I’ve had a head cold for three days. Not a bad one. Just enough to keep me from going out for a long ride or a hike in this great Labor Day weekend weather.

I rode about 20 miles on Saturday. Very gently. Just enough to get my blood flowing. On Sunday, I took the day off from riding and mowed the lawn. Mowing my lawn normally takes about an hour and is easy. Not this time. I was tired afterward.

Today I took the Cross Check out for an easy sping through the neighborhoods in southeastern Fairfax County, mostly in the Mount Vernon Area. I do love riding this bike, especially now that I have put a bigger saddlebag on it.

I managed to avoid any significant hills and just cruised along. As the temperature rose, I felt the warmth like a blanket. I was sorry to end the ride at 30 miles.

Tomorrow I get back to commuting on Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent. I put a new rear wheel on it on Saturday because the old one had a bowed rim that was causing the rear tire to hop annoyingly with each revolution. After putting the new wheel on, the tire still hopped. I looked it over, deflated the tire and then forcibly pushed the out of round part of the tire back into the rim. I think the tire bead got slightly out of round from being seated on the bad rim. Long story short, it now revolves without the hop.

Speaking of hops, it’s Labor Day. I think I’ll have a beer, put my feet up, and finish the laundry that I started a couple of hours ago.

Beer and laundry. Now that is sick.

As the days have gotten hotter, my blog posting has slowed along with my riding speed.

We are in a week of dog days characterized by oppressive heat and humidity. For office workers like me this means that I have a somewhat uncomfortable bike commute. I am mighty glad I am not a roofer or working on a road crew.

This time of year begins the migration of birds south. Downy egrets sprinkle the near side of the river. Cormorants too. Days are getting shorter. I leave work in twilight. It almost makes me want to move to South America. Muy loco. How about Australia? Or New Zealand? Or Thailand? Crazier still.

I’m talking nonsense.

Today, as I rode to work, a sense of calm came over me. Stresses in my life that have been bothering me off and on for months finally fell away. I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than, as the song says, right here, right now.

Tonight, after work, I met up with Sam, the organizer of the Pennsylvania Avenue protest this summer. We had a good talk over a beer in the downtown neighborhood called Penn Quarter.  After about 45 minutes we went our separate ways. Two beers plus heat and humidity made for a tedious ride home.

It may have been tedious getting here but it is home. And there is comfort in that.

In the past my riding would drop in August, because of family commitments. Not this year. I banged out 14 commutes, eight on my Tour Easy recumbent (Big Nellie) and six on my Specialized Sequoia (The Mule), for a total of 438.5 miles. On the weekends and days off I rode an additional 374.5 miles, 60 on my Bike Friday (Little Nellie) and 314.5 on my new Surly Cross Check (No nickname yet).

So my total mileage was 813 miles. I’ll take it.

I threw in two hikes: one along the Potomac River in Arlington Virginia and DC, the other was Old Rag on my birthday.

For the year to date, I’ve ridden to work 113 times for a total of 3,463.5 miles. The Mile was my commuter of choice with 64 rides to and from work. The rest of the commutes were split pretty evenly with Big and Little Nellie. For casual rides, I’ve gone 1,856.5 miles. 856 of those miles were on The Mule. At the current pace, the Cross Check will take first place by the end of November. It loves big miles.

My neck and back so far have not been big fans of the Cross Check. I need to take it back to the bike shop to see if I can tweak my set up. It’ll work out, I am sure. It is a mighty nice bike.

For the year I’ve banged out 5,320 miles or about 665 miles per month. September will be an off month as I will be bikeless for a couple of weeks.

I have spent the last several nights dealing with insomnia. This happens from time to time. I sometimes stress out about things to the point where I just can’t shut down my brain. It happened to me last winter. Now I am obsessing about vacation planning. It’s totally stupid but all the details are running around in my head all day.

The last three days have been primo for bike commuting. The weather couldn’t be better. On Tuesday, I was a bit groggy but enjoyed the ride. Yesterday was groggier still. I struggled and wobbled quite a bit. Today, forgetabout it. I am very reluctantly working from home.

I tried exhausting myself last night. I came home from work and mowed the lawn. I was physically tired. I took a melatonin tablet at 9 and started to fade when Mrs. RC decided it was time to chat. Then the Nats game got interesting. By the time it was over the fade had faded and I was wide awake. Yawning, tossing, turning.

Ugh.

I am hoping tonight is the night the sleep dam breaks.

Tomorrow is the sign up day for the 50 States ride from the Washington Area Bicyclists Association. As far as I am concerned, if you ride in DC and you haven’t done this ride, you are a maroon.

I’ve done this ride seven times: 2007 – 2008, 2010 – 2014. (If you’ve ridden it more, please let me know.) Here are some fun facts you should do know before doing it:

• Sign up immediately. The 500 slots will fill by tomorrow.
• To ride, you need to be a WABA member. It’s a good organization and it costs next to nothing. (Members get discounts at local bike shops. You’ll get some of your money back every time you buy some bike stuff.)
• You will get to see nearly every nook and cranny of DC. It’s an amazingly diverse place. If you do it more than once you will see a city transformed.
• You will get a cue sheet that is 9 pages long. This is a clue that this ride is a different animal.
• You will think that a 60+ mile ride can be done in 4 or 5 hours. You will learn that this is no ordinary 60+ mile ride. Plan on riding all stinkin’ day. It ain’t easy.
• You will have fun, even if you thought the ride was much shorter than it is.
• You will get lost. Probably multiple times. It’s even money that you will miss Texas altogether.
• You will stop at approximately 2,306 red lights. Same for stop signs.This is where you meet people. Even if you are an introvert. It is also where you learn that clipless pedals are overrated.
• You will go to rest stops run where you will also meet people. The rest stops are staffed by incredibly kind volunteers. Hug them. (Okay, maybe not. You’ll be all sweaty.)
• You will see people in the neighborhoods all around the city and they will wave at you and cheer you on.(This is a big change from the early years when they cussed you out for clogging up their streets. I kid you not.) They will tell you where to make that tricky left and right turn on Alabama Avenue SE. They will take your picture, even in the rain. They might even stick a banner on their house with your twitter handle on it.
• Try to remember that you are riding through places where people live. Don’t run them over. Wave. Smile. Say “Hi.” The next time they see a bicyclist while they are driving they might just wave, smile, and say “Hi.” You get what you give.
• You will discover that WABA employs a sadist. You can ride downhill but there is always a stop sign or stop light to steal your roll. All the whil,, the WABA sadist sits in a bar in Adams Morgan drinking an ice cold beer and laughing at you.
• The WABA sadist is also a cartographic and planning genius. How the route avoids conflicts with other events in the city is some kind of miracle.
• You will despise Cathedral Heights and Fort Totten. You will LUUV Minnesota Ave.
• Some of your new friends will abandon you. If you do the ride multiple times, they may abandon you more than once.
• It will rain. If not, it will be hotter than Venus. You would not be the first person to jump in Rock Creek to cool off.
• You could do the entire ride eating nothing but almonds if you don’t mind having your face all puckered up. I recommend buying the lunch. It just makes things easier and you get to spend your time comparing notes and meeting people at the half way point at Eastern Market.
• Any bike with lots of gears and brakes will do. Feel free to ride a single speed bike because you don’t really need that meniscus in your knees anyway.
• Go to the after party and get your free beer and t-shirt. You earned it.

As for me, I am not doing the ride this year. I will be out of town. You can have my slot.

Did you know that hiking is a contact sport? I am getting ahead of myself.

I wanted to do something physical but the idea of driving for 90 minutes or more to get away from the city wasn’t appealing. So I decided to do a loop hike on the Potomac Heritage Trail. This trail begins at the Theodore Roosevelt Island parking lot and goes ten miles up river to the beltway at the American Legion Bridge. My route would take me from Rosslyn down to the parking lot (which was full) then on the trail frorfour miles up river to Chain Bridge, then across the bridge to the C&O Canal in Maryland, back on the canal towpath to Georgetown then across the river on Key Bridge.

The trail runs between the George Washington Memorial Parkway and the Potomac River. Occasionally the trail is right next to the Parkway. This is not exactly idyllic but you take what you can get when you are so close to town.

The trail surface switches back and forth between smooth dirt and rocks. Until the approach to Chain Bridge it is generally flat. I found myself jogging from time to time on the smooth parts then I’d slow to a crawl, sometimes literally, to get over some rocks or under a downed tree.  The trail is also quite narrow. Some of the trail users had dogs. Mostly the dogs were unleashed but remarkably well behaved. One dog owner had his dog on a leash. The dog was lunging to get at me which I didn’t appreciate since I had to step into the brush alongside the trial to avoid getting bitten or jumped on. Note to dog owners: if you have an aggressive dog, don’t take him on a narrow hiking trail. It’s rude. It’s obnoxious. And there are an infinite number of more appropriate places to take him/her. You might also get a clue and get the animal trained.

From time to time, the trail was obstructed by kudzu. This exotic vine covers millions of trees throughout the southern states. It’s basically impossible to get rid off.

About 1/2 mile from Chain Bridge there is a major rock scramble straight uphill. By this point I was sick of the rocks and just wanted to get over the the towpath so I wasn’t having much fun.  Of course, once you go up you immediately must come straight down to get under the Parkway. I became confused thinking the under pass was beneath Chain Bridge. Just as I was about to clear the far side of the underpass, I whacked my head on one of the steel beams supporting the roadbead above. Ow!

A few minutes later I realized that I was off course (there were no blazes anywhere to be found). Finally, i figured things out and headed down to the river and under Chain Bridge.

The sidewalk across Chain Bridge was a nice break for the rocky trail. And it has a great view of the gorge through which the Potomac RIver flows.

On the Maryland side of the river, I picked up the C&O Canal towpath. The hike back to the start went much more quickly as the towpath is flat. I played leapfrog with a jogger all the way back to Georgetown. She kept stopping to adjust her tunes. What a shame she wasn’t listening to the music of the canal.

Near Georgertown, a great blue heron crossed directly in front of me. I slowed and pullled out my camera. He posed very calmly. Just as I approached her took to the air, flying over the waterfilled canal.

I took the stairs up to Key Park in Georgetown. There three women, obviously tourists were getting their bearings. I gave them some advice on where to find restaurants (basically anywhere on or near the main drags of M and Wisconsin), as well as advice as to where they could go to see lovely old homes (basically anywhere off of M or Wisconsin.

The walk across Key Bridge came with a surprisingly strong cross winds. I made it back to the car without getting blown away like a tumbleweed.

It’s been a few weeks since my last hike so today’s nine miles was plenty of exercise for me.

There are a bunch of pictures from today’s festivities on my Flickr page.