gear. It works well with the derailleur.

I took the bike out for a test ride on the W&OD Trail, starting in Vienna and ending in Purcellville some 33 miles away. I deliberately came to a stop at the bottom of a short, steep climb to test the new low gear. Thumbs up!

When I picked up The Mule, I dropped off The Tank, my Surly CrossCheck. The Tank and my back and neck were getting along fine until the saddle bolt snapped last week. I try to position the saddle the same on both bikes in terms of three dimensions: height, for/aft position, and tilt. I think I messed something up during the saddle repair. My last few rides made my back and neck grumpy. Once I get it back from the shop, I’ll get out the tape measure and replicate the saddle dimensions on The Mule.

The 66-mile jaunt came the day after a two-fer. I rode 30 miles on The Tank then mowed the lawn. The weather cooperated nicely but my back was not particularly happy about the mowing. Idiot that I am I did a second two-fer last Friday. I rode 30 miles round trip to Friday Coffee Club in DC on Little Nellie, my wee wheeled Bike Friday. Then I dealt with the remains of a stump that we had a tree service grind up.

The tree died from heat stress and carpenter ants. The stump grinders did a good job, but the pile of mulch mixed with dirt was quite big. In order to use that area of the yard, I had to remove the mess. It took me over three hours to dig it all up and move it to an inconspicuous place in the back yard. By the time I was done, I was bent over at a 45 degree angle. Over the next couple of days my hamstrings tightened. Owie.

Next week I go to Connecticut to help my daughter move. I think I’ll abstain from riding a bike that day, just sayin’.

Speaking of Friday Coffee Club, we were greeted by a very welcome surprise. Felkerino, co-founder of our weekly confab, arrived by bike. It was his first time riding since he was clobbered by a hit-and-run pick up driver more than eight months ago. We gave him a well-deserved round of applause.

During the last heat wave I discovered to my utter frustration that a couple of water fountains on the Mount Vernon Trail were turned off. Last week I rode by the fountain nearest my house and found a brand new water fountain with a built in bottle filler and doggy dish.

Of course, there is never good news without bad news on the trail. During a big storm last week a tree toppled straight across the brand new bridge over Dyke Marsh. Fortunately the decking survived but the side rails were pretty much vaporized.

Oh, and this happened.

Today the heat returned because it’s August, it’s DC, and the planet is melting. So I went for a 63-mile ride.

I drank enough to make my tummy slosh. I stopped for a real lunch. I did all the right things but with 10 miles to go I was gassed.

I stopped at a trailside water fountain, filled a water bottle, and dumped its contents on my head. Twice.

The ride was an out and back affair, mostly on trails. Home to Potomac Yard to Georgetown to Bethesda to Rock Creek Park to Garrett Park Road. Then I turned around and rode through the shade in Rock Creek Park to the Lincoln Memorial, crossed the Potomac, and took the Mount Vernon Trail home.

On the C&O I spotted a great blue heron and a downy egret. I took a picture of the latter. I think he was smiling for me.

On the way back near Kensington, Maryland I spotted a very cool carving of a tall tree stump.

Other than melting the ride home was uneventful until my saddle went bung.

I had been noticing some side to side play in my saddle over the past week. I tightened the seat post but that didn’t fix things. Then I tightened the leather on the saddle no change.

About eight miles from home I heard a POP and my saddle and its fixing hardware went off the back. As it turns out there is a single bolt that holds the saddle to the bike and allows for/aft adjustments and tilting adjustments. The bolt broke from metal fatigue. (You carry my butt for 30,000 miles and you’ll break too.)

I gathered all the parts and put my saddle in my pannier. I managed to ride the bike while sitting on the trunk bag on top of my rear rack. I was all stretched out and moving rather slowly but I managed to ride it to Big Wheel Bikes in Old Town.

Diego and his father (the shop owner, I think) helped me out. Dad is redesigning the shop. In the process he had just donated a bunch of random spare parts to a local bike co-op. Among the parts was mostly likely the bolt I needed. He managed to find an old saddle with a bolt that worked and we had my bike back on the road in no time.

This is the kind of bizarro mechanical failure that typically occurs in try the middle of nowhere on a solo bike tour. I’m lucky my bolt broke when it did.

Time to return to drinking all the liquids in the house. Is Guinness an electrolyte replacement drink?

We suffered through three heat waves here in the mid-Atlantic. Thank you, Willis Carrier for your clever invention.

