Category: #bikedc

When I’m 64

The Mule reached yet another milestone today. It turned 64, thousand miles that is.

The Mule turns 64.
Will you still need me? Yes!

I bought this bike from the Quaker Lane location of Spokes Etc. bikes in Alexandria Virginia sometime in 1991. I bought this bike because my Trek 1200 road bike couldn’t handle the stress of commuting. It’s a bit ironic that the Spokes Etc. chain of local bike shops recently was bought by Trek Bicycles.

It’s also a little odd that Spokes marketed this bike as a commuter bike. Little did I know that it was the best selling touring bike in Europe back in the day.

The Mule will be my steed for this summer’s bike tour. Tomorrow I’m taking it in to Bikes at Vienna for its annual fix everything service.

Right Turns and Tailwinds

One thing you don’t have to worry about while riding in the basement is driver behavior. Today I did a 45-mile ride mostly on trails. That didn’t stop me from encountering drivers doing things that could have put me in an ambulance.

I rode 15 miles to Georgetown. To get to the Capital Crescent Trail I had to back track several blocks on busy M Street. I rode like I was driving a car, too the lane (in very slow traffic), and made it to my right turn on Wisconsin Avenue. This is a crazy busy intersection with heavy pedestrian traffic. A few years ago a traffic cop was run over and killed here so my level of caution is always off the charts when I ride here. I was behind a white sedan in the right hand lane. We had a turn arrow but the driver hadn’t put on her turn signal. I was tempted to go by her to the right to turn down Wisconsin when I thought better of it. Sure enough, she turned right. Good thing the pedestrians (and I) were all out of the way.

A couple of blocks later, I followed the white sedan just off its right rear bumper. The driver without signaling pulled over apparently to get her bearings, nearly clipping my front wheel in the process. As I rode by I said, “Use your turn signal, please.” She mouthed “Sorry.”

I managed to ride about 25 more miles without encountering a vehicular threat until I reached South Washington Street in Old Town Alexandria. I climbed a small incline on the Mount Vernon Trial to get to South Washington. If the pedestrian light was lit, I was going to ride across South Washington and take the on-street route home. The pedestrian light was red so I turned left to continue along the sidewalk on South Washington which is a part of the Mount Vernon Trail. A driver coming out of an apartment access road to my left, blew through the red light and made a right turn, ignoring the No Turn on Red sign. Luckily I was a few seconds too slow to beat him to the crosswalk. Had it not been for way too many Christmas cookies I could have been hit.

About 100 yards later down the trail I came to the access to the Porto Vecchio condominium complex. This is where I was hit by a driver in a hurry to take a right on red without stopping. I complained to the city and, after more than six months, they changed the ambiguous No Turn on Red When Pedestrians Are Present sign to No Turn on Red. Cars leaving the complex are supposed to wait at a stop line behind the trail. This is where the camera mounted above the traffic light will detect them to give them a green light. Today the driver of an SUV was completely blocking the trail as I approached. I could see the driver checking traffic to his left for an opening for his right turn on red.

I rang my bell repeatedly then stopped perpendicular to his passenger side door. “What are you doing?” “Back up” I yelled. He wouldn’t look my way. “Get off the trail.” He then looked my way. I pointed to the No Turn on Red Sign and yelled “I was hit here!” and then told me to eff off before taking a right on red.

I wonder if this man behaves this way in the supermarket. Or in church. Or at the office.

Something about being behind the wheel of a car makes some people feel even more entitled than they already do. In each of these four incidents the drivers could have simply done the right thing. How hard is it to use your turn signal? Is 20 or 30 seconds of your time worth putting someone in the hospital?

For my trouble I was rewarded with two tailwinds. The wind direction changed almost exactly when I arrived in Bethesda. The bike gods were with me today.

Always Check the Cue Sheet

We had an abnormally warm day on tap for yesterday so I decided to go for a ride that would stretch me out a bit. Rather than do my normal 50-mile out and back ride to Bethesda, I opted to download a cue sheet from a ride developed by my friend Josephine.

This ride was the Chainsaw Art Ride, a 24-mile meander around Arlington, Fairfax County, and Falls Church in Northern Virginia. The closest the ride came to my house was about 13 miles away so the plan was to ride to that point, do the ride, and ride home. And, Bob’s your uncle, I’d have a 50-mile ride.

