Category: #bikedc

Natchez Trace Tour Prep – Going Long

With warming temperatures it was time to put on some shorts and go long. I’m still not completely over my cold but I have to take advantage of this weather while I can.

On Monday I rode The Mule into a stiff headwind for about 27 miles. My route was flat for the first 15 miles, using the Mount Vernon and Rock Creek Trails. Most of the rest of the ride was the gradual uphill to Bethesda on the Capital Crescent Trail.

I stopped at a trailside rest area just before Bethesda Row and had a packet of Belvita breakfast biscuits. 230 calories. Then I continued northwest past the National Institutes of Health and through North Chevy Chase.

I took a right on Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park and followed it all the way back to Georgetown where I retraced my route back home. All told I rode 54 1/2 miles. It was nice having a tailwind for the second half. I realized that 230 calories is nowhere near enough so I made a mental note to up my food game.

Monday was a rest day. I tootled around the Fort Hunt area where I lived for 20 miles. I felt sluggish before I rode but as soon as I started pedaling my body was, you might say, in gear.

My original training plan was to do 50 miles, rest, 60, rest, 70 rest. Today the weather was pretty darn good. Sunny skies with temps up into the 70s. So off I rode, once again following yesterday’s route to DC. This time, however, the wind was at my back. After a cheese sandwich snack, I left the Capital Crescent Trail after a couple of miles and climbed the steepish hill away from the river to MacArthur Boulevard. I took MacArthur six miles west, including the grind over the reservoir complex. At Persimmon Tree Road I left MacArthur and climbed. After about a mile the road transitioned to rollers, just the kind that can wear you down. At River Road in Potomac I took a left and headed west. River Road has a series of challenging hills that are definitely granny worthy. Just when I thought I had run out of gas I came to Seneca Creek where I took a left and rode to Rileys Lock on the C&O.

To get to the towpath I crossed over the dry canal. I hadn’t counted on the sides of the canal being so steep so I didn’t have enough momentum to crest the far side of the ditch. I came to a stop and planted my right foot. I knew I was in trouble. It was just too steep. As I swung my left leg over the bike to dismount, the bike and I slid and we toppled over to the right. I heard a “SNAP” on impact. After feeling utterly foolish for falling, I got it together and pushed the now-upright bike onto the towpath.

After a few hundred yards I was happy to see that my fall hadn’t damaged the rear derailer. All my gears worked just fine. The snap faded from my thoughts. I pedaled aggressively down the towpath, now into a headwind, several miles back to Great Falls Park where I stopped to eat my PB&J sammie and reload my water bottles.

Rather than continue down the flat towpath, I climbed about a mile out of the park back to MacArthur Boulevard. The climb is very much like those out west, anywhere between one and four percent grade, requiring more persistence than strength. One thing I noticed is that my climbing form had reverted to the mechanics I used so successfully in my cross country ride in 2018.

Over the top I rode with the big metal things down the windy wooded slope. This is one of my favorite stretches of road in the DC area. Once at the Old Anglers Inn, the road levels out. Now I had to grind away for about 27 miles to get back home.

As I rode I munched on my last packet of Belvitas, stashed in my vest pocket. I could tell that I was starting to flag when I had to re-cross the hill at the reservoir. I was pooped.

Just keep going.

When I arrived at Gravelly Point Park I stopped to finish off my Belvitas and watch a few planes land into the headwind. While watching I felt something odd about my right break lever. As it turns out the snap that I heard during my pathetic flop was a piece of plastic trim on the brake lever. Other than protecting the inner workings of the lever from rain, I don’t think it has much of a purpose. I guess I try to find a replacement somewhere or, failing that, attempt a superglue repair.

The broken plastic bit. Annoying!

The last 11+ miles were a slog but I made it home in one piece just before the sun set. The middle of my back was pretty achy (it felt fine while riding) so I took an Advil. I’m going to slide my saddle back a smidge to see if that helps.

My total mileage today was 77 1/2. That’s the longest I’ve ridden since late July and easily the hilliest ride I’ve done since the 50 States.