Our home has been infiltrated by some tiny black flying bugs. They are numerous and annoying. Worse, though, are the two palmetto bugs we’ve had to slay. They look like enormous cockroaches. They crawl up the drywall. When you dislodge them the fly awkwardly for a few feet before crashing to the floor. Ayy! Very dramatic. Fortunately they have proven easy to kill. They don’t seem to be propagating, knock wood.

Watching

The Acolyte – This miniseries is the latest installment of the Star Wars franchise. Had it not been for the fact that my sister-in-law designed the costumes, I might have stopped watching after the first episode. The costumes were impressive. Alas, the show didn’t do a thing for me.

Sherlock – Who could resist Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Holmes and Watson. This series (14 episodes, I think) is, but for one episode, set in modern London. Andrew Scott plays Moriarty like a cross between the Joker and Hannibal Lecter. What a contrast with his “Hot Priest’ in Fleabag. The series is uneven. Just as it starts to get formulaic after a few episodes, the stories become somewhat surreal.

Sports

Baseball – I attended one game amid the heat wave and had a most uncomfortable time sitting in the sun. I watched several games on TV but frankly this team is reverting to 2023 form. The Nats showed great promise a month ago but have succumbed to the grind of the long season, exposing their lack of depth and experience. They began to trade away good players to further stock their minor league system.

Olympics – We watched Olympics every night. The announcers suck. And, frankly, I don’t much care what happens except for Katie Ledecky and Simone Biles.

Reading

Table for Two by Amor Towles. I do more riding and napping than reading these days. Of course, you can’t go wrong with Amor Towles. His latest is a series of entertaining short stories and a novella. The latter is a note-perfect noir tale of blackmail in Hollywood in the 1930s.

Riding

My bike tour fiasco and the heat waves have undercut my biking mojo. I spent quite a few days riding Big Nellie, my recumbent, only to find that it exacerbated the nerve pain from my spinal stenosis. Still I managed to break the 51,000 mile threshold. Before going bent, I rode The Mule past the 76,000 mile mark. Last week I took it to the shop for some overdue TLC. They are going to put a different cassette on it that will make hills less challenging.

I tweaked the saddle positions on The Mule and The Tank. With The Mule under the knife, I rode the Tank for several days in a row expecting it to wreck my neck. Somehow the tweaks seemed to have lessened the neck issue. In the last week of the month, I rode The Tank, 40, 40, 81, 30, 50, and 38 miles on consecutive days. And to think I was on the verge of selling this bike.

The riding surge on The Tank combined with a botched blood donation (they could only get 1/5th of a bag out of me), boosted my miles for the month to 1000.5 miles.

I finished July at 5,991.5 miles, my lowest mileage at this time of year since 2021 at the end of the pandemic.

Unless I change my mind I’ve decided not to do the Natchez Trace this October. Way too much driving. I have a wedding in Massachusetts the weekend before. I’d have to drive about 20 hours there and back, then drive over 10 to Nashville a couple of days later, then ride to 10 hours to Natchez. Maybe next year.

The third heat wave finally ended and was followed by a day of heavy rain. Me, being a bear of little brain, did a 36-mile ride on The Tank. For about 20 miles I was dry. For the rest, not so much. The rain, as it often does, caused a stinging sensation in my eyes. So there I was pedaling along without being able to see in a driving rain. I survived. It was actually pretty comfortable in a t-shirt and shorts.

Today, I took Big Nellie out for its final ride in a while. The whole point of riding a recumbent, at least for most people, is to avoid pain in the neck and back. Alas, my stupid spinal stenosis makes riding Big Nellie somewhat uncomfortable. When I get off, my lower back aches. Life isn’t fair. I’m old. Yeah, well. Just for the heck of it, I installed my underseat rack. I don’t know if I will ever use it.

After my bike tour, I used some REI gear tape to cover the holes in my panniers. About half the repairs failed.

I must say that Big Nellie has been getting a ton of attention from bystanders recently. Ten years ago, before the days of e-bikes and scooters, recumbents were more common. Not anymore. So I get a lot of “Cool bike!” remarks as I spin my way through the local streets.

Oddly, a few days ago, I was riding Big Nellie about a mile and a half from home when someone yelled. “Hi, John.” I learned long ago to ignore anyone who calls my name out in a public space. John is such a common name that “Hey John” is nearly synonymous with “Hey you.”

Uncharacteristically, I did a u-turn to find out who called my name. It was a 30-something young man walking a dog to the front door of a house. He was wearing camo shorts and a short sleeved shirt that showed off a big tattoo on the upper half of his left arm. He had close cropped dark brown hair with a similarly close cropped mustache and beard. I didn’t recognize him so I asked, “Do I know you?” He responded, “I see you riding your bike all the time.” Not really an answer. How did he know my name? I asked him his name. “Art.”

