During the day I saw online, for the umpteenth time, the statement that only about a quarter of cyclists in the DC area are female. My experience differs:

Alex, Amy, Bec, Betsy, Charmaine, Claire, Crystal, Cyndy, Elisabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Emilia, Erika, Flor, Gina, Heather, Jean, Jean, Kate, Katie, Katie, Katie Ann, Kathy, Kirsten, Kristen, Laura, Lauren, Leslie, Lesley, Linel, Lisa, Lisa, Lisa, Lorraine, Lydia,  Magen, Mary, Megan, Michelle, Nancy, Nelle, Rachel, Samantha, Shane, Reba, Veronica

That’s off the top of my head. The women I know that ride bicycles in DC. I know I am leaving several names out. I also commute daily on the Mount Vernon Trail and my sense is that the share of women riders is much higher than a quarter.

So, tonight I conducted an experiment. Starting at the Memorial Bridge I kept track of the share of female riders for 100 northbound riders.  27 were female. The percentage started out near 50 but fell erratically until it settled in the high 20s and stayed there.

I’ll try this again another day, but 100 people is a pretty big sample.

I am back to commuting on my new lightweight Mule. The ride in was dominated by a “Wah Wah” earworm. Beyond that I don’t remember much about it. Probably this is a carry over from my six days of bike trance on the trails from Pittsburgh. (More about the mental aspect in a future post.)

I had to wait 15 minutes to leave the garage at work because it was rain was pouring down and Lynn Street in Rosslyn was a river. Impatiently I rode out in the rain. Lucky for me it stopped in about five minutes. I expected it to start up at any moment.

I rode straight home. A mile down the Mount Vernon Trail, I had to stop. Goslings were bopping about in the grass next to the trail.

At the south end of Old Town a mother held her toddler boy’s hand as I rode past on the trail. He was dying to go into a big mud puddle next to him. As I was about to ride into it, he said “Puddle! Puddle!” and pointed at the water. I either upset him or gave him a big thrill.

A couple of hundred yards later on the north side beneath the Wilson Bridge, I nearly ran over a five foot long black snake. Next up, just a short ways further on the south side of the bridge, I rode past a medium sized turtle. It was about twice the size of a box turtle so I am guessing it was an immature snapper.

I was sure I was done with the critters after that. I left the trail at the stone bridge and rode a quarter mile on Alexandria Avenue. The road was wet from the rain so I focused on not slipping as I turned left onto Shenandoah Road. As I leaned into the turn, I was startled by three white tailed deer directly in my way. Two went left. One went right. I rode through the middle thankful that there weren’t any more to startle.

We’ve had near perfect weather. Our bikes have had only minor issues. The Meth Man seems to be gone. We’ve met several nice people along the way, We have become numb to the sound of our tires on the trail, the sight of green leaves, purple and white flowers, and blue river waters. We have few complaints. We hope to leave Brunswick tomorrow for the last 55 miles into DC where a celebratory beer will be had. Hopefully around 4:30. We will tweet and FB details as we get closer to town. Escort riders are welcome to ride out the C&O and join us. 

We’ve been bombing along  the GAP trail for 2 days. The incessant uphill was starting to wear thin, but the scenery is just spectacular and the weather has been nearly perfect. We are being entertained by our leap frogging a solo rider who is a bit “off”. You might even  say he seems to be a few spokes shy of a wheel. We’ve decided (with absolutely no evidence whatsoever) that he is a meth addict. He keeps stopping to char but says very strange things.

Meth head: “I may ride to DC. Is there anything interesting there? ”
Us: “Nothing. Not a bloody thing.”

We ride off convinced he is a two wheeled serial killer.

We are safe tonight crammed in a guesthouse in a small town. We have Shiner Bochs and Mr. Meth Head will have to pry them out of out cold dead hands.

What a fantastic day for bike riding. Temperatures in the 50s in the morning and in the 80s in the evening. Perfect. Except…

Good weather brings out everybody. I mean EVERYBODY. There were traffic jams in several spots along the Mount Vernon Trail.

I thought I passed Ed. Ed lives down near me and goes to Friday Coffee Club. He was messing with his bike. I wasn’t sure it was him so I didn’t roll over and say hello. Later he blew by me without saying hello. It was him. Tit for tat.

Later, near National Airport Kathy came flying by. She can sure motor, so to speak, on her commuting bike. Soon after Kathy came the sound of rubber gribbing the trail. It was the guy on the big electric bike with its grippty mountain bike tires. He goes about 20 miles per hour. With ease. Beats sitting in traffic.

Opposite the monuments I saw a bike lying in the grass under a tree. It’s rider was cooking something with a burner and a pot. I think he was making coffee. Is this a great country or what?

Pedal. Pedal. Trance.

Soon I was at work. What a way to ruin a bike ride.

On the way home the warm air hit me as I left the garage. Then I felt a blast of cold air coming out of a garage I passed on Lynn Street.

The trail on the ride home was even more congested than in the morning. Adding to the fun were the Lancelots. These are grown men in overly tight bike shorts that show more anatomical detail than I care to expound upon. They have no regard for anyone’s safety as they ride very fast and weave in and out of the trail traffic putting everyone in harms way.

I could have seen more of their anatomies but the tree pollen count was in the billions. My eyes were caked with the stuff. It may sound like I am complaining but I will take pollen over the frozen noo noos of February any day.