Tomorrow is a rest day. I go to the eye doctor and maybe get a Covid booster. (I need to check with my insurance to see if they’ll pay for it.) And maybe I’ll bring my bike to some shops near home to see if they have that plastic brake part.

As for this evening, I will eat like a Conehead. Mass quantities.

I Really Need to Get It in Gear

I’m about a month away from the start of the Natchez Trace tour. By now I had hoped to have done a 50 mile ride in preparation. Then I caught my wife’s cold. Let’s just say it has not been a productive week on the wheel. Despite feeling lousy, I managed to do six 30-mile rides. One day when my cold was at it’s peak, I managed an hour and a half on Big Nellie in the basement.

To assuage my feelings of anxiety, I have been dealing with a number of annoying odd jobs, which someone on the interwebs called problitos. These are the things that you know you ought to do but the day never comes to actually do them. In the last month or so I’ve placed magnets on the doors of some kitchen cabinets to hold them closed (with only modest success), re-attached a piece of wood trim that fell off the top on one of the cabinets, tracked down and installed some florescent bulbs for a couple of under cabinet lights, turned on the water to the outside of the house, did 10 days of laundry (the result of waiting for a plumber to deal with a clogged drain), did our taxes, and found a yard service for the summer. I also downloaded the maps for the tour.

All that’s left is to go shopping for stuff for the tour. I need just a few items: a mess kit for eating in camp, a power pack for charging my phone and lights, a bigger camp pillow, and a handlebar mount for my cell phone. I was going to buy most of this today but REI is having a sale in a week so I decided to wait. I could order this stuff online but REI and Dick’s Sporting Goods (where I’ll get the mess kit) are about 15 miles away. Perfect for a rest day ride.

The last several days were cool and windy. Today, I rode 13 miles into a gale. I suppose that’s good prep for the tour but it wasn’t much fun. Until I turned around. On the way home I stopped and bought a book to tide me over until April.

I hope to ride 60-ish miles tomorrow, 70 on Tuesday, and maybe another 70 later in the week. The distances sound like a lot but as I alluded to above I ride about 30 miles a day with relative ease. The plan is to ride 30 miles. Eat lunch. Ride home.

Still, I continue to have pre-tour anxiety. My brain bounces between feeling confident in my level of experience (this will be my 14th tour) and my ridiculous mileage base (10,000 miles per year for seven straight years has to count for something) and feeling old (I’m 69 1/2) and fat (so many cookies, so little time). The daily mileages on the tour may seem daunting but I won’t be carrying half the crap that I do on my unsupported tours. That has to count for something.

I know that last two days of this year’s ride will be hilly. To get myself mentally prepared I took a look at the elevation profiles from my tours of the last two years. They look somewhat similar to this year’s tour but with one big difference: the scale. In 2023 I rode across the White and Green Mountains of New England. Admittedly the daily mileages were lower but dang were those climbs nasty! The Kancamagus Pass in New Hampshire alone was orders of magnitude harder than anything the Trace will throw at me. And I did that one in the rain.

Middlebury Gap in Vermont was nearly as bad. I did walk the last 200 yards of Middlebury Gap when I was unable to hold a straight line of travel. I think the gradient near the top was 12 percent. Oof.

I just need to keep in mind that when I’m bike touring I’ve got all day. No hurries. No worries. To paraphrase Steven Wright, everything is biking distance is you have the time.

With enough snacks, all things are possible.

Old Man on a Bicycle

Tour Prep Marches On

My preparation for the Natchez Trace tour is going okay. I can ride 30 to 35 miles without breaking a sweat. I could easily have done much more than 30 yesterday but high winds made riding unsafe. As it was, a large tree fell across the Capital Crescent Trail northwest of DC. I have had three close calls with tree falls so I’m not about to take any chances.

All but one day on the tour is longer than 30 miles so I need to up my mileage game. Fortunately, mother nature appears to be willing to cooperate. Daytime temperatures will be rising into the 70s next week. We’re saved! That, combined with the change to daylight savings time, should give me ample opportunities to go long.

