I slept on the floor at the Beaverdam United Methodist Church building. Sort of. Tina, my hostess, suggested I use pew cushions as a mattress. They worked wonderfully. I slept over eight hours.
Pew pads worked like magic
I learned that there was a gas station convenience store a quarter mile from the church. (Meaning that yesterday’s wayward, ten-mile food search was a complete waste of effort.)
Before leaving the church I put a fourth water bottle in my right front pannier increasing my bike’s weight but reducing my anxiety for the hot day ahead.
I went to the Beaverdam Kwik Stop and had a bacon and egg sandwich and chocolate milk for first breakfast. I also stocked up on more road munchies.
I lit out and rode right past the inconvenience store from yesterday. I was feeling pretty good for about ten miles. I searched in vain for the town sign for Bumpass (I am not making this up), Virginia. I imagine it gets stolen all the time so I took a selfie at the post office.
Notice how The Mule claimed the handicapped space. Bad Mule!
After Bumpass I skipped my first decent convenience store opportunity and missed a turn. After a couple of miles I realized I was off route and turned around. I could feel the heat of the day and the waning of my breakfast energy stores.
So I stopped at the convenience store for a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich and a drink Revived, I headed north toward Lake Anna. The rolling hills of yesterday were more frequent but I wasn’t bothered by them. I passed Green Bottle Hill at 279 feet and didn’t even notice. I could tell I was getting my legs back.
Lake Anna
I stopped at a market in Elk Creek and treated myself to more drinks and an ice cream sandwich. Nutrition is my middle name.
It was another ten miles of ups and downs to Mineral. I was tempted to call it a day and set up my tent behind the firehouse, but decided to eat lunch (oink) and think it over. A cheeseburger, fries, Diet Pepsi, a gallon of ice water, and some air conditioning revived me.
Obligatory nice country road photo
I called a church hostel in Palmyra 30 miles farther west and booked a spot on their floor. Off I rode with an unexpected increase in speed. The road dropped down to river and creek crossings after which I had to climb back up. These were the toughest climbs since Fredericksburg but I had no trouble dealing with them. I could tell that my climbing efficiency was much improved from the first two days.
This farmer was “haying” at an angle
I pulled into Palmyra and checked in at the church. Cindy showed me the ropes and drove me to a grocery to get some fried chicken, green beans , and collard greens. It’s the south, baby.
I found this picture of Corey and Mark from their 2019 TransAm ride in the Palmyra hostel
Tomorrow’s destination is unclear. Option A is to take a very short day and get a decent hotel room in Charlottesville. Option B is to ride 40-ish miles to a Warmshowers host in Crozet and camp. Option C is to ride 50 miles to the Cookie Lady’s house as originally planned. An important consideration is the fact that the climb up the Blue Ridge and along The Blue Ridge Parkway is 50-ish miles away. Lexington is the next place with hotels. I’ll see how I feel in the morning.
Today I was chased by another fierce dog. It came out from behind a pile of junk in front of a derelict house. It was snarling and bearing its teeth. The poor dachshund ran out of steam after 50 yards.
Boy was I glad I took the hotel instead of continuing to the KOA campground south of Fredericksburg. I didn’t sleep all that well and breakfast was kind of meh, but I avoided ending my day yesterday with 15 miles of punishing hills.
A dollar in the dryer and it ain’t dry yet.
After a one-mile downhill on the highway from the hotel I spun through the University of Mary Washington to begin the painful climb.
After 18 miles I passed the KOA sign and could not believe how zonked I was. So much climbing! I pressed onward stopping to inhale an apple from the hotel. A few miles later at Guinea Station I went a bit off route to see where Stonewall Jackson died. The best part was there was a water fountain and a bathroom. Not for him. For me. Hell, he was missing an arm when he croaked.
Stonewall died here.
Back on route I slogged along unable to find any rhythm to my pedaling. Every hill seemed like Alpe D’Huez, despite the fact that my 2017 account of this section of the route remarked on how flat it was.
I was chased by my first dogs today. Two corgis made a valiant effort. I hope they weren’t angered by my laughter. Later one of two roadside turkeys squawked its head off as I passed.
The white turkey in front really gave me the business.
Forty miles in I was totally discouraged and ready to bail to a hotel and maybe to cancel the whole tour. I sat on a bench at a churchyard playing and ate three bagel thins with peanut butter.
When I hit the road I could feel my energy level rising by the mile. I hadn’t been eating enough all morning and I experienced a classic bonk. My blood sugar had tanked.
