Joyful

I don’t know what has gotten into me. Maybe it’s the contrast with feeling so depressed over the last two months. This morning when I left for work it was 26 degrees. That would have had me looking at the car with just a month ago. Now I was eager to start pedalling.

So I did.

I was a bit cold for a couple of miles. I went by the site of yesterday’s downed tree. It had been removed. but somebody’s probably without cable service as the cables were still lying on the ground.

I made it down to the river without apparent effort. It’s been a long time since I was able to ride four days in a row without feeling tired. No problem today, though. When I arrived at the Dyke Marsh bridge the sun was rising so I had to stop for a photo and just to admire the beauty. No two sunrises are alike, I suppose. My hat’s off to the man in the sky. You paint awesome pictures.

Once again I was in mediation mode. Miles whizzed by and I have no recollection of them. Just the cold air going in and out of my lungs, the cold breeze chilling my face.

At the troll bridge, I spotted the great blue heron again. It was perched in the low hanging branch of a tree about 15 feet from the edge of the trail. I stopped to admire it and take a picture. I feared that the squeak of my brakes and the sight of me fumbling around with the phone would scare it off, but it waited patiently. I am ready for my close-up, Mr. Rootchopper.

My morning photography complete, I rode up the switchback to Rosslyn. The hill didn’t bother me at all. What is going on? I never smile while climbing.

I went to turn left onto the Lynn Street sidewalk as I do every morning. A car in the nearest lane was rolling forward toward the red light. I guessed that it wasn’t going to stop. And it didn’t. If I had simply followed the law I would have been hit. Instead I yelled at the driver, who was conversing on his cell phone as he turned, oblivious to me or the pedestrains crossing from the opposite side. He looked over at me, shrugged, and drove on. Police were getting set up for traffic enforcement just a few yards up the road. Too bad they weren’t quite ready for him. A walker coming from the opposite side of the crosswalk shook his head and said, “What a jerk.”

Despite Mr. Shrug I maintained my good humor and was rewarded with an invisible cloud of donut aroma. It got stronger as I approached the entrance to my building. A donut truck was parked there, pumping donut essences into the cold air. What a perfect capstone to a bike commute. (I resisted the urge to purchase as the aroma of a donut far exceeds the eating.)

As I parked my bike, I took a drink from my water bottle. Yesterday morning, it was solid ice. Today, it took a little doing to free up the valve but I managed to get cold, cold water from it and it was better than the finest wine.

The ride home featured a headwind. Ack! The gods are messing with my commute bliss. It also featured a temperature of 54 degrees. I could ride without my clumsy overshoes. Headwind? Who cares? This was great. And it was light out for ten of the 15 miles of my trip.

I could get used to this.

23 Degrees and Grateful

23 degrees in the shade. Except it was dark. I took off aboard The Mule well before sunrise to make a 7:30 physical therapy appointment on the way to work. I got about a mile from home when the fruits of last night’s gusting winds became evident:

I briefly considered walking around the tree on the lawn to the right. Then I saw the wires and cables near the curb and thought better of it. I backtracked about a half mile and began my trek anew.

I made it to the Dyke Marsh bridge just as the sun was rising. My name is Rootchopper and I am a sunrise addict.

I stopped again under the Wilson Bridge to admire a lift being used to diddle around with the underside of the I95 roadway far above. The lift completely blocked the trail. Nobody bothered to direct traffic because I was pretty much all the traffic that there was to direct. I stopped and took a picture for the hell of it:

All this stopping and gawking was eating up time. So I boogeyed on up the trail to the physical therapist, located conveniently right on the trail just north of Old Town.

My therapist gave me an extensive exam, ruling out causes for my numb right foot. He gave me a couple of PT exercises to do and we set up a schedule for follow up visits. One of the exercises is the standard runner’s lean to stretch the calf muscle. The other uses a belt to stretch the hamstrings. Looks like the acupuncturist and the PT man are on the same page.

