Tonight I stumbled on an Instagram account of a young guy who rode his bike across the US this year. His name is Adam Bigelow and he managed to post over 70 videos (one for each day on the road and a few more for context, background, etc.). He rode west to east along the Transamerica Trail, much of which I have ridden east to west.

Adam managed to ride for several days in Wyoming with a tire that was held together with some kind of tape. He broke several spokes. And ate an appalling number of cinnamon rolls (not to mention Mexican food meals). My guess is he gets about 30 miles per cinnamon roll. I now feel much better about my bike touring eating habits.

He is young and rides much faster than I do so I hate him. He also seems never to be in a truly crappy mood which makes me hate him even more.

So if you want to learn a thing or two about bike touring check his videos out.

https://www.instagram.com/big_adam_bikes/

Bicycling

On November 1 I passed 10,000 miles for the year. I’ve pulled off this trick for each of the last six years. My ass hurts.

The 10,000 miles included 360 miles on my recumbent indoors. To put the boo birds to rest, I passed 10,000 miles out-of-doors on November 13

On the 4th, I rode the Cider Ride with a really great group of people. The ride was 60 miles long involving river views, rolling hills, donuts, apple pie, and hot cider. And yellow jackets. Yellow jackets looove apple cider. One member of our group brought along a single stalk of celery for a mid-ride snack. No, I am not making this up.

Little Nellie moved into second place on my favorite bike reaching 2,000 miles for the year and surpassing 24,000 miles since I bought it in 2007.

Watching

All the Light We Cannot See: This four-episode, four-hour limited series on Netflix is based on the excellent novel written by Anthony Doerr. The series does a good job of capturing the environs of Saint-Malo, a walled city on the coast of France under seige by Allied forces near the end of World War II. Unlike the book, the series uses flashbacks to describe how the characters arrived in Saint-Malo. This is an economical choice, but upsets the flow of the story. The series totally nails the environs described in the book. Unfortunately, the actors portraying French people seemed challenged by the accent, most disappointingly this applies to Mark Ruffalo, an actor I very much otherwise admire.

Cocaine Bear: This is one of the great films in cinematic history. Not. It’s gory beyond belief but the gore is played for laughs. I felt rather stupid laughing at some of the sight gags and jokes but they were undeniably funny. To its credit, the film is only 90 minutes long.

Get Out. Damn, they don’t make horror movies like this anymore. Great acting. Great script. Great editing. Great directing. Creepy music.

Whiplash: A light comedy. NOT. Totally intense study of the use of abuse to motivate genius. J. K. Simmons earned a well deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance.

Squaring the Circle. A documentary about Hipgnosis, a small company that designed some of the most recognizable album covers of the 70s and 80s. Their clients included a whos who of popular music. Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel. 10CC, Wings. Let’s just say that creative artists are different from the rest of humanity.

Reading

Brave Companions: Portraits in History by David McCullough. I have yet to read a book by McCullough that I did not greatly enjoy. This one is no exception. Time magazine asked McCullough to write an essay about the events of historical significance that occurred during Time’s first 50 years of publication, from1936 to 1986. This essay is joined with several other essays that were written from research McCullough did when writing other books. Suffice it to say, I am now primed to read his account of the building of the Panama Canal and his 1,000-page biography of Harry S. Truman.

Changing tires on Little Nellie is usually brutally hard. The sides of the rim are tall and the rubber on the tire sidewalls is stiff, often resulting in nasty blisters on my thumbs from mounting the tire. Fortunately, Little Nellie hasn’t had a flat in several years. Today I learned why. Until I did a make over on this bike, I had barely ridden it in three years. No ride, no flats. Genius.

This year, after the make over, I have ridden it over 1,800 miles. Today, I went outside to go for a ride and the back tire was all squishy (sorry about the technical terminology). The back tire had a rusty roofing nail in it. The tire was a Schwalbe Marathon, a tire that has a later of green flat-deterrent material in the tread. The nail managed to miss the green stuff by a couple of millimeters.

There was just one thing to do. I flipped the bike over and began surgery. To my surprise, the tire came off with a minimum of hassle. I taped a dollar bill over the hole on the inside of the tire. This tire boot keeps the hole from pinching the new tube and causing a mystery flat after a couple hundred miles. Been there, done that.

I put a new tube in the tire and, as god is my witness, the tire went back on the rim with a minimum of fuss. No blisters. My hands barely got dirty.

The inflated tire held air for a thirty-mile jaunt but the dollar bill caused an annoying bump in the rear tire. Seeing as how the tire was over five years old, I ordered a new tire (and tube) to give me something to do over the weekend.