I stopped at a nursery to get for some tap water. I noticed there were empty plastic water bottles strewn about the greenhouse. The staff told me the water they used on the plants was not potable. A Latina staffer kindly gave me a cold bottle out of a cooler. Her two-year-old was surprised when I said “Hola” and “Buenos Dias”. He was obsessing over dinosaurs and being totally cute. He followed me out to see me ride off. If he said, “Vaya con Dios” I didn’t hear him.
Back on the road I reached the turn off to the TransAmerica Trail, US Bike Route 76. I had been calling a Methodist church in Beaverdam just off the TransAm to see if they would accommodate me in their hostel (a community room with a kitchen and bath). They didn’t return my calls.
Turn right. No guts, no glory.
There are very few choices of places to stay and this was the best option. Mineral puts up bike tourists behind its fire house but it was 25 miles farther away, making for an 80+ mile day.
I was being passed by logging trucks for the last ten miles and I found out why. A tree farm was harvesting its wood, taking away my much needed shade in the process.
(Hard to complain though; the weather was splendid all day.)
Finally I emailed the church and continued past the turnoff for Beaverdam to get something to eat three miles further on.
I missed a turn and ended up adding four miles to my day. During my wandering my phone pinged with an email telling me the church would gladly accommodate me.
I returned to the trail and headed west, away from the church to buy some dinner at a convenience store with a grill. The grill was closed and the store carried nothing but junk food.
I bought some Doritos and washed them down with chocolate milk and Gatorade. Upon leaving the store the wife of the minister pulled up and told me the church hostel door was unlocked and that she’d meet me there.
I back tracked to the turn off for the church passing an enormous Baptist church. God is good for business, I guess.
At the more modest Methodist church Tina, the preachers wife and her son John, showed me the ropes and dug a can of Chef Boy-R-Dee ravioli out of a box on the kitchen counter.
After they left, I showered and nuked the ravioli. It was nasty but I ate every speck of it.
Tomorrow I continue west to Palmyra and amother camping opportunity. If I’m feeling my oats I may press on to the edge of Charlottesville and get a hotel room. My destination for Thursday will be the fabled Cookie Lady’s house in Aston. More on what that means in a later post.
Miles today: 75.5, of which about ten were utterly unnecessary because of a dud convenience store and a missed turn.
I expected today’s ride to be a repeat of the first day on my 2017 post-retirement ride to Key West. Mostly it wasn’t.
As I was about to start my son FaceTimed us from Thailand where he’s a scuba diving instructor. The good news is business is great. The bad news is that warming sea temperatures are causing coral bleaching near Thailand. It was a pleasant surprise talking with him.
After the chat, I hugged the daughter and kissed the wife and rolled down the front lawn, heading south via the last mile of the Mount Vernon Trail. The three-mile downhill to US 1 was worth the slog up to Mount Vernon.
The Adventure Cycling Atlantic Coast route that I am following goes around Fort Belvoir on Telegraph Road. This involves an incredibly difficult climb in traffic. No thanks. I used the side path on US 1 that goes straight through the base. There are hills but they are much more gradual.
These signs for US Bike Route 1 helped me navigate.
After Fort Belvoir came the slog up the hills of Lorton and past the rehabilitated buildings of the federal prison that used to be there.
Next up was down, down out of Fairfax County into the quaint town of Occaquan. There’s a nifty little bike-ped bridge across the Occaquan River as part of the route.
Alas, after crossing the river came the hellacious climb away from the river. I knew it was coming but that didn’t make it any easier.
Once at the top, I was rewarded with eight miles of truly ugly, car-centric suburbia in Prince William County. The world would be a better place if the military used this area for artillery practice.
I was really looking forward to escaping the sprawl but it has become much more extensive since 2017. I finally turned onto the two-lane country roads that circumvent the Quantico base. Rather than get relief I was treated to an endless parade of dump trucks and other commercial traffic intermixed with clowns in pickups and sports cars.
The shoulder was unpaved and all of two feet wide so I just kept trucking with dump trucks lined up behind me. Occasionally I pulled over to let them pass.
To take a break I stopped or lunch at a Subway. I really didn’t feel like eating but when I got back on the Mule I could tell that my blood sugar had been low before the meal.
More dump trucks. I felt like I was in Oregon on the west side of the Cascades. It’s incredibly stressful riding even though the dump truck drivers were very considerate of my presence.
At one point a the driver of a flat bed truck passed me with smoke coming out of his exhaust only to nearly hit an on-coming dump truck before swerving back into my lane. It was fortunate that the dump truck driver slammed on his breaks or there would have been truck goulash.