Mow money, Mo’ bikes?

I’ve given myself plenty of time to ride this year; I hired a lawn service. I’ve never done this before but I had reached a decision point. My 20-year-old gas mower is all but kaput. It has a frozen blade, a broken handle height adjuster, a broken deck height adjuster, and a carburetor that clogs. Enough. A new electric mower would set me back north of $600. (Some self propelled mowers cost a stupefying $1,100.)

I honestly don’t mind mowing the lawn (except in the dog days of summer) but it turns out that the ideal weather for lawn mowing is also the ideal time for bike riding. Hmmm. Another consideration is the fact that when I’m away on my tours, my wife gets to do this chore which I am sure she doesn’t like. DIY lawn care also adds to the stress of family travel. If the lawn doesn’t get mowed before we leave, we come back to grass out the wazoo. Then there is the Rootchopper lawn quality pledge: do only the bare minimum. We haven’t aerated the lawn in 20 years and the ground is hard as a rock. Not surprisingly we have a pretty impressive weed farm.

Since I ride around the Mount Vernon/Fort Hunt area several times a week, I know which lawn services do a good job. I ruled out the services that work on high end properties figuring they’d be too expensive. I obtained three estimates, eliminated one right away based on a contract that was unclear, and did a cost comparison. I also checked Washington Consumer Checkbook, a sort of local Consumer Reports publication that gives user-provided reviews. Both companies had comparable feedback, all positive. So I went with the low bidder.

My wife suggested that once I get rid of the lawn mower I’ll have ample parking space for another bike. Who knew there’d be collateral benefits?

I’m beginning to like this lawn service idea more and more.

February 2025

Watching

Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part 1. After a week of nonstop awful news, we needed some good old fashioned escapism. This mess of an nonsensical movie provided non-stop action anchored by a way-too-old Tom Cruise. Reminded me of Roger Moore in his last Bond flick. One implausible scene after another. At one point, a character gave a speech about how he would obtain a technology which, backed by the mighty power of the US, would rule the world. Hey, I thought this was escapism. Ugh. It is appalling that there will be a Part 2.

American Fiction – A film adaptation of Percival Everett’s book Erasure about an academic who writes a trashy blaxploitation novel and struggles with his conscience. Jeffery Wright was excellent in the lead. It’s sarcastic and funny and ironic as, forgive the expression, fuck.

Riding

A pretty decent month considering I had carpal tunnel surgery on February 3. The surgery and icy roads relegated me to riding Big Nellie in the basement for 262 miles. I did 181 miles on the Tank before taking it in for its annual physical. The Mule came home from the bike shop and carried me 233 miles, the longest ride being 40 miles. The best part was that many of the rides in the second half of the month were in shorts. I ended the month by riding to Friday Coffee Club for the first time since January. My mileage for the year is 1,451.

The Natchez Trail tour I signed up for through me some surprises. It starts in Jackson, Mississippi instead of Nashville. That adds a day of driving to and from the ride. To get back to Jackson from the end in Nashville requires a 7 hour ride in a shuttle van. Ugh. Lastly, the itinerary change, adding, most significantly, a 92-mile day near the end of the tour. Knowing these things I probably would not have signed up but it is what it is. I need to get some serious training in. Let’s hold March weather behaves itself.

Reading

Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go by George Pelicanos. The third Nick Stefanos, private eye, book set in DC in the 1990s. A story nearly as implausible as MIDR- Part !. Interesting only in the descriptions of DC neighborhoods like the area around Nationals Park back when it was nothing but warehouses and run-down seedy looking buildings. The story begins with our “hero” goes on a drinking binge and passes out in his own puke near the bank of the Anacostia River. When he comes to he witnesses a murder which he must solve because that’s what alcoholic PIs do.