I rode The Mule five miles before it became obvious that I was overdressed. I took off my jacket and soldiered on to the closest point on the route. I hadn’t paid much attention to where this ride getting there was pretty easy. This 13 miles was nearly flat and I had a bit of a tailwind so I started the route ready for action.

A half mile later the route went up, as in straight up. As in I can’t breath. As in I think I hurt my lungs steep.

I survived. Barely. One thing I re-learned is that I am horribly bad at climbing hills.

The cue sheet soon had me wandering around the Sleepy Hollow/Lake Barcroft neighborhood. Up and down and up and down. I was supposed to be looking for carvings made out of trees. I found a rather impressive robin, and a somewhat surreal looking cat. Not bad. I also made a couple of wrong turns that led to me riding a few unnecessary hills.

Did I say this was a hilly ride?

You know you are hurting when your brain starts to do the math. Only 27 miles to go. You can do this. Only 26 miles to go. Toughen up you fat load. Only 25 miles to go. I want my mommy.

I managed to survive Sleepy Hollow and a crossing of the US 50 car sewer near Seven Corners. Whenever I go to Seven Corners I think of the time the DC snipers shot someone in the parking lot of the Home Depot. Seven Corners is not a place of joy.

The route eventually took me through North Arlington and around Bishop O’Connell High School. I would guess that at least one-half of all colleges in the US are smaller than this school. And the parking lots, sadly, seem to go on forever.

North Arlington is rather hilly but, having survived the first 15 miles of the chainsaw route, I knew I could handle it.

I think I failed to find about half of the carvings. The late afternoon light made for bad picture quality for the ones I did find. At some point I stopped looking for them.

As the ride progressed, the sun started sinking toward the horizon. Once the route was done, I headed home, keeping to level ground.

I arrived home exhausted. 50 miles completed. Put a fork in me.

I took an edible to see if it would help my recovery. It didn’t, but it did knock me senseless for most of the next ten hours.

Is Nebraska hilly? Asking for a friend.

Summer Tour 2022!?

The prospect of doing a big summer tour is a daunting and exciting one. As is almost always the case, the winter has brought a struggle with physical challenges. My stenosis and arthritis problems continue. Add to these woes, the fact that my engine is two years older and about 20 pounds heavier. I don’t have nearly the strength and stamina that I had in 2018 when I rode 4,300 miles in two months. I have to remind myself that I did that tour on the heels of a four-month recovery from pulmonary embolisms. The thing is, stenosis and arthritis don’t bother me on the bike. Can’t help it if I’m lucky.

During my 2019 tour, I met up with Corey and Mark and rode across Kansas and eastern Colorado with them. We made for a compatible trio despite the fact that they were quite a bit faster than me. Had it not been for Mark’s saddle miseries and Corey’s picture taking, I don’t think I’d have been able to keep up.

At the Rocky Mountains, I headed west on the Western Express route and they headed north, continuing on the fabled TransAmerica route. After beating my body up pretty badly, I abandoned my plan to ride north from South Lake Tahoe through the Sierras and Cascades to Portland, opting instead to finish in San Francisco. Likewise, they abandoned their tour near Silverthorne, Colorado in the high mountains west of Denver.

A few weeks ago, Corey texted me with the news that Mark and he are going back to Colorado to finish their tour this summer. They have asked me to tag along, starting in Colorado Springs in mid-June.

In a bit of good fortune, I am attending a wedding near St. Louis in late May. That would make for a convenient starting point. I can take the Katy Trail across Missouri, but after that my route is uncertain. The thought of riding across Kansas again really doesn’t float my boat. So I’d like to ride north into Nebraska for the thrill of corn and to check my 35th state off my 50state list.

In any case, the ride to Colorado Springs is about 1,000 miles. I should be able to do it easily in 20 days. This will give me plenty of time to acclimate to Colorado Springs’ 7,000 foot elevation. (One big mistake I made in 2019 was not acclimating properly. I rode from 4,500 feet to over 9,000 feet in one day. It was a miserable experience that I don’t want to repeat.)

There are several ways to get back on the TransAm route from Colorado Springs. We could ride through the mountains to the north of Pikes Peak or to the south.

The rest of the tour from Colorado Rockies through Yellowstone to Missoula and onward to the Oregon coast would be another 1,800 miles. (In the map below, its the section from, roughly Pueblo to Oregon coast.) This section of the TransAm is going to be amazing. And really hard. I’m going to need my A game.