Once I made it past Quantico I had ridden 61 miles. The weather had been perfect so far but the sun came out and temperatures started climbing. I had planned to ride to a campground past Fredericksburg but my body wanted nothing to do with an 84-mile day.
I expected to stop at an ice cream shop from 2017 but it was no longer in business. Waaa! I rode into Fredericksburg which has a beautiful historic district. I used the Google to find a Best Western hotel, one I knew was used by bicycle tourists. It was only a couple of miles away but it was on Virginia Highway 3, a bicycling death trap. And up a huge hill. And past interchanges with US 1 and I-95, or so I thought.
I was focused on not getting killed (the theme of the day) as I approached I-95. I saw a Dunks sign and thought of Connecticut. What I didn’t see was the Best Western sign above the Dunks sign. So I rode a mile farther than necessary and traversed the I-95 interchange twice.
Ugh.
The hotel is fine. A welcome splurge on a very stressful day. I plan to lay waste to the hot breakfast in the morning. For dinner, I walked next door to Mama’s Chicken and ate a massive calorie bom. (The mac and cheese is fantastic.)
I am happy to report that my body held up well. The range of motion in my neck isn’t 100 percent but I managed fine. My back is no worse for the wear.
Tomorrow’s I’ll ride to Ashland and pick up the TransAmerica Bicycle Trail. Westward ho!
Miles today: 76
Sorry about the lack of pictures but dump trucks aren’t picturesque.
The big event of the week was my daughter’s graduation from the University of Connecticut School of Law. We drove to Connecticut, picked up my mother- and sister-in-law at the airport, did a bunch of tourist stuff, ate way too much, attended the graduation ceremony, then drove back. As you might surmise, I took five days off from riding.
The ceremony was well paced and the speeches were mostly interesting and entertaining. I think I’ve seen my daughter graduate five times (at least) now. I, myself, only managed three graduations.
About to graduate!
During various car trips we were nearly crushed by two trucks, one during an illegal (theirs not ours) lane change and the other in a merge after a toll plaza. (my younger sister was nearly crushed by a tractor trailer on a similar merge about 30 years ago.) I nearly hit a West Hartford police car that was blowing through a red light. (The driver gave me a what’s-the-matter-with-you hand gesture. I didn’t hear his siren until he was right in front of me. We need to have more Euro-style sirens.) My daughter nearly collided with an ambulance that passed an on-coming car on a blind curve.
We took a tour of the Mark Twain house in Hartford. The woodwork alone is worth the tour. My daughter drove us to East Haddam to see the Gillette Castle. It was built by William Gillette, a nineteenth and early twentieth century actor, director, and man-about-the-stage. He was famous for portraying Sherlock Holmes over 1,300 times in a play he wrote. The castle is truly unique and a bit creepy. His work on the stage was instrumental in legitimizing American theater. He also made significant improvements to the art of foley.
Gillette Castle
We went to Wethersfield for dinner and discovered it was Bikes on Main day. The event celebrated the bicycle. Every store and home on Main had a decorated bicycle displayed.
Wethersfield event
After returning to DC my wife, daughter, and I went to the phone store and acquired new iPhones. Our old ones no longer supported newer apps and devices. One pleasant surprise is that the battery life is much improved over my old iPhone 7.
I spent the following morning sealing big cracks in the concrete stairs leading to our front door. I rewarded myself with a 30-mile ride on The Mule. After that, I converted my steed to touring mode by removing the Carradice saddle bag and selecting four panniers for the trip.
Friday was Bike to Work Day. I didn’t sign up because I thought I’d be gone on tour. Instead I rode to Coffee Club (only two others came) and then as an afterthought picked up a t-shirt at a pit stop. Then I rode to REI and bought a small bottle of castile soap, something I use often on bike tours. Three big takeaways from the day. E-bikes are booming in this area. They’re the new big thing. On the way to DC, I was passed in Old Town Alexandria by an electric school bus. How strange to hear the whine of an electric motor (or maybe the drive train) as the bus accelerated from a stop. Quiet, cleaner, faster. Works for me. Finally, I cheated a bit and rode the re-built bridge through Dyke Marsh on the Mount Vernon Trail. The new bridge is wide and a bit higher that the old one. Mostly, it’s smooth, a welcome change from the beat up old wooden bridge boards.
Friday Coffee Club wasn’t the place to be on Bike to Work Day
Over the course of the last month, I have amassed a bunch of stuff for my bike tour and set it on the floor in the family room. In short order I should have it all packed away. The trick will be to not leave anything behind. (On the eclipse trip in April, I dutifully packed my toiletries in a small bag. I left the bag on the bathroom counter. Derp.) Each year I tweak the stuff I’m bringing. I probably won’t bring any spare cables since I wouldn’t know how to install them anyway. I am bringing a wrench to adjust the rear brake, a master link breaker tool, some tire valve stems and a valve tool, and some allen wrenches in place of a multitool.