The rest of the ride to work was cold but uneventful. I managed to avoid some black ice here and there. North of the airport I waved to @bilsko as he headed southward. Next I tried to get Mrs. Rootchopper’s attention as she sat in a long line of cars headed for the 14th Street bridge. She didn’t see me. She didn’t look very happy. I was cold but at least I was smiling – and moving.

Temperatures had climbed into the 30s for the ride home. Winds were light. And I was feeling pretty darn good after a low stress day at the office. To be honest, it was just about the nicest ride home I’ve had in a long time. I took in the monuments. They never get old. Every so often a bird flew across the trail. Some Canada geese flew over the river. There were no hills to slow me. When I feel like this, the ride becomes rolling meditation. My mind just ignores the stresses of life and goes on a vacation. I sing (badly). (“Fall at Your Feet” by Crowded House/Neil Finn has been my earworm for three days now.)

As I made my way south of Old Town, the full moon shone above the far bank of the river. It cast a perfect moonbeam on the water. I’d have taken a picture, but it would not have done it justice. It was jaw-droppingly beautiful. I am sooo grateful for my commute route.

Black ice kept appearing in front of me and I just sailed around it. There was no way I was going down tonight. Just not going to happen.

I arrived home to see a small box on my doorstep. My repaired headset had arrived from Chris King. Wanting not to push my cycling luck, I hopped in the car and drove to Spokes Etc. Belle View store where Little Nellie had been stashed during the repair. They should have my steed back to me tomorrow. I’ve missed you Little Nellie.

Beautiful sunrise, full moon, meditative ride, and repaired bike. Not a bad day.

Grateful.

The Answer, My Friend,….

The ride in today was cool and wet and gray. I tried to think positive thoughts but everytime I did I was confronted with cool and wet and gray. Cool and wet and gray doesn’t float my proverbial boat. I did finally get a bit of a treat for all the gloom. As I was about to leave the troll bridge (underneath the supremely ugly TR Bridge) I spotted a large great blue heron on the river bank below. It was tucked in, not stalking for food like a praying mantis with feathers. It was one colorful bird. I decided not to take a picture to leave it in peace.

The ride home was something else all together. The gloom and wet of the morning had given way to dry air and tropical strorm force winds. Once I made the descent to the Mount Vernon Trail I felt a force like an enormous hand on the middle of my back. It started pushing me with all its might. I was barely pedalling and going 17 miles per hour.

Occasionally there would be gusts. At one point opposite the Washington Monument a massive gust shoved me forward. I yelled “WOW” and started laughing. A man on a CaBi tank bike came zooming past. He had spun out and was sitting straight up using his body as a sail. Margaret Hamilton, phone home.

I had to follow the path due west at the airport. Now my tailwind was a side wind. I leaned into it and rode on a slant for a couple hundred yards. When I climbed up from under the Woodrow Wilson Bridge I was again heading west. The sound wall to my right was creating a funnel for the wind. My speed slowed to 4 miles per hour and I was doing everything I could to keep moving. Dang!

South of the Beltway I encountered tree limb after tree limb. Debris was falling out of the trees all around. As the comedian Ron White says about hurricanes, “It’s not THAT the wind is blowing, it’s WHAT the wind is blowing.”

I pulled into my yard and began to ride around the side of the house when I spotted several small logs on the ground. They appeared to be part of a large rotten limb that had snapped off a tree and shattered on impact with the ground.

There’s a hell of a lot more blowin’ in the wind than answers.

A Slow Start

This month started as a downer. For the first two weeks I fought off the blues, a carryover from November and December. Everything just seemed to drag me down. My days seemed to lack light, both figuratively and literally. When the month started I was hell bent on getting my head squared away. Given the amount of days off the bike due to ice I was facing an uphill fight.

At least I wasn’t in the hospital like Little Nellie, my Bike Friday. Little Nellie was custom made to my specifications. Because the handlebars sit atop a very long stem, I upgraded to a Chris King headset. After 7 years, it died. So I shipped it back to the manufacturer and they agreed to repair it under warranty. I should have it back on Monday. I can’t wait to ride it again.