The Yellowstone Park portion of the proceedings has me worried a bit. When my family went there in 2000, we had close encounters with bison and elk. Since Corey and Mark are much faster than me, perhaps the bison will chase them while I cower behind a tourist bus. In any case, if we camp in Yellowstone on this tour, I will need to bring some Depends. There is also the problem of finding camping. Yellowstone will be mobbed at peak season.

There is an interesting alternative, ride through the Tetons to southern Idaho. There are gravel farms roads and a pretty cool rail trail that locals use. Of course, this is bear and wolf country so we will be picking our poison.

We managed to circumvent tornados and historic floods in Missouri and Kansas in 2019. And I managed to cross hundreds of miles of desert and climb over 100,000 feet on the Western Express on one hip and one knee. (The remaning TransAm is slightly less climbing spread over 300 more miles.)

Bison, Elk, Bears? Hell, the wolves will kill, you.

We got this. Lord willin’ and the Covid don’t rise.

Now all I have to do is get The Mule ready, re-stock my gear, and, most importantly, figure out how to carry my bike on Mrs. Rootchopper’s SUV to Missouri without damaging the paint job. Oh, I forgot. It probably wouldn’t hurt if I lost 25 pounds before we head west.

The Return of Dr. Pain

My Ow History

A couple of years ago, before and, especially, after my 2019 bike tour over the mountainous terrain of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California, I was in a world of hurt. My left knee and hip were screaming at me. I had some symptomatic relief from cannabis edibles I bought in eastern Colorado. Back home, I went to an orthopedist who gave me cortisone shots in both areas. After two rounds, my pain all but disappeared. But I was still in pain. Whenever I walked, my lower back and left leg became progressively more painful. The situation escalated to the point where I could not walk 100 feet without excruciating pain in my lower back and left leg. My orthopedist examined me and concluded that I had classic symptoms of spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal canal that pinches the nerve roots emanating from the spine. The orthopedist referred me to a physiatrist, a medical doctor who specializes in pain management. I will henceforth refer to her as Doctor Pain.

Dr. Pain, I Am at Your Mercy

Step one in my treatment was an MRI. This helped identify pinch points and the interesting fact that I have six vertebrae, not the more common five. Step two was listening to my description of specifically where I felt the pain and what made it worsen or abate. Dr. Pain determined from this information the likely location of the irritated nerve roots.

I laid face down on a cushioned table. Using a needle, the doctor applied numbing medicine to the skin and muscle near the injection site. The pain from this was similar to having a novocaine injection for dental work. Not fun, but not the end of the world.

Next she and an assistant positioned an x-ray guided injection machine. This machine placed a targeting cross, like you’d see through a rifle scope, on the area of interest. Then the fun began. The doctor proceeded to inject anti-inflammatory and numbing medicine into the specific areas near the disturbed nerve roots.

Because my nerves were so inflamed these injections hurt like hell. With each injection an electric shock shot down a nerve in my leg all the way to my feet. Dang! I lost track of the number of shocks. Afterward, I waited a few minutes to make sure I didn’t grow a third leg or have other ugly complications and went home. Free to do whatever I wanted.

The injections worked pretty well. They calmed most of the pain and allowed me much more movement. I was going to have a second round of shots but the pandemic hit. Then Dr. Pain left her practice. So I decided to do daily physical therapy exercises to help calm the pain beast.

Shoot Me, Round Two

By January of this year I was starting to have increasing pain and discomfort, especially in my lower left calf, so I googled Dr. Pain and found that she was back in business at another practice. I saw her two weeks ago. She agreed that another round of shots would help. She reviewed the MRI and her notes from 2020, and we repeated the discussion of where my pain was located. She concluded that my leg pain was probably from stenosis but that the ache I was experiencing across my lower back pain was likely caused by arthritis.

We agreed to treat the stenosis first. Before continuing, however, she sent me for a doppler ultrasound to rule out a recurrence of a deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a painful blood clot that I had in my left calf in 2017. It caused me to develop dangerous pulmonary embolisms.

I had the ultrasound on Monday. It was painless. Since the tech did not send me to an emergency room, I knew I did not have a DVT. Today I went back to Dr. Pain for round two of the epidural injections.