As my tour launch date approaches, I have been increasingly concerned about my various physical problems. The tension in my neck muscles and, more importantly, the limited range of motion in my neck have been making just moving around a literal pain in the neck. I have also become increasingly bent over, an affliction I have been attributing to my lumbar spinal stenosis.
On the recommendation of Casey, a friend from Friday Coffee Club, I booked an appointment with a message therapist for a deep tissue massage. I figured one of three things could happen. Worse case scenario: my neck and back get much worse and I end up at a surgeon’s office. Neutral outcome: as with all the other various kinds of massages I’ve had, the massage feels good but not much changes. Best case scenario: I actually feel considerably better.
(What comes next is an over simplification of the message session. I am an anatomy ignoramus and I know even less about the specifics of message techniques.)
The appointment started with a long interview about my activity and my physical woes, focusing on my neck. I also mentioned my spinal stenosis issue. Just before the hands-on part of the session, the therapist pointed out that I had obvious tightness in my psoas muscles. (The psoas muscles are an important connection between the upper and lower body. They are notoriously difficult to loosen.) I was sitting on the massage table but instead of being upright, my torso was at a 45 degree angle to my thighs. I hadn’t even noticed.
In fact, that’s my default setting; bent over as I watch TV, read, drive, and use my phone. By riding my bike tens of thousands of miles in the last few years, I’ve managed to managed to train my muscles to assume the riding position when I’m off the bike. Once you’re bent over, bent over is the norm. In fact, I can’t straighten up. I’m locked in.
We began with massaging my tight neck muscles. This involved finding knots in my muscles and pressing on them (a technique called pinning) then slowing stretching the muscle, breathing in during the stretch and exhaling on release. The therapist worked on my neck, my shoulders, my head, and my jaw. Back and forth and all around. I’ll admit some of this was pretty painful. With each pressing of a knot, the pain lessened until it was gone and the muscle was freed up.
After that the therapist worked on loosening my pectoral muscles, the ones across my chest. Riding a bike causes these muscles to be tight, pulling my upper body over when I stand. Some of this involved simply pulling on my chest muscles to the outside. The therapist also worked on knots around the edge of my scapula, a bone that sits on the outside of the chest cavity in back.
There was also a last adjustment to my psoas muscle. One leg straight. The other bent and drawn upward, just as I had been doing on my back. She pressed another point somewhere above the hip. Then the other side.
At the end of the session, I stood up. Straight. Without the slightest bit of tension pulling my shoulders forward. My lower back felt completely free of tension as well.
After the session I went to the drugstore. I parked over a block away and walked to and from the store without a cane. No problem at all. No pain. No tightness in my lower back.
I’ll be damned if the massage didn’t work.
The therapist told me I’d be sore for a few days. Day two was the worst. My neck and lower back were aching after a 50-mile ride. Today is day three and my neck feels fine. My back soreness went away. The range of motion in my neck is still a bit limited but the pain is all but gone. More importantly, I know that the stretching I had been doing will be much more effective if I pin the tight muscle down when I stretch it. As for my lower back, the onset of discomfort seems to be taking significantly longer, a very welcome development.
I’m going to go back for another session after my tour. In the meantime, I’ve added pinning to my neck stretches. Also, I have two stretches for my pectoral muscles that are pretty easy to do. The scapula stretching requires a tennis ball and a sock (to keep the ball from falling as I work with it). I haven’t tried that but I have a massage gizmo that can do the same thing. So far all the stretches for the psoas muscles seem to require the body of a contortionist. (Lunge, raise your arm, lean back. Fall over.)
Other news
I decided to change my rear tire. I removed the Schwable Marathon with about 6,000 miles and replaced it with an comparably old Schwalbe Marathon Plus. The latter last several thousand more miles and are extremely resistant to punctures. I will notice more rolling resistance but that’s the price you pay for not having to deal with flats every 1,000 miles. (Knock wood.) The beefier tire should serve me well on the rough roads of eastern Kentucky.
When changing the tire, I used a new tire lever that I recently picked up at Bikes at Vienna. The tire and rim combinations make for difficult installation, frequently resulting in loss of skin on my thumbs. Although the copy in the link says this lever is designed for narrow tires, it worked fine on my 700×35 Marathon Plus tire. My thumbs are grateful.