I stopped to check out the eagle nests. The two biggest ones are now all but completely obscured by leaves.

I made it home practically flying blind. I work from home tomorrow. I’m going to miss my commute.

Today was the annual Tour de Cookie ride in Montgomery County Maryland. This 42-mile ride is a fundraiser for The Tree House Child Assessment Center. According to its website, the Tree House “is dedicated to reducing trauma and promoting healing for child victims of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect.”

I met up with my frequent riding buddy Lisa and we were joined by Paris, who has a distinctive Twitter handle (@turtledub616). As the hyperlinks make clear each of us blog about our biking adventures. We are also Twitterholics so the ride involved plenty of down time to post things to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Flickr.

Before we set off, I made sure to rendevous with Shannon, the writer of one of my favorite blogs. Shannon’s blog chronicles her adventures in parenting Sprout, her toddler son. Shannon is a gifted writer and reading her blog takes me back to the days when my kids were Spouts. I highly recommend it.

I had never met Shannon before so it was a pleasure to finally so. She was volunteering as a marshal for the short ride (something like 13 miles). I also met her mother and, tada!, Sprout himself.  He’s one cute little guy.

We set off under puffy white clouds. I rode Little Nellie, my Bike Friday New World Tourist. At the start I wore a vest to ward off the early morning coolness. We began in a maze of office parks in Gaithersburg before riding south into the beautiful hills south of Poolesville and west of Potomac. It took a while to get loose but just as we did we hit the first cookie stop. Yes, every so often, there was a pit stop with friendly people staffing a table festooned with an array of cookies. And they were free to the riders.

Munching ensued.

Once the temperatures warmed I took off my vest and enjoyed the perfect, dry air. Our team of twits rode the hills without complaint. Frankly I was pleasantly surprised at how the hills didn’t faze me in the least. I passed people all day long going up hill. This NEVER happens.

Our route curved back to Poolesville and eventually to Germantown and Gaithersburg. As we did, the automobile traffic intensified. Most dirvers were patient with the packs of bicyclists. Most means that some were aggressive dorks. I didn’t see any cyclists get hit and only saw two cyclists fall, one from being unable to unclip from her pedals and the other hit a curb somehow. Both were unharmed.

As I noted above the ride features cookies at pit stops. For the first 30 miles these are spaced out at five or six mile intervals. We felt obligated to stop and try the different varieties of cookies. Each stop had a different array of goodies. After about five stops, the cookie thing wore a bit thin. Economists call this the law of diminishing marginal utility. At stop seven we went into the wrealm of negative marginal utility. This had to happen eventually especially in light of the fact that the last 12 miles had a cookie stop every two miles or so. You can only eat so many cookies you know. Really. I never thought I’d write those words. I suppose I could have eaten a few more but they ran out of insulin after the seventh stop.

The last 12 miles of the ride were on Rockvilles Millenium Trail. While I am sure this is a nifty way to run errands and get around Rockville for everyday purposes, I could have done without this section of the ride. There are so many driveways and intersections to deal with that it quickly became a pain to deal with. The ride is a figure eight, the second loop of which is this trail. I am pretty sure that most riders simply cut out the last 12 miles and went to the finish which was visible at mile 29.

We finished in about five hours. I have no idea how much riding time was involved but we probably spent over an hour talking and tweeting at various stops along the route. I am especially glad to have done this ride because I haven’t ridden on some of the roads south of Poolesville in ages and now I am itching to go back. The ride also proved to be a good test of my fitness for the Pittsburgh to DC ride I am doing in a week. I’d say I am ready to roll!

Finally, I am grateful for the splendid weather, the enthusiasm of the many volunteers who pulled this event together, the company of three friends, and, of course, the cookies.

Here are some pictures I took. Here’s Lisa’s account of the day.

Well, I certainly picked up the pace in April. I rode 741 miles and rode my bike to work 20 times. I only did 121.5 miles of weekend riding spread over 6 days, including the long ride of the month: 48 miles to Bethesda Bagels and back.

It really helps that the roads are no longer covered with ice and snow. And that the weather has ever so gradually become spring like.  In addition to commuting my bikes became social machines. I used my bikes to ride to see the cherry blossoms four times. I also got back into riding to Friday Coffee Club. And for the second time I rode to a Nats game. (Bike valet is the best idea EVER!) I even rode to two happy hours. (Don’t try this at home.)  I also rode my bike to the car dealer, the physical therapist, and to local shops. My car is a really awesome driveway ornament.

The Mule is by far my best bike for ice and snow so it was nice to give it a rest and switch over to Big and Little Nellie for a change. I only rode The Mule three times to work. Big Nellie was my commuter for six rides. And Little Nellie did the remaining 11 trips to and from beautiful downtown Rosslyn.

So far this year I have ridden 2,167 1/2 miles. 74 percent of that riding has been to and from work on 52 commutes.

I feel so good I have been shopping for a new bike, my first new bike in about 7 1/2 years. It will essentially replace The Mule which will become my bad weather bike. The Mule has served me well. When I think about it, I am astounded that it has outlasted three cars I’ve owned. Not bad for a bike on clearance sale. It’s swan song will be the Pittsburgh to DC ride I am doing in about a week.