We went over my symptoms again. She reviewed her notes from 2020. And we decided to move the injections down a notch in my spine. Again, I was placed face down on a padded table. Working with a technician, the doctor, as before, injected the muscle in my lower back with a numbing agent. Then she positioned the machine of certain agony and started the epidural injections. Not that I could tell. I could feel pressure from the insertion of the needle and feel the location on the needle but i experienced no pain. Hmm.

She continued until she made the money shot. BANG. She hit the irritated nerve. An electric shot when right down my left leg. I could feel it travel through my thigh and knee then into my calf. At their direction I did some deep breathing, then she injected me a few more times. These were painless. Thank you, Jesus.

Next Steps

After a short precautionary post-injection wait, I was sent home with no restrictions on activity. The leg felt a little numb but I walked without any pain back to my car. This afternoon, with temperatures nudging 70 degrees F, I went on a 30-mile bike ride, deliberately cranking big gears for the last ten miles. I walked a few hundred feet in my yard afterward. Only after going inside and crossing my legs at the kitchen table did I feel minor discomfort in my calf. I uncrossed my leg and it went away.

I’ll be keeping a pain diary for the next three weeks. I’ll be taking short walks to test things out. Then Dr. Pain and I will do a follow-up visit remotely.

January 2022, Don’t Let the Door Hit You on Your Way Out

RIDING

As far as my bike riding was concerned. January was kind of a bust. I only managed to ride 543.5 miles, and 301 of that was indoors riding Big Nellie on a resistance trainer. The rest was on The Mule whenever the temperature broke 40 degrees. Not surprisingly I feel rather listless on the bike but warmer weather and more daylight are right around the corner.

READING

When I ride in the basement, I read. This month I knocked off five books. The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides is the tale of a psychotherapist who tries to break through to a murderess who has gone mute. It has a pretty good twist at the end (as all these sorts of novels do). The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell is another gothic novel, about a young woman who inherits a mansion in London. The inheritance comes with shocking revelations about her family history. Multiple plot twists kept me guessing. The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman is his follow-up to The Thursday Murder Club. Funny. Every bit as good, too. The Lyrics by Paul McCartney is a stealthy autobiography. He explains the lyrics to 150 of his songs. (Truth be told many of the lyrics are not nearly as good as the melodies and arrangements.) In the process, he discusses various events of his life. This one’s for die hard Beatles fans only. I ended the month reading an impulse purchase, Icebound by Amanda Pitzer, Three Dutch expeditions in the 1590s set out to find a Northeast passage to China by sailing over the top of Russia. It’s pretty much the same tale as that of the Endurance but with polar bears. However much you dislike winter, you have it infinitely better than the crew of these ships.

WATCHING

I watched five movies. The Rescue is a documentary about the successful Thai soccer team that was trapped in a cave system. How they pulled this off is literally amazing. The Tender Bar is the story of a young boy who grows up learning about life from his older brother, played by Ben Affleck, and the patrons at small Long Island bar. It’s based on a novel I read years ago. George Clooney directed. The movie does not include the sad epilogue from the book that describes how so many of the people in the story were directly effected by the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Eternals is a Marvel movie about a diverse (Women! Asians! Mexicans! Deaf people!, Angelina Jolie!, etc.) group of superpowered people who emerge from hiding to save the planet. There are battles. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be, but it’s way too long. Directed by Chloe Zhao. If you’re going to watch a Marvel movie this winter, go see Spider-Man, No Way Home. When my daughter came to visit, we watched Encanto. Very entertaining even if, like me, you’re burning out on Lin Manuel-Miranda. The animation is truly exceptional. Finally, I re-watched No Time to Die, the latest James Bond movie. It held up surprisingly well to a second viewing, It’s kind of sad that Daniel Craig is a tad too old to play Bond.

Fighting the Winter blues

Gray skies and cold temperatures are not floating my boat. I find myself wanting to curl up and take a nap. All the time. And oddly enough my sinuses are acting up. Calgon, take me away.

The Pile

I spent three days earlier this month shoveling snow and cleaning up yard debris. The trees in our yard took some big hits from the wet, clingy snow. Our sole surviving cedar nearly fell over a power line. Our eastern redbud split one of its trunks. And the neighbors massive silver maple lost major limbs, one of which missed my wife’s SUV by five inches.