I don’t know anyone named Art. I didn’t recognize him. I know I have my problems with name/face recognition, but this encounter was unsettling. I bid him good day and pedaled off. File this encounter under “Gives me the creeps.”

My fall riding schedule is starting to come together. I have signed up for my 16th 50 States Ride. The posse count is already up to nine or ten people with Chris, Michael, Kevin, Sara, Domitille, and, perhaps, Timothee in the fold. A few rookies are also coming. What fools these mortals be.

I am considering signing up for an Adventure Cycling van supported ride on the Natchez Trace in October. The price (over $3,300) and the camping-only aspect are off-putting, so I am hemming and hawing.

Meanwhile my bikes, The Mule and Little Nellie, are in need of some TLC. Big Nellie seems to be bullet proof. It has a chain that will not die. I am still on the fence about what to do with The Tank. Sell it? Re-configure it as a flat-handlebar bike?

I entered three bike giveaways this year. I lost all three. Scar was right. Life’s not fair, is it?

We are a couple of days into our third heat wave of the summer. It was 100 degrees or thereabouts today. Tomorrow will be, in the words (or letters) of 1970s and 1980s Boston weatherman Dick Albert, MOTS – more of the same.

It’s been so hot that everything has stopped growing. An old maple tree in our front yard has even jumped its mortal coil. Yesterday I mowed the lawn for the first time in over four weeks. This hasn’t happened in the 35 years we have lived here. Of course, it was brutally hot and humid; for the first half hour or so my heart rate was at a gallop even though I was moving very slowly. I took some breaks and drank some water and my heart rate came down from field mouse to sedentary suburban human. By the time I finished the task, my clothes were soaked in sweat. I could have gotten away with a few more days without mowing but I didn’t want to use up a lovely 90-degree day later in the week doing yard work.

Today, I took Big Nellie for a spin. I decided to stay near home and did my perimeter ride. The route takes me on suburban streets in a big circle, staying off the Mount Vernon Trail and never crossing US 1, the highway border to the west. Big Nellie dashed from the shade of one tree to the next for 33 miles. I intended to ride 40 but I ran out of water. I had planned on re-filling my water bottles at a fountain on the Mount Vernon Trail but our crackerjack National Park Service turned off the fountain. They even capped the doggy spigot. Monsters!

Like any sane person, I mostly have been staying indoors. I finished reading Amor Towles’s latest, Table for Two. It’s a collection of his short stories combined with a noir-ish novella. As with all his books, I liked it so much I was tempted to re-read it. Instead I went out and acquired a copy of Erik Larson’s The Demon of Unrest, which is about Charleston SC at the start of the Civil War. I’d be 100 pages into the book if not for watching way too much television.

My wife and I are dutifully watching the latest Star Wars mini-series, The Acolyte, a who-done-it. It’s better than some of the other Star Wars series (e. g., The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Ahsoka) but not in the same league as the two Andor series. (Disclosure: my sister-in-law did the costume design for The Acolyte. The costumes are better than the plot.)

My daughter alerted us to the fact that the British series Sherlock is now streaming on Hulu. Benedict Cumberbatch plays the lead in a manner that recalls an Asperger-afflicted Mr. Spock on speed. Dr. Watson is played by Martin Freeman. (Bilbo Baggins to you Hobbit fans.) He’s nowhere near as bumbling as Nigel Bruce’s Watson. He steals many scenes with his reactions. The kicker is that Moriarty is played by Andrew Scott, who is wonderfully evil and utterly different from his Fleabag roll of the Hot Priest. (If you haven’t seen Fleabag, shame on you.)

Of course, I am also keeping track of my Washington Nationals. I went to one game a couple of weeks ago. The temperature in the stands was in the high 90s. Ugh. I have decided to wait a few weeks before returning to Half Street. Otherwise, I’ve been watching them on TV and, after signs of surprising competence, they have regressed to the mean, I’m afraid. They are a far cry from the glory days of Soto, Scherzer, Strasburg, Rendon, Turner and the rest. Fortunately, they appear to be loaded with young talent, which should start to pay dividends in the next few years. When I get bored, I check out the Orioles who are loaded with young talent and about three years ahead of Washington in their re-build.