As for the rest of my stable, Big Nellie was used only once for commuting and only twice for weekend jaunts. Big Nellie is a long wheel base recumbent with about 70 percent of its weight on the rear wheel. This uneven weight distribution makes the front tire prone to slipping. I don’t ride it much during icy conditions.

The Mule did eight commutes and two weekend rides. All told I rode only 372.5 miles, about 90 miles less than last January. 275 miles were just getting to and from work. I rode on 13 of 31 days. I can’t remember when I rode fewer than half the days in a month.

On the plus side:

I didn’t crash once.
I managed to get in two hikes and one long walk around my neck of the woods without back, knee, or foot discomfort. This is a huge step forward (no pun intended) for me physically. I can’t wait to take on some day hikes in the mountains nearby once the weather improves.
Toward the end of the month I moved my saddle up about a centimeter and the constant aching and spasms in my lower back went away overnight.
My right foot started going numb in November. After three visits to an acupunturist, I decided to get an EMG test by a neurologist. She confirmed that my back isn’t causing the numbness and has sent me for physical therapy. (Yesterday, my right foot felt almost normal for the first time in weeks. I don’t care why. I hope it stays that way.)
On doctor’s orders, I did yoga at least once a week. Alone. You will never see me in a yoga class. Been there, done that. Just ain’t gonna happen. Alone or in a class I am confident that yoga is not and never will be my jam, jelly, or other sandwich spread. I suppose if I were stretchier I’d like it more, but 35+ years of running and cycling has turned my hamstrings into steel cables. And my quadriceps are boulders.
To get my head screwed back on straight, I started taking big doses of vitamin D-3 (a blood test confirmed that I was severely deficient) at breakfast and started practicing meditation daily. It’s possible that my mental state would have cleared up anyway. It’s also possible that either the vitamins or the meditation are having a strong placebo effect. Whatever the case, something is working really, really well. I even managed to go through one of my most stressful workweeks in years with a smile on my face.

So I finish the month with low mileage and a much improved body and mind. Not a bad start to the new year.

When the Going Gets Weird….

Yesterday’s bike commute ended with a white snake on my front doorstep. In January. What could be weirder than that? Be careful what you ask.

It was warmer today. These things are relative. It was 36 degrees. The weather gods could not leave well enough along and added a 15 mile per hour headwind. To make matter worse I over slept. I was going to be late. For Friday Coffee Club. Eek.

Pedal. Pedal.

The bridges on the Mount Vernon Trail were icy but rideable. The pavement was clear. But for the relentless headwind The Mule and I would have made decent time. Then we encountered the flyover bridges at the airport. Ice, ice baby. I made it over the first one without slippage. I said three quick “Hail Marys” and forged ahead. As I approached the second bridge an oncoming runner warned of ice. Just as I reached the icy part, a recumbent rider blew past me. My recumbent is useless on ice because it has very little weight over the front wheel. His was a different design and his weight was more evenly distributed. Still I expected to see him skidding on his side in no time.

Nope. He just flew across the ice. My brain said. “It’s a trap!” and I slowed to a crawl as another runner approached looking very concerned. I pulled my left foot off its pedal and touched the ground. Solid ice. Somehow I kept rolling forward without slipping. Once I cleared the ice I expected a panel of judges to give me scores, knocking me down 0.5 to 1.0 points for my foot tap. I’ll bet the judge from the Netherlands screws me over. He always does.

The rest of the ride was blustery but, if anything, I was overdressed for the occasion. I arrived at Friday Coffee Club to find a decent sized gathering. I advised Sam, who had to brave the same flyover bridges after coffee, that she was in for an interesting ride.

Caffienated, I headed for Rosslyn. I took the TR bridge which empties out on the Virginia side of the Potomac onto an icy boardwalk. Somehow I made it across the ice field without slipping. (I am sure that I will pay for my good fortune someday down the road.)

The workday was pretty slow. I had a 90 minute meeting after lunch. When the meeting was over, I walked into my office. My boss followed me and said, “Go home now.” I looked at him like he had two heads. “There has been a threat against the building. Leave.”