Before fussing with the tire, I removed my side mirror. Riding without a mirror gives me the creeps. Cars sneak up on me like hungry predatory beasts looking for a fleshy snack. Every time I put Little Nellie in the trunk of my car, the trunk lid would hit the handlebars. To provide clearance, I would rotate the side mirror. After doing this a dozen or so times, the mirror’s mounting hardware started to tear the tape on the handlebar. I removed the mirror and covered the gashed bar tape with duct tape. Next I borrowed a bar-end mirror from Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent. This mirror mounts to the open end of the handlebar, avoiding the bar tape altogether. I can always loosen it with a small allen key when putting the bike in the trunk of the car.

After some fiddling, I oriented the mirror just so. It looks a little odd but at least now I can ride without fear of being attacked by a big metal thing. Not to leave Big Nellie defenseless, I ordered a new replacement mirror.

In the further interest of stimulating the bicycling economy, I recently ordered a new Light and Motion headlight to replace the old light I had that recently died. The new light arrived today. It is twice as bright as the old one so I’ll be sure to singe some retinas on the way to Friday Coffee Club this winter. Bwa ha ha.

This year marked the 11th Cider Ride of the Washington Area Bicyclists Association (WABA). It is the last riding event on my calendar for the year. In 2013 and 2014 the ride was held in early December. After nearly freezing participants, WABA wisely moved it to early November in 2015.

We gathered at the start at 8:30 with temperatures in the 40s. Fortunately the sun was shining and the winds were light. The weather would improve with each passing mile, allowing us to take off layers at each pit stop.

The route starts in the middle of DC and makes its way on streets through Northeast DC to the Anacostia River Trail system. Following various trails we rode north through Hyattsville and College Park, Maryland. In College Park we shifted over to roads that took us through and beyond the Beltsville agriculture preserve before turning around at the Patuxent Research Refuge. We rode back through Beltsville and across the agriculture preserve to Greenbelt. Then it was back to the Anacostia trails on the eastern side of the river to Southeast DC before returning back up the western side of the river to creepy and decrepit RFK Stadium. We took city streets over Capitol Hill, around Union Station and, using the Metropolitan Branch Trail, back to the start. It was 60 miles in all. Mostly the route was flat, with the northern third of the ride featured rolling hills, and one whopper as we rode into Greenbelt.

Our ten-person crew included Michael and Chris who have done more of these rides with me than I can recall. We were joined for the fourth time by Sara and for the third time by Domitille. Monica, having ridden this year’s 50 States Ride, returned for more abuse. She must have amnesia. We were joined by Timothee, Miguel, Katja, and Lisa.

Michael decided to ride the entire route in one gear.

Chris had a shiny, brand new e-bike but he decided to forgo the electric assist.

Sara, as always, took charge of enthusiasm.

Domitille rode remarkably strong despite having knee pain and wearing a brace on her left knee. She complained often. She is from France. She brought two handsome, athletic male friends.

Timothee, Domitille’s French friend, was our ringer, easily outpacing the rest of us escargots. He kindly waited for us whenever he reached a turning point.

Miguel, Domitille friend number two, was pretty quiet. He abandoned the ride because of mechanical problems.

Monica wore blazing pink for much of the ride allowing slow pokes like me to keep visual contact with the group on the confusing trail system. She also called out “HAZARD” whenever we encountered glass or potholes.

Kayja, a skier at heart behind reflective sunglasses, was very quiet until near the end of the ride when she revealed that her college roommate is, like my son, a scuba instructor in southern Thailand. What are the odds?

Lisa is a founding member of Friday Coffee Club. She and I have done many, many rides in the past, but haven’t seen each other since the before times. She stopped and took pictures and fell off the back of the group. Since she rode the route from Hyattsville to the start, she finished at home.

With Timothee going off the front, the pace was a bit faster than usual. The group spread out. I lagged back partly because recent riding binges had left my legs feeling like lead for the first 20 miles. Also, this way I could maintain contact with the core group while keeping Miguel and Lisa nearby. Miguel and I lost the group on a trail in College Park. Rather than check the cue sheet, I asked a walker who pointed Miguel and me in the wrong direction. (Hey, I’ve only done the route eight times. How can I be expected to not get lost?) Then, I stopped to check the cue sheet and lost contact with Miguel so I turned around and caught up to the core group waiting about a half mile along the route. I think Domitille texted Miguel and he was saved from dying a slow, lonely death somewhere along Paint Branch Creek.

There were three formal pit stops. The first at Proteus Bicycles in College Park had donuts. So many donuts. And hot cider. The second in Buddy Atticks Park in Greenbelt had apple pie and hot cider. And a bazillion yellow jackets (always check your cup before drinking!). The final stop was in Bladensburg Waterfront Park on the Anacostia. More donuts and cider and apples as big as softballs.