I’ve also been poking around the interwebs for bike and music content. My two go-tos for bike touring how-tos are Bike Touring Mike and Sheelagh Daly on You Tube. For more adventurous content, you can check out Ryan van Duser. And for info about riding in the DC area and other bikey things, check out Rise and Shine Bicycling.

For music info, I’ve been watching Rick Beato and The Guitar Trooper for a while. Recently, I discovered Fathom. Beato’s lists are entertaining. (Best rock drum solos, Best bass guitar riff, etc., Best piano intro, and so forth), Fathom analyses songs, making interesting observations (And Your Bird Can Sing has guitar chord progressions that mimic a Mozart piano concerto, Who knew?) about the choices that artists make. The Guitar Trooper provides lists of trivia about songs. All three tend to focus a bit on The Beatles but they get into other bands as well. Beato apparently works with grunge and metal bands, as he seems to get off on guitar solos.

Tomorrow promises to be 102 degrees. I plan on riding. I’ll bring extra water.

Welcome to Hades

The last few days have had a heat index well over 100 degrees in the DC area. It’s brutal outside. I recall the feeling of getting in a shower when I was in college. We forgot to pay the heating bill as college students often do. It was February in Boston. The cold water took my breath away. I had a similar experience when I walked out of my air conditioned house to get the newspaper this morning. The heat and humidity felt like someone had shoved me in the chest. Oof.

I’ve often thought that DC has reverse winter. Growing up in the northeastern US, I was used to that one week period in late January or early February with wind chills well below zero. You could tell how cold it was by feeling the inside of your nose freeze. You just had to give up and stay indoors. (My brother Joe and I got cabin fever one time and went for a run on a loop route. About half way along the route, Joe told me not to touch my ears; they were frozen. Unlike Joe, I was running marathons at the time. I took off and ran the last mile in record time, jumped in the car and started the heat. Let’s just say the thawing process was rather painful.)

Of course, this crazy weather hasn’t stopped me from riding. I keep plugging away, averaging just under 40 miles per day this month. Back in May I bought some GU electrolyte fizzie pills for use on the bike. They tasted too sweet but I kept them in the house. I have been using them as an after-ride drink. They do a decent job of keeping leg cramps at night at bay. (I use Nuun tablets for on-bike use. Mark from my 2019 and 2022 tours swears by them. So I gave them a try and quite like them.)

More Little Changes

As I mentioned a few days ago, I raised the saddle on The Mule and found that I had much better power transfer to the pedals. I recently noticed that my new-ish bike touring shoes were giving me sore feet so I switched back to my stiffer mountain bike shoes. My feet are less achy and I get a tad more power transfer from them as well. I have also lost five or ten pounds since the start of my ill-fated bike tour. The combination of these three factors have made for a marked improvement in my riding. I remember the frustration I was having trying to climb hills, even the small ones, all during the tour. I think that if I had made these three changes, I would have faired much better. Less walking at least.

One other thing I neglected to do on my Mo Mo tour was to rest. In retrospect I should have take a day off in Damascus, Elk Garden, or The Breaks. I was gassed when I got to Hazard, KY and didn’t realize it. I guess one of the advantages of riding with other people is the feedback you get. (In 2022, riding with Mark and Corey, we took a day off in Missoula. We had no trouble climbing over the mountains from there to Astoria.)

More on Dogs

I confess to fantasizing about going back to Kentucky, buying some bear spray, and riding through dog alley. Go ahead, Fido, make my day.

My bike-journal reading has turned up some alarming dog attacks. One bike tourist was crossing Louisiana and was attacked by packs of dogs. Twice motor vehicles came by and hit the dogs. Yikes. The same rider reports that the dog problem is just as bad in east Texas.

Another couple of alarming journals describe loose dogs attacking bike tourists along the Great Rivers South route in Kentucky and Tennessee. Knowing what I know now, I’m not touring in the rural south without bear spray. Lots of it.

Finally, I found a recent post on Cycleblaze about a tour in Montana disturbing. The riders were planning on riding along the beautiful Clark Fork River which I rode along side in 2018. Before they got to the main road, the lead rider was attacked by big dogs. One bit her leg and she crashed breaking her collarbone. It never once occurred to me that such a thing could have happened to me in Montana on my cross country ride. I saw one loose dog in 4,300 miles. .