Dang. My brain said, “Yay, I get to ride home in sunlight.” Then my brain said, “If something really nasty doesn’t kill me first.” I can handle snakes on my doorsteps. Threats to life and limb are a bit above my pay grade. As the late Hunter S. Thompson once said, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

I closed my door and changed like Superman in a phone booth.

The ride home was actually pretty nice. I had a 25 mile per hour tailwind.There was no ice at all left on the trail. In fact the only slippert stuff on the trail was an abundance of geese poop. Apparently Canada geese have begun their northern migration. This was taken about half way into this particular gaggle of geese.

Cold? OK. Ice? OK, sorta. Snakes? Getouddaheah!

I awoke to calm winds and 16 degrees. Sounds like a good day for a bike ride to me. I hit the road on The Mule and was quite cold for the first mile. The only concessions I made to the low temperature were a long sleeve base layer (instead of my usual short sleeve shirt) and chemical hand warmers in my boots. I was a little worried, but once my blood began to flow it was like any other ride to work. I was totally comfortable.

I reached Dyke Marsh just before sunrise. As usual, it was glorious. I can’t recall the first time I saw a sunrise and truly appreciated it, but I was well into adulthood when it happened. I missed thousands of light shows!!!

The trail still had icy spots. The ones on the Dyke Marsh boardwalk were ridable, but when a section of the trail just to the north of the Woodrow Wilson bridge had black ice. I walked this bit and was glad I did. It was incredibly slick.

From the bridge to DC the trail was clear. Some patches of black ice on the trail opposite the Washington Monument caused me to ride in the grass for a bit but I can’t complain. It was pretty good riding with no wind to speak of. The troll bridge, the boardwalk underneath the TR Bridge, had abundant ice but it was all roughed up so I it was rideable. I had to focus hard on riding in a straight line, pedalling smoothly, and not tensing up. “Just relax. Breathe. Pedal gently.” Riding on snow and ice is a curious mixture of meditation and terror. I feel pretty good that I made it to work without once slipping.

The ride home was a whole ‘nother ballgame. Reports from co-workers were not promising. The sidewalks outside our office building were icing over from sleet and freezing rain. So, I packed up my things and hopped on The Mule for what could turn out to be a really interesting commute.

When I reached the sidewalk from the garage in our office building, I tested it with my foot. Not too bad. I duck walked my bike to the street. Test. Not bad at all. Off I rode. The street was wet and it seemed safe to ride on, but I wasn’t about to ride over the metal grate at 19th Street and I was super careful about riding on any painted lines.

I could see that the connector o the Mount Vernon Trail has a thin layer of sleet on it. I took a chance and rode down to the trail. I was doing fine until the switchback. As I came around the corner, I could see that the slope to the MVT was really icy. I slowed to a stop and grabbed a railing. Ice! Ay! I carefully walked the bike down to the pavement. It was a good thing I dismounted because I almost certainly would have crashed otherwise.

Okay, 1/2 mile down, 14 miles to go. This is going to take a while. I rode very gingerly down the trail. The surface would go from wet to sleet covered and back at random. The troll bridge was covered in sleet but I could see bike tracks and guessed that it was rideable. With great care I slowly rode the entire bridge. At the end I started breathing again. Then another concrete bridge. Same type of ice. Same success.

The asphalt trail went back and forth between wet and sleet-covered. I suppose the granualrity of the sleet pellets afforded my tires just enough grip so as not to slip. All my concentration was on keeping my arms and shoulders loose. If I tensed up and slid, I’d go down for sure.

Pedal, pedal.

After a couple miles, my confidence increased and I picked up speed. Thank god there were no ninjas or cyclists behaving like jackasses.

Each time I went down the slightest incline I held my breath. The two flyover bridges at National Airport were icy messes but I made it over both. The slight decline to go under the Metro bridge was scary. It wasn’t icy but a fall in the wrong place might send me skidding into oncoming traffic on the GW Parkway. No problem. The downhill just before the connector bridge to Crystal City was another tricky one. Got it!