Going longer
In the last nine days, I’ve done 323 miles with rides of 42, 50, 52, and 53 miles and a day off. The 52-miler was yesterday. I could have easily gone farther. Every year I get to late April and think, I’ve lost it. Every May, I find it.
Nothing says Spring quite like the beauty of flowers and blossoms on a warm, sunny day. Right? That was the idea when the minds at the Washington Area Bicyclists Association (WABA) thought up the Bloom Ride, 20-mile meander through the lovely trails and lanes of Arlington, Virginia. Here’s the elevator pitch: Happy bicyclists enjoy sunshine and warm breezes as they pedal past endless tulips, azaleas, and other colorful flora.
Sadly, WABA doesn’t have an elevator so they could only hope for the best. What we got for today’s ride was cool mid-50s temperatures with intermittent light rain. Whoopee!
Oh, and thanks to global warming, our early spring was exceptionally warm, meaning that the tulips and azaleas did their blooming thing about a week ago. Our floral booby prizes were soggy roses and wisteria. And beds of dirt and mulch. I don’t suppose calling this the Wet Mulch Ride would have brought in much in the way of donations though.
We met up at the recently renovated Franklin Square Park in downtown DC. This park is an absolute gem. It must be jammed at lunchtime during the week.
Chris showed up. Then Monica. We waited for Domitille and Timothee but, alas, Domitille was felled by Covid and decided not to come and infect us. Well played, mademoiselle.
Before leaving, we made the rounds of the various soggy tents under which WABA employees and volunteers ignored the gloomy weather and cheerfully saw to our various needs: food, bike repairs, stickers, fake tattoos and more. Under one such tent was Erika whom I hadn’t seen in ten years. Big hugs and smiles. I mentioned how I remember her little girl Charlotte when she was around five-years-old. Erika laughed, looked to her left, and nodded at the pretty teenager peering out from under the hood of a rain jacket. Charlotte! Ack! She’s taller than mom! I’m so old. (By the way, Erika hasn’t aged a day. Sucks, doesn’t it?)
Erika and me at the start.
After Charlotte put a temporary tattoo on my cheek, I joined Chris and Monica and we began the ride. We took the 15th Street cycletrack down past the Tidal Basin (cherry blossoms peaked weeks ago) then over the river to the Navy-Merchant Marine Memorial on the Mount Vernon Trail. (They have memorials for every thing. It’s a shame they took down the Navy-Tailhook Memorial.) Fun fact: the Memorial is on Columbia Island which is actually in DC.
The Memorial is surrounded by a circle of tulips. It’s really stunning. Or was. Last month. Today it was surrounded by a circle of lovely brown mulch.
Under the Parkway, through the scenic parking lot we rode. Once in Lady Bird Johnson Park we came upon a cute site: a Canada goose was sheltering a scrum of goslings under its hind feathers. The goslings were all shivering and pecking at one another.
Goslings under goose
We rode across a wooden bridge into Virginia and along the roadway around the scenic Pentagon Parking lot. We left the acres of glistening concrete to follow Washington Boulevard past the site of the 9-11 attack. Then we rode onto Columbia Pike and along the sidewalk past Arlington Cemetery. Are we depressed yet?
After a brief return to the Columbia Pike traffic sewer we turned on a side street and began to wend our way on neighborhood paths and quiet streets past lovely small homes that would cost $1 million less in any sane real estate market. The homes were nestled in endless azalea and flower gardens. All past bloom, of course. I used to run through this area back when I lived in Arlington and had cartilage in my left knee. Even past peak in the rain it’s a gorgeous place to be.
We rode through Columbia Gardens Cemetery and stopped for a selfie. Afterwards we realized we were standing in front of the gravestone of Senator Robert Byrd, God’s gift to West Virginia. He served in the Senate for over 51 years. We continued through North Arlington and made our way down the Bluemont Junction Trail past the site of a house that exploded over a month ago. No lie.
Monica, Chris, and me obstructing the view of Robert Byrd’s gravestone.
The Bluemont Junction Trail took us to the Washington and Old Dominion Trail. We left that trail to ride through Bon Air Park which has a lovely rose garden – not bad – and the most amazing hill of azaleas -no blossoms. Sad face.
Next we took the Custis Trail back toward DC. We rode past Erika and Charlotte’s house. Dad Geoff and son Henry were no doubt somewhere inside like sane people. We forged ahead to the Ballston neighborhood where we arrived at a pit stop at Conte’s Bicycle shop. Last year I was surprised to see my friends Mike and Jesse volunteering here but this year they stayed dry. Instead, Sara, whom normally rides with us, was volunteering in the rain. She is the most energetic, enthusiastic person you’d ever want to meet. She gave us massive hugs. It was great to see her.