Lotuses and Lilies

On Friday, the 5th, I rode in the heat to Friday Coffee Club in DC. I didn’t expect anybody to be there as the city was all but shut down for a four-day weekend. To my surprise I was joined by Michael, Mike, and Miles. After the confab, I rode across DC to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens which is smack dab on the Anacostia River Trail. Every July, ponds with Lotuses and water lilies bloom. It’s quite a show. I had told a friend who is new to DC that this was a must see event. I think I was about a week early. There were a few blossoms here and there but nothing like next week will bring. My friend won’t be riding there. She tore a rotator cuff. It’s the kind of injury old people and baseball pitchers suffer, not 28-year-old women. Go figure.

Along the way, The Mule passed yet another landmark. I’ll keep riding it until I stretch the chain to hell and have to get a new chain and cassette. Then I’ll let the bike hospital make it as good as new.

The other day I pulled out the measuring tape and the level to see if I could improve the fit on the Tank, my Surly CrossCheck. My baseline for comparison is The Mule, my Specialized Sequoia touring bike that fits me like a glove.

I put the bikes up against a wall on a level surface. I could immediately see that the saddle on the Tank was level while the saddle on The Mule was tilted ever so slightly up. Hmm.

I tilted the saddle on the Tank up to the same degree and did two 30-mile rides. I discovered two things immediately. First, the ride strained my neck. Not as much as a few months ago but enough to make me cautious about riding the Tank on a regular basis. The second thing I noticed was I was getting much more power to the pedals. Not only was the Tank suddenly faster put the power transfer was even better than what I have been getting on The Mule.

I also noticed that the tip of the saddle was slightly higher than my handlebars on the Tank but not on The Mule. On a whim, I raised the saddle a few millimeters on The Mule and went for a ride. The bike was marginally faster. I took it up a bunch of short, steep hills. It was climbing better too. My upper body was more relaxed, something I have been missing since riding out west in 2022. The big revelation happened when I was done riding.

I was standing up straighter with much less lower back discomfort than usual. The onset of pain from walking seemed to be delayed. I guess the lower saddle position was aggravating my lumbar spinal stenosis and I didn’t realize it.

Today I took The Mule for a 43-mile romp in Charles County, Maryland. There are a handful of short hills on the route. Not once did my legs tie up as they did during my recent tour. I am not saying that this new position would help me haul 35 pounds of gear up a mountain but it seems like a step in the right direction.

For my next tweak, I’ll be attaching a flux capacitor. Stay tuned.

Getting Re-aligned

Like it or not, all tours come to an end. Had I been on my original timetable, my 2024 tour would have ended on Saturday so quitting when I did meant a couple more weeks at home than usual. After a tour there are two things that demand immediate attention. The first is rest. Typically, I need a few days of rest or light activity to recover. The second is reconfiguring my bikes and gear. When I go on a tour, my usual distribution of bike stuff (tubes, tire levers, small tools, saddlebags, etc.) gets changed into my four-pannier touring set up. It takes me a few days to get everything back to normal. I also need to update my hard copy riding diary (which I have kept for over 40 years going back to my running days). Just yesterday I finished posting my tour blog posts into a journal on Cycleblaze.com. It’s basically the same content as here on Rootchopper.com with some light editing.

Getting Flat

I was so sick of hills and mountains that I needed to re-level my riding. In addition to rides around home which are generally pretty flat, I drove The Mule over to Talbot County, Maryland on the eastern shore and did a 52-mile ride. We are having a heat wave so I was pretty gassed by the end. Still, the ride restored my mental state from “Do I still have it?” mode to “I may be slow but I’m old.”

I also broke out Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent. It’s a refreshing change of pace from upright bikes. Yesterday I rode it 53 miles up to Bethesda, Maryland and back via Rock Creek Park. When I was done I couldn’t stand up straight. Maybe I ought to ease into things a bit.

Go Nats

When I am on tour I miss out on a big chunk of the baseball season. Nationals Park is a flat, 15-mile ride from home, just the thing to aid recovery. I rode to a game last weekend and will probably go today. The Nats are surprisingly better than crappy this year. Go team! They are missing a couple of thunder bats but otherwise are pretty good and, after a couple of truly dreadful years, competitive.

What’s Next

I don’t think I have another tour in me this summer. Riding my bike is something I enjoy, but the grind of touring, especially before and after the days’ rides, wears me out mentally. I may need to start touring with other people again or do cycling events like Cycle Saskatchewan (I made that up).

I also will need to attend to my bikes. I typically wait until I wear out a chain then I go to a bike shop and surrender my Visa card.

This fall I plan on the usual double header of the 50 States Ride in September and the Cider Ride in November. I have a family event in October, otherwise I’d get the Natchez Trace off my to-do list. It’ll have to wait until 2025 I’m afraid.