Our posse was the kind of eclectic group that makes DC life so appealing to me: French, young, female, arthritic, educated, artistic, whiny, and witty. And that’s just Domitille. We were also Hispanic, Asian, male, old, athletic, geeky, balding, vegan, aspiring to mountain mommahood, and, of course, a few spokes shy of a wheel.

We gathered at Metrobar at the finish for post-ride refreshments. I managed to convince Katja to ride next year’s 50 States Ride with us thus demonstrating that we, as a group, are also persuasive and gullible.

As always, thanks to WABA for all the work in staging this event and arranging for good weather. Thanks to the many volunteers who endured long hours and bee stings to keep us riders in good spirits. Thanks to the nine knuckleheads who rode with me.

And, finally, we missed you Kevin!

Clockwise from top left: Katja (with unidentified interloper), Michael, Timothee, Sara, Chris, Monica, and Domitille.

Watching

Baseball playoffs: I watched an absolute ton of baseball this month. It always bothers me that the teams that do best over the course of 162 games often get washed out by lesser teams that get hot just at the right time. I shouldn’t complain. Neither the 2004 Red Sox nor the 2019 Nationals won their divisions.

Ahsoka: We finished watching this Star Wars mini-series. Except for when Ray Stevenson was on screen, it was boring. Sadly, Stevenson died earlier this year and, thus, won’t be back to reprise his role.

Lupin: The third installment of the tales of Arsanne Diop, the gentleman bandit, who uses Arsene Lupin, the hero of a century old series of novels, as his inspiration to steal and thwart bad guys. Well worth watching.

Bleeding

Donating: I made a double red blood donation early in the month. Instead of just taking a unit of whole blood, my blood was transferred to a machine that separated out two units of hemoglobin. It wasn’t painful, but I was a bit off my game for about ten days afterward.

Destroying: I managed not to lose any blood after using a line trimmer to golf an acorn into a storm door, breaking the tempered glass into thousands of pieces. It took the better part of two hours to clean up the tiny pieces that fell all over our front steps. We couldn’t find any paper work indicating when or where we bought the door. A sticker on the door had the name of a distributor as well as some other information including a date from September 2014. I took a photo and sent it to the distributor’s representative. He figured out who the manufacturer was and the manufacturer is sending a replacement under warranty.

Reading

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman. This is the fourth installment of the Thursday Murder Club mystery series. Four pensioners solve the case of the murder of their friendly neighborhood antiques dealer. Heroin, antiquities, and a host of baddies make for a very entertaining read.

An Immense World by Ed Yong. This is an intense and remarkably entertaining exploration of animals’ perceptual environment. Yong takes us into how animals experience the world, how they eat, see, hear, smell, and otherwise detect their environs. Nearly every page is mind blowing. (Did you know that dogs noses detect odors when they exhale? Or that barn owls big round eyes act as receiving dishes that channel sounds to their ears which are situated under feathers next to their eyes?) Our human sensory abilities bias us in how we understand and treat or mistreat other creatures.

DIYing

My wife did a big solo road trip from DC to Hartford to Chicago and back, While she was gone, I repaired two prominent cracks in drywall that have been taunting me every time I climbed the stairs. It took several days to complete and made a big mess each time. I ended up having to paint an hallway to avoid having two-tone walls. So far my wife hasn’t noticed I did anything which is only fair since I didn’t notice the painting she did while I was away on my tour this summer.

Riding

It has been a while since I reached a milestone, but this month’s was a whopper. Big Nellie, my 2002 Tour Easy recumbent, cracked the 50,000 mile mark.

I rode the Great Pumpkin Ride in the Virginia Piedmont for the umpteenth time. Like last year, I rode alone this year but with a twist: I brought snacks. This way I could avoid the crowded pit stops and just boogie. The foliage was at its peak, the best I’ve seen in my many years of riding this event. The weather was more like early September than late October. And The Mule rolled like a champ.

I managed to ride 906 miles for the month, ending at 9,980.5 miles for the year. But for a 3 1/2 mile ride to and from the car mechanic, I decided to take the last day of the month off so 10,000 will have to wait a day. The Nellies did the majority of the miles this month. Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent, logged 417.5 miles. Little Nellie, my re-designed Bike Friday New World Tourist, rolled 357.5 miles. The rest was on The Mule. The Tank, my new name for my Surly Cross Check, sat idle.

I started doing the Stu McGill Big 3 core exercises, which help stabilize the lower back. I don’t know if they help my stenosis all that much but my balance is much better. Also, I couldn’t execute a squat before doing the Big 3; now it’s no problem.