Sara and Monica
Buoyed by Sara’s energy, we began the ride back to DC through more lovely neighborhoods. We made our way around Fort Myer where Orville Wright crashed his flying machine, resulting in the death of Thomas Selfridge, the first passenger killed in powered flight. On the eastern side of the fort we entered the grounds of the Netherlands Carillon, near the Iwo Jima Memorial. (I once heard a young radio newscaster refer to this as the “Statue “of the Two Jimas”. I suspect she ultimately found employment in another line of work.)
After taking in some mulch where some lovely tulips once blossomed, we followed a path around Arlington Cemetery and then across the Memorial Bridge to the Lincoln Memorial. We slalomed through tourists past with the Reflecting Pool on our left and a flag football tournament on our right. One of the teams displayed a banner that said “ZU”. This is a tribute to a Mesopotamian bird god or a the fraternity Signa Delta Rho. Go figure.
After inadvertently crossing Constitution Avenue against a DO NOT WALK sign, I survived to arrive at the Flower Library at the Tidal Basin. They had no flowers, but their wet dirt was interesting.
We returned to the start, soggy and hungry, where dined on lunch boxes from Potbelly. The sandwiches really hit the spot. After our snarf and chat, I headed home, 15 more soggy miles. I pulled into the driveway with another 50-miler under my belt. Little Nellie was rode hard and put away wet as my mother-in-law likes to say.
After a big cup of hot tea, I put on some sweatpants, curled up on the couch, and took a nap. Free as a bird. Home and dry.
Despite the rain, it was a fun day. It was great to see Erika and Charlotte and encounter the Sara hug machine.
The posse will re-assemble in full force in September for WABA’s 50 States Ride. Stay tuned, y’all.
Thanks to all the WABA folks and volunteers for working in the cold rain all day.
With warming weather, I am starting to bump up my mileage. On April 28 I managed 52 miles on Big Nellie. I chose the hilly route to Falls Church to buy some Halt pepper spray at a bike shop. It was closed. Derp.
I continued west to Vienna to see if Bikes at Vienna sold any. Nope. I did get to chat with the ever- loquacious Beth. She was dying to get her hands on Bike Nellie for service work, but that will have to wait until I wear out the chain later this year. She mention that she had a recent chat with Lawyer Mike, a loyal customer who is a regular at Friday Coffee Club. Mike bought an electric assist Hase Pino tandem. The front is a recumbent, the real conventional. Mike’s son is developly disabled so the bike allows them to go on weekend excursions. The son is the stoker, which means he sits up front on the recumbent half of the bike. Mike is the captain in back. It’s an amazing design and works great for them.
I had intended on continuing west of the W&OD trail to check out a new bridge over Wiehle Avenue in Reston but Beth told me it isn’t installed yet. So I headed back east. Not a half mile later Mike and his son passed me going west. (They stopped at Bikes at Vienna on their way to a milkshake place in Reston.) I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen someone I know on a bike in the last year.
Temperatures were unseasonably warm but I made it home in decent shape, making sure to take a swig of pickle juice to ward off leg cramps.
I did an easier 30-mile ride the next day, again on Big Nellie. I finished the month on Tuesday with a day off the bike and a blood donation at the Bloodmobile parked at the hospital down the street. Back at home, I set up my tent to make sure I remembered how to do it. I slept in it overnight. It rained. I stayed dry. I slept very deeply in three roughly two-hour stages. I guess the blood donation factored into that.
The weather on May 1 was perfect so I got on The Mule and headed out for what turned out to be a 52-mile ride from my house to Bethesda, Maryland and back. After emerging from the new tunnel under the Humpback Bridge on the Mount Vernon Trail, I noticed a couple of people standing around checking out some Canada geese. Among the adult geese were a handful of yellow-green goslings busily snarfing up grass. The first goslings of the year are always a welcome sight.
First goslings of 2023
I continued onward up the Capital Crescent Trail, stopping in Bethesda to snack on a few cookies I brought then I headed back, down Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park. The temperature was in the 80s but the shade in Rock Creek Park took the edge off the heat. Seeing all the green made me all but forget that stick season is barely over.
On my return, I crossed the Potomac River on the 14th Street Bridge. The ramp connects to the Mount Vernon Trail pretty much exactly were I saw the goslings. This time there were 20 of the fuzzy little critters being tended to by a pair of adult geese. As I stopped to enjoy the goings on, Miles, another Friday Coffee Clubber, came by on his electric-assist Brompton. What’s with these encounters? Miles was on his way home from work and he sped off south on the trail.