Storm debris pile -early January 2022

Big Nellie and The Mule

My bike riding isn’t setting the world on fire. The last time I rode so little was in the aftermath of my pulmonary embolisms four years ago. I suppose the good news is that I bounced back from that very strong, and rode 4,300 miles to the Pacific only a few months later.

About one-third of the time this month I’ve been doing 30 mile rides outdoors on The Mule; otherwise I’ve been riding Big Nellie on a resistance trainer in the basement. As is usually the case, I find that I can read faster with my legs spinning. I’m already done with my Christmas present books.

Stick Me Baby One More Time

What would winter be like without taking a ride on the medical merry-go-round. Although it was diagnosed only in 2019, I have been dealing with varying degrees of stenosis pain since at least 2014. That year I struggled to hike Sugarloaf Mountain in Maryland. The following summer I hiked Old Rag on my 60th birthday. The long hike downhill was unexpectedly difficult.

For the last two years I have been doing 10 to 15 minutes of physical therapy exercises every day. This allows me about 30 minutes of pain free walking and standing. If I wear Hoka shoes, I can walk a half mile with minimal discomfort, and using trekking poles, I can walk up to three miles. Still, walking is exhausting as my body tries to compensate for ever increasing tension in my back and legs. If I do anything more than three miles or walk in normal shoes, I am in pain city.

I had been seeing a physiatrist (pain doctor). In early 2021 she injected my back with multiple cortisone shots. Prior to the shots I couldn’t walk 100 feet without pain. I was supposed to get another round of shots but then the pandemic hit, I hunkered down, and she left her medical practice.

The other day I found that she is at another practice so I am going to see her to try to re-boot the injections. They are extremely painful. I am hopeful that one or two rounds of cortisone will set me right for a while.

Video Psyching

It’s cold outside. Snow is coming. I am hoping and dreaming of riding a bike tour this summer. To get myself psyched up, I have been watching videos of tours. I thought my readers might find them useful.

The French Sisters

On my 2019 tour I met two sisters from France in a cafe in Boulder, Utah. They were traveling from San Francisco to New York City. Despite having ridden up a 14 percent grade the day before, they were upbeat and smiling. They blogged about their trip. When they finished they made a video. Even if you don’t understand French, you’ll see what an epic trip it was.

The TransAm in 2019

This couple from Maryland rode the TransAm (or most of it, at least) from Oregon City, Oregon to Maryland. It’s a short video but it’s honest. Rain happens. So does exhaustion. But they had a blast.

Ryan van Duzer in Love

Ryan does adventure travel videos as a career. Good work if you can get it. He has dozens of videos of adventures over the last 20 years. A few years ago. he met Ali, another filmmaker, and fell madly in love. They rode across the US, using a route of Ryan’s devising. Along they way they asked people what “love” meant to them. I found this kind of odd but regardless the video is very well made. Ryan uses a ton of drone footage. (How he does this I’ll never know.) Try to keep in mind that bike tourists rarely see the spectacular vistas his drones do.

Cycling the Western Express

This guy rode the Western Express. It’s the route I took from Pueblo, Colorado to San Francisco in 2019. It wrecked me. Seems like it got to him too.

Two Years on a Bike

This is a series of videos of a man who rode from Vancouver, BC to Tierra del Fuego. There’s beaucoup drone footage. In the second video, he hooks up with a stunning fashion model in coastal Mexico. Funny how this happens to me, too.

Southern Tier, East to West

This guy rode the Southern Tier from Saint Augustine, Florida to San Diego, California. It’s pretty honest. He endured rain, scary lightning, and brutal headwinds.

Slideshow: Boston to Oregon

This guy made up a route from Boston to the Oregon coast. He linked up a bunch of rail trails and has tons of good advice. Frankly, riding and camping in Yellowstone kind of freaks me out. Call me crazy but wild buffalo scare the bejesus out of me.

There’s a nor’easter coming this weekend. Bundle up and take a virtual ride across the US while the storm’s a ragin’.

Timber!

Mrs. Rootchopper insisted that it was “nice and warm” outside so I decided to break out my holey wool sweater and take The Mule for a ride. I was overdressed for the first 15 miles riding north with a tailwind toward Alexandria, Shirlington, and Pentagon City. When I turned for home, comfort turned to chill. Dang.