If I didn’t have gloves on, I would have chewed my nails off by this point. I could have abandoned the MVT for the Four Mile Run trail and the streets of Alexandria which were likely to be treated but, having made it this far, I went all in.

Of course, the MVT bridge over Four Mile Run was an icy mess. Ha! Again and aganin I gambled and won. No sliding at all. I was getting pretty good at this. The beaver bridge (a boardwalk with a treacherous S-curve) was bad news, but I had it all to myself and could pick a straight line. Done.

The boardwalk around the Slaters Lane apartment building has one tight right turn. Gonna make it,. Gonna make it. Stay loose. Got it!

The concrete bridge around the power plant nearly got me. There were two big puddles on a curve. I looekd down and under the water were sheets of ice. I managed to come to a near stop and duck walked the bike over the ice.

For the rest of the ride, the trail was wet not icy. The wooden bridges from the Beltway south were more of the same but these were either very short or straight. I rode them all without incident. When I arrived home I was incredibly relieved. I put the bike away and went to my front door only to find this:

Snakes!? In January? In an ice storm?!

Hurry spring.

Seven

I was talking with Sam at Friday Coffee Club. The conversation was about holey sweaters. Sam (and Lawyer Mike) both were chatting about the virtues of old wool sweaters as a mid layer for winter biking. We should form a club or something. Sam is also a redhead for which she gets special bonus points. When I was a kid, and had, um, hair, I was a redhead too. In fact I still am. In places.

As she was about to leave, Sam mentioned that she had to go to a physical therapy appointment. I asked why and she said she was recently hit by a car. Incredulous, I mentioned that she makes six people, all women, that I know who’ve been hit by a car in since May 2011. Then she said, “Make it seven. Jeff was hit recently too.” Jeff is her husband who was standing across the room. He appeared to be okay.

Are you kidding me? Why is walking and riding a bike around here a blood sport?

It makes me think that I have a target on my back and that it’s only a matter of time before my number gets called.

It’s Not the Cold, It’s the Mileage

Something is terribly wrong. For the second day in a row, I looked forward to riding to work in sub-freezing temperatures. This morning I left well before daybreak to arrive at Friday Coffee Club at a reasonable time. I was mighty cold for the first mile but warmed up and settled into a rhythm following the white circle that my headlight makes. It’s a bit like following the bouncing ball from those old sing-a-longs on TV from before the dawn of time.

The roads and trails appeared to have an ever-so-thin patina of ice on them but I only slipped once and that was on a patch of slush that I decided to ride through. The patches of ice on the trail that were there yesterday morning were gone taking away those moments of indecision and nail biting (nail biting while riding with lobster gloves on is an art, let me tell you). I crossed over the Potomac River on the 14th Street Bridge which is actually named for a man (no his name is not 14th Street) on the Air Florida plane that crashed into the icy river on takeoff some 33 years ago. He gave up the rescue line so that others could be saved. He ended up at the bottom of the river.

I digress. The river had frozen into sheets of ice that had buckled. They overlapped haphazardly. So I took a picture.

On the DC side the curb cuts and other smooth bits of sidewalk looked like sheets of ice but my tires held their line. I made my way to Swings House of Caffeine unimpeded by big metal things. Just before arriving Aaron pulled up alongside me on his massive cargo bike. I think he is overcompensating for something.

At Swings cyclists were just beginning to arrive. I can’t remember the last time I arrived so early. Last year at this time I recall arriving and being part of a grumpy quintet of frozen male bike commuters. Not today. Within 20 minutes there were more than 20 bicycle commuters, including six or seven women. Nobody, male or female, seemed the least bit grumpy. Except perhaps for Aaron, but, as I said, he has issues.

The ride to work involved the usual re-crossing of the river on the TR Bridge. A gaggle of geese took off from the river and began to form a V as they passed overhead. One lone goose remained on a small sheet of ice in midstream. I wonder if his feet were frozen to the ice.