More goslings later on the day
After some gosling zen, I headed south as well. About four miles later I came upon a horrific scene on the adjacent George Washington Memorial Parkway. A crash had just occurred. (Miles passed the site before the crash and I arrived just after it.) A BMW was speeding north on the Parkway. The driver passed two cars in the right lane. The driver of the van had entered the Parkway from a perpendicular side street. Eye witnesses said the BMW was going “about 100 miles and hour”. It hit the van and sent the van airborne for what witnesses said seemed like three seconds before it landed on its roof on the Parkway. The BMW ended up upright in the wide median between the north and southbound lanes.
Insane crash aftermath
The force of the impact destroyed the front end of the van, sending parts, including the entire engine, off into the grass on my side of the roadway.
The engine and assorted other debris
The elderly driver of the van had been removed from the vehicle by passersby and was being attended to. He was in rough shape, but was conscious. A school-aged boy who had crawled out of the van was sitting on the grass about 20 yards away, surrounded by some super nice folks. He didn’t have a mark on him and seemed remarkably calm. (He complained to the ambulance crew that his back was sore but there were no surface injuries visible.)
It is amazing to me that no one was killed. (As far as I know, that is; the elderly driver, the boy’s grandfather, is in critical condition.)
The rest of the ride home was blessedly without incident.
Thursday I rode The Mule to a big box hardware store for some home repair supplies. I wanted to take it easy but the store was on top of a big hill so climbing was involved. After shopping, I went for an exploratory ride through Kingstowne and the Fort Belvoir areas The Kingstowne part of the trip was intended to avoid a brutal hill on the direct route to Fort Belvoir. The roundabout route I took cut the one big hill into three manageable ones.
It was hot and muggy during the ride. I drank all my fluids. At home I hit the floor to do my physical therapy exercises. When I went to stand up, the back of my left leg seized up with a humungous, very painful cramp. After it calmed down, I went straight to the kitchen for a shot of PJ.
Today I rode to and from Friday Coffee Club on only four hours of sleep. The weather was fantastic: 70 degrees and breezy. The pollen, however, was not. I had three coughing fits brought on by pollen coating the back of my throat. I used albuterol to calm my lungs and managed to ride home without incident. PJ was imbibed.
I was going to attend to a home repair project but the weather was perfect for napping on the deck and so I did.
Tomorrow I plan on riding 50 miles in the cold rain.
T. S. Eliot wasn’t entirely wrong about April. Although I must admit April in the mid-Atlantic is decidedly less cruel than it is in New England or upstate New York where I spent my first 29 Aprils.
Reading
Chip Wars by Chris Miller. This book had been recommended by multiple friends. They were right. It’s pretty amazing. It’s the story of the semiconductor industry. Sounds boring, right? The technological aspects are fascinating, but the geopolitics of the chip industry are mind-blowing. Miller tells the story artfully from the very first transistor to the chips that power artificial intelligence.
Watching
The big watching event was the eclipse. We drove to my in-laws’ place in northern Indiana. From there, we drove back roads to Portland, Indiana near the Ohio state line. We were in the zone of totality. Our battle plan worked like a charm with considerable help from the weather gods.
Yeah, I watched the NCAA women’s final. but, for me, April is all about baseball. Nationals fans are a bit like Jim Carrey’s character in Dumb and Dumber: so you’re telling me there’s still a chance! For baseball fans, July is the cruelest month because by mid-summer your team’s flaws become undeniable. For now, the Nats are within a game of .500 and the young talent is starting to show real promise.
I rode to two baseball games at Nats Park. It was a bit chilly but I drank some beer. The games were fun. The ride was funner.
Riding
I took a week off for the first time in years and managed to ride 22 days for a total of 707.5 miles. For the most part, the weather was pretty good. I brought Big Nellie out of the basement and rode it 322.5 miles. Little Nellie chipped in 229 miles. The Mule contributed 156 miles. The Tank took the month off as I tried with fitful success to get rid of the nagging neck pain I’ve been dealing with for months.
I did two long rides of 53 and 52 miles on Big Nellie. The last one in near 90-degree heat.
I’m more than 300 miles below last year’s pace despite having an extra calendar day. I sit at 2,981 miles which projects to 9,017 miles for the year. I need to get my fanny in gear if I hope to make 10,000 miles. I expect to take several days off in May for a family event so 10K will be a challenge.
I spent a good deal of time doing tour prep. Of course, I keep thinking of things to add to my load, meaning I will be sending home a package after the first week like always. Yesterday I acquired a dog whistle, pepper spray, sunscreen, and a small can of shaving cream. Today, I set up my tent in the backyard. As usual, I forgot a few steps but even so the whole thing took only ten minutes. After that I compared my stock of spare tires to the ones on The Mule. I checked my records and the rear Schwalbe Marathon tire has 6,000 miles on it. I should get me another 1,000 miles or two before replacing it. The front tire, a Schwalbe Mondial, is in even better shape.