Along the way I spotted a rather large red fox along the Four Mile Run trail. It was only a few feet away and seemed rather unimpressed with my passing. I think his size was an illusion caused by his fur being fluffed up against the cold.

On the way home, I took the Mount Vernon Trail for the second time since our big winter storm two weeks ago. It was my first time south of Tulane Drive (about a mile south of Alexandria). As I passed the site of a bald eagle nest I heard a piercing screech. I pulled over and looked up. Two adult bald eagles were perched side by side on separate branches way up at the top of a tree right next to the trail. Based on my viewings of the bald eagle cam at the National Arboretum in Northeast DC, I suspect that these two eagles are mating. Also, they were both smoking cigarettes.

I could see that a fairly impressive amount of storm debris had been cleared from the trail itself but much of the debris was left along the trail. (Farther south, I saw a lone volunteer piling storm debris next to a street parallel to the trail. He had a pick up truck, a small chain saw, and a hedge trimmer. Bravo.)

About a week ago I rode some of the trail and found the bridges covered in ice and snow. Today, they were clear. As I rode south, I was curious to see how much ice there would be in the shadows as the trail rose toward Northdown Road. Fortunately, there was no ice to speak of.

Along this stretch, two giant trees fell downhill, away from the trail in November 2020. Their root balls tore up a lane of the trail for about ten yards. On paper. the National Park Service owns the trail and is responsible for its maintenance. In reality, the Park Service quit doing maintenance years ago. Other than lawn mowing, the trail gets most of its maintenance from volunteers these days. Clearing these huge trees and repairing the trail damage are well beyond anything that volunteers can deal with. That said, a volunteer did put up some traffic cones and painted warning markings on the trail to alert riders about the hazard. To this day, as far as I can see, the Park Service has done nothing.

Aftermath of November 2020 Tree Fall

As you can see, there is one huge fallen tree to the right. What you can’t see is the second fallen tree behind the root ball and the tree that remained standing.

Apparently, the January 2022 storm took care of the surviving tree. Unlike the other two, this one fell uphill, across the trail.

The fallen tree was cut to allow trails users to pass
Uphill section of fallen tree

I have no idea who cut the gap in the tree but I’m grateful. Clearly what remains is an unsafe situation.

My Favorite Rides – Update

Being stuck at home is no fun but it got me to thinking about my favorite rides ever. These could be event rides or parts of tours or whatever. Here are a few that come to mind.