When I left the office it was 20 degrees warmer and I had a tailwind. By contrast with the morning it felt like July. I was tempted to pull over and bask in the sun but thought better of it.

When I arrived home, I checked the odometer on The Mule. It said this:

As Indiana Jones said, “It’s not the age, it’s the mileage.”

You Look Yet You Do Not Observe

I have been riding to the same office for over three years. And with only a handful of exceptions I always ride from the Mount Vernon Trail up a switchback, across a bridge, then up to the fabled Intersection of Doom. The switchback offers a pretty nice view of Theodore Roosevelt Island. But it’s a blur lost in my negotiating the turn. Until tonight.

I rode down to the switchback and I saw this tree. This magnificent tree on the bank across the way on the island. It looked spooky and majestic and menacing. Or maybe it was waving at me. I think it’s a beech tree. I had to stop and admire it. Hiding in plain sight.

Why Worry Indeed

My drive to work streak is now at 5 days. I have bike commuted once in 2015. The reason is ice. I don’t do ice. Why don’t I get studded tires? They are very expensive for a start. Even if I had them they’d slow me down. I don’t want to be bike commuting for 90 minutes each way in 15 degree temps either.

Driving isn’t half bad when schools are delayed. Today I made it to work in under 25 minutes. That’s like driving to work on a Sunday. I am getting caught up on cartunes. I have listened to Le Vent du Nord, Los Lobos, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Dire Straits so far. Quebec, East LA, North Florida, and Scotland. I think I’ve got it all covered.

I had a stressful day today at work. I was interviewed live on the radio. The interview went very well but the interview was at 4 pm so I had to wait all day for the unknown. When I had to give speeches in high school, I’d freak out beforehand. To get rid of my nerves I’d pretend that I was screaming and clench my fists. (Actually, something similar to this technique is in the yoga book I use. Of course, I had no idea I was doing a yoga technique at the time.) The only downside is you look like you should be taken to a nervous hospital.

After going through some tough times in the last few months, a friend advised me to try meditation. Then I saw Dan Harris, a TV reporter, give an account of how his anxiety attacks almost destroyed his career. The video is really hard to watch. He turned to meditation and it saved him. Like Harris, I’m not so much interested in the religious/spriritual aspect of mediation. I don’t follow any isms, except, perhaps, cynicism. I have seen too many people use religious clap trap to rationalize boorish behavior for a start. I had to admit that Harris makes a pretty convincing case, however. So, I did some research online. Then I found some 15-minute YouTube videos with useful dreamy music and sounds and such. And I gave it a go.

I’ll be damned. It really helps. Very much like my fist clenching technique but infinitely more relazing. I’ve done my little meditation thing now 7 days in a row. I hate starting. It’s hard for me to sit still and concentrate on essentially nothing. When the 15 minutes are up, I feel like somebody took away my favorite toy. Wait! I gimme that back!

The last four or five weeks I have been a bundle of worries. Worry is my natural state. The professed benefits of meditation remind me of a time when I was just starting a bike tour to Indiana. I was about 50 miles from home, cycling west on the C&O Canal towpath, and I was absolutely miserable with “what if this goes wrong” and “what if that goes wrong” thoughts. Then it hit me. You idiot! You are on vacation! Chill! Nothing is wrong now. Enjoy this. I purposefully pushed the worries out of my mind. The rest of the ride was joyful.

Of course, I did have problems. Three days later my back rim failed oustide of Frostburg. I found a not-yet-open bike shop. The owner and his manager agreed to help me out overnight! I missed maybe 2 hours of riding time. Three days after that my brake cables seized. I found the best bike mechanic ever in Little Washington PA. He did an amazing job on my bike. Why worry? (A pretty decent Dire Straits song, by the way.)

I don’t know whether I will keep practicing meditation. Or if I will try something other than the simple breathing meditation that I learned. For now, it floats my boat.

During the day I learned that smoke had filled the Metro station near my wife’s office. Tonight I found out that one person had died. Yet another reminder (not that I needed another one after three people I know died in the last four months) that you better enjoy life while you have it.

Why worry, indeed.