I also found a kit to overhaul my Top Peak Road Morph pump, a pump that has proven to be barely adequate over the years. It took forever to get the pump apart and when I did I dropped a tiny spring that went somewhere far far away. I also discovered that the replacement o-ring was the wrong size. Clearly, the bike gods were telling me to buy a new pump so I ordered a Lezyne high volume mini floor pump. Beth at Bikes at Vienna recommended Lezyne pumps. There is one video online that slams the design (if you’re not careful you can pull the valve out of the tire!) but it’s hard to imagine it can be any worse than my Road Morph. Time will tell.
I am down to two items yet to be acquired: a small bottle of Dr. Bronner’s castile soap (it always comes in handy) and a tiny metal valve adapter so that I can use a gas station air pump in a pinch. So tomorrow I will celebrate May Day by doing one last shopping trip.
Giving
This month I made my semi-annual donation to World Central Kitchen in the days after their team in Gaza was killed by the Israeli military.
I also made a donation to Warmshowers.org. If you donate now, you will be entered into a lottery for a new touring bike. Sounds good to me.
Finally, I gave blood this morning for the second time this year. They asked if I wanted to give a double red donation but, with a tour looming, I decided to go with a unit of whole blood.
With the start of my tour about three weeks away, I continue to stress out about the aggressive dog situation in Kentucky and Missouri. Last night I watched some YouTube videos about dealing with dogs while riding. Many of them suggest slowing down. (My reaction: AYFKM!) Often the dog will sense victory and back off. They say that you cannot outrun a dog. (This is poppycock. I’ve outrun several.) If the dog doesn’t disengage, dismount, keeping your bike between you and the dog. (This is insanity. I was out for a ride in my home town when a hyper-aggressive dog made a run for me. The dog blocked my way so I dismounted. It was a standoff for the better part of 30 minutes. Needless to say, I was terrified.) My friend Charmaine often stops and just calmly talks to the dog. It works for her somehow. A third idea is to throw small objects like roadside rocks or gravel at the dog. No need to hit the animal. Or even better you can fake like your throwing something. The dog will disengage. (This makes sense to me.)
Letter carriers use Halt or some other pepper spray product. I had a small can of Halt on a mount attached to the handlebars of Big Nellie on three bike tours in the mid 2000s. I never used it but it provided peace of mind. Halt is preferred to other products because it comes out as a stream not a mist, meaning it’s less likely to end up getting blow into your eyes. Amazingly, I found the can the other day and it still works. I can’t seem to find the mount though.
I was once attacked by a huge, aggressive dog in Belle Haven Park on the Mount Vernon Trail near my home. I was riding Big Nellie and didn’t have pepper spray. Seeing the dog’s teeth at eye level was pretty scary. I ended up going off the trail and crashing. The dog declared victory and went back to its master. I called the police. They came in minutes.
A few weeks ago, I bought a small air horn. It’s intended use is to alert bears to your presence while hiking. Yesterday I was discussing dogs with Beth at Bikes at Vienna. They don’t sell Halt but she showed me a similar, considerably larger horn that the shops sells. She also told me about a customer who rode a recumbent trike across the country and used a dog whistle of some sort. This is makes all kinds of sense to me. Since you can put it on a lanyard and hang it around your neck, it means you can have easy access without letting go of the handlebars. (My friend Reba uses a referee’s whistle instead of a bike bell.) I am riding to a local CVS to get one today.
Other options include spraying the dog with water from your water bottle or spraying the dog with bug repellent (the stuff tastes nasty). This comes out as a mist and can backfire.
As a last resort you can yell at the dog. My 2019 and 2023 biking buddy Mark simply yelled “GO HOME!” and, according to Corey his wingman, the dog would stop chasing him. Others online suggest “GET OFF THE COUCH!”.
So I plan on a multi-tiered approach. Sound first. Rock throwing second. Pepper spray third.
If you have any additional suggestions, let me know in the comments.
My apologies to my readers who thought that yesterday’s post was about me. The phone app reblog function didn’t permit me an introduction. So today, I am reblogging a post from Mary, Ed’s wife. Having been in her shoes in the past, I must say she does a far more eloquent job of describing the situation than I could have done. For me the feelings of uselessness were the worst. You know the situation is bad when pickleball is source of solace.
A Few Spokes Shy of a Wheel 