  • Maui Downhill – On our honeymoon, my wife and I rode from the rim of Haleakala at 10,000 feet to the ocean at the town of Paia. A little over 30 miles. I pedaled only a few times to get started after a mid-ride break for breakfast. My hands and forearms were sore from braking as we followed countless switchbacks through the wasteland near the top of the mountain to the paradise of the lower slope of the north face of the volcano.
  • The Erie Canal – I rode from Niagara Falls to Albany back in 2004. I can still see in my mind’s eye the early mornings on the Erie Canal from Freeport to roughly Syracuse. Fog. Ducks and geese. Packet boats gliding in the waterway. Pleasant temperatures with blessedly low humidity. And not a hill in sight. (Okay, there were two but they were not very big.)
  • The GAP Trail – The Great Allegheny Passage connects Pittsburgh with the C & O Canal towpath at Cumberland Maryland. I’ve done the entire trail twice, and major portions of it several times. Trestles, tunnels, waterfalls, massive wind turbines, scenic vistas of mountains and farmland, dense forest. If you live anywhere near Pittsburgh or DC you really need to check this out.
  • Washington Pass – The Northern Cascades in Washington State are pretty darn spectacular. Heading west from near Winthrop, Highway 20 took me up a long, arduous climb that included an amazing switchback from which I could see waaay down there where I had been. (I climbed THAT?!!!) Once over the top it’s downhill for dozens of miles with absolutely amazing views. The turquoise water of the streams and the lakes and rivers behind Diablo Dam just bowled me over.
  • The Florida Keys – During my 2017 tour to Key West I rode from Key Largo to Key West in one go, 100 miles. The road is level except for a few bridges. My ride was right after hurricane Irma wiped out parts of the lower keys. Instead of dolphins and sea turtles I saw immense heaps of storm debris for miles and miles. And about a million iguanas. The Seven Mile bridge is quite a cool thing to ride over. You end up at the Lowest Point in America buoy for the perfect ride ending photo op. Half the paint on the buoy had been scoured off by Irma making my arrival even more memorable.
  • 136 Miles in a Day – From Morehead, Minnesota to Gackle, North Dakota is surely not on anyone else’s favorite ride list but for me it was an amazing adventure. When you are in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do and nobody to do it with, you might as well keep riding. And so I did, bypassing my planned destination at a campground on the Little Yellowstone River. I took my time at the start of the ride by touring Fargo and chatting with east-bound bicycle tourists. This meant that I spent the last two and a half hours in complete darkness but for the white circle of my head light. It was magical.
  • 50 States in a Day – Anybody who knows me knows that the Washington Area Bicyclists Association’s 50 States Ride is my jam. I’ve done it 13 times and it never gets old. 60 miles of hills and stop signs and traffic lights winding all through the District of Columbia so that riders cycle on the avenues named after each of the 50 states. You are guaranteed to meet people all day and every last one of them should have their heads examined for doing this loony ride. The cue sheet is about 10 pages long. If you use a GPS you’re cheating. Getting lost is part of the adventure.
  • Westcliffe to Salida – I rode across Colorado on my 2019 tour. The first massive climb from Wetmore to Westcliffe went from 6,000 feet to 9,000 feet in 13 miles. It totally wrecked me mentally and physically. The next day I rode north along the eastern base of the Santa Fe Mountains and then west on the Arkansas River to Salida. Scenery out the wazoo. An amazing mile-long descent in the middle of the ride was a welcome relief from the previous day’s brutal climb.
  • Monarch Pass – After a rest day in Salida, I took on Monarch Pass. This was my first and only time over 11,000 feet. The Pass is on the Continental Divide nearly twice as high as Rogers Pass in Montana where I crossed the divide in 2018. The ride down was insane, made better by seeing hundreds of riders slogging their way up the mountain as part of the Ride the Rockies event.
  • Caples Lake to Sacramento – Words fail when I try to describe the sheer glee of realizing that after riding hundreds of miles up and down across Colorado, Utah, and Nevada and climbing over Carson Pass in California that my climbing days were nearly over on my 2019 tour. Not to be cheated, I began the day by climbing a few hundred feet over each of three more passes but after that it was downhill for about 80 miles. An overdose of evergreens gave way to windy roads through wine country.
  • A Day in the City – Long ago I was an intern at a government agency in San Francisco. One Saturday I took my bike on BART into the city to explore. I rode all over the place, including a brutal climb up Russian Hill. I descended through the Presidio back when it was still a military base then over the Golden Gate Bridge and down to Sausalito. I took a ferry across the bay between the Gate and Alcatraz Island. Perfect.
  • Night Baseball – Nationals Park is a 15-mile ride from my house. There is a bike valet at the ballpark so no need to worry about bike security. Games typically end between 10 and 11 pm. The ride home in the dark involves about two miles of urban riding then eleven miles on the Mount Vernon Trail which has no lighting. On a cool night with a slight breeze, this ride is bliss.
  • McKenzie Pass – Before I rode the second two thirds of the TransAmerican Bicycle Route last year, a friend said that she thought the ride over McKenzie Pass in Oregon was the highlight of her entire cross-country tour. To be honest I doubted her. After all, what could be better than 11,500+ foot Hoosier Pass in Colorado, the ride up and over Lolo Pass and along the Lochsa River in Idaho, or the spectacular Oregon coast? Well, she was right. Even with a ten mile traffic-y start that featured my only flat of the trip, the ride over McKenzie was epic. The approach from the valley in the east features spectacular views of the Sisters mountains to the south and several other snowy peaks in the Oregon Cascades to the north. Trucks and other long vehicles are not allowed on the road over the pass, so the ride is low stress. There were several amazing landscapes on this route. First is a gradual climb through a pine forest. Next, you ride through a stark forest burn zone, and finally the intense black rocky terrain of a former lava field leading to the pass itself. After an hour of gawking at the rocks and the mountain peaks, the real fun begins. On the west side you get a 3,000 foot curvy joy ride downhill through the lava zone, another burn zone, and finally a Pacific northwest rain forest with dense vegetation under countless fir trees. The air is clean and refreshing, made more so by the fact that you’ve been riding at elevation for three weeks. Every 1,000 feet you pass a sign..5,000 feet, 4,000 feet,…Wow. Just wow.