The Mediocre Follow-Up Tour (a. k. a. The No-Name Tour) by Me. Re-reading the journal (made from blog posts on my phone) of my 2019 tour brought back a host of memories, many of them bad. It turns out that riding 3,000 often mountainous miles on one good leg isn’t such a good idea. Oddly, my memory had changed the location of many events during the tour. One of the advantages of riding with Mark and Corey during the first half of this ride was that we collectively made decisions, nearly all of them good. Once I was on my own, I pushed myself way too hard.

The Big Blowdown – George Pelicanos’s fifth novel tells the story of the generation of Greek and Italian immigrants who set the stage for the Nick Stefanos books. This is by far the best of the Pelicanos books I’ve read so far. It follows the fates of neighborhood kids who go to war overseas and end up mired in the grim underbelly of DC.

Truman by David McCullough. Although I didn’t finish it yet, I’ve been plowing through this 1000-page, Pulitzer Prize winning biography for a couple of weeks. It’s worth the time to read about his service as an artillery officer in World War I, the Truman Commission that rooted out waste in government military spending, his repeated long-shot wins in elections, the death of Franklin Roosevelt, the decision to drop the atomic bomb, the deft avoidance of a post-war economic calamity, the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine which led us into the Korean and, later the Vietnam wars, McCarthyism, and more.

Prepping for Spring and Beyond

Carpal Tunnel Recovery Update

The recovery from carpal tunnel surgery is going splendidly. Immediately after the surgery my hand was so weak that I was restricted to lifting anything heavier than a paperback book. Yesterday, 23 days from the surgery, I easily lifted The Tank and, later, The Mule onto my bike rack. The next milestone will be when I can comfortably do a bird dog pose during my daily stretching routine. My guess is that will happen next week.

I no longer have any stitches or steri strips on my incision site. I keep it covered with an oversized band-aid to be on the safe side.

Bike Physicals

As I alluded to above, I took The Tank to Beth at Bikes at Vienna for its annual physical and picked up The Mule. Beth spec’ed Wolf Tooth cushy handlebar tape for The Mule. It seems a bit like overkill but I suspect that I won’t feel that way once I get the bike out on the road. Once I try this tape out, I’ll decide what kind of tape to put on The Tank.

I had Beth install a Paul Mini-moto v-brake on the front wheel of the Mule. I had installed one on the back a couple of years ago and love it. Mini-motos brake better (I can even skid) and are much easier to adjust. Moreover, they disengage much more easily when changing tires. No more knocking the brake pads out of alignment for me.

Natchez Trace

Having signed up for a one-week, van-supported tour of the Natchez Trace Parkway I did a little research on what I am up against.

Adventure Cycling rates this as Level 4 out of 5 for difficulty. I think the rating reflects the fact that there are three days between 72 and 82 miles. They will certainly be a challenge but most of the route isn’t very hilly. Judging from some Strava metrics I have seen, the rides around my neighborhood have about 30 feet of elevation gain per mile. That’s less than all but two days on the tour.

I also checked how this compares to my ride up the Maine coast in 2022. Google Maps says that from Wells to Bar Harbor is 220 miles and 8,200 feet of elevation gain, 37 feet per mile. I handled this without much trouble. And it’s much less than the 45 feet per mile between Lexington and Damascus Virginia that I did last summer. I did both those rides unsupported. It’ll be nice not to have 35 pounds of stuff on my bike for this tour.

StartFinishMilesElevation Gain in FeetFeet Per Day
Day 1NatchezRock Springs611,33222
Day 2Rock SpringsRidgeland4891219
Day 3RidgelandFrench Camp821,45018
Day 4French CampShannon701,60023
Day 5ShannonTishomingo541,20022
Day 6TishomingoHohenwald792,90037
Day 7HohenwaldNashville622,18535
Total45611,57925

I have several friends who have ridden or driven the Trace and they all say it’s pretty and pretty easy.

I also will be taking one or two days off before the tour to drive to Nashville so I’ll have fresh legs. The tour starts April 7 which gives me a little over six weeks of time to prepare my aging carcass for the effort.

Hurry Spring!

Temporary Southpaw No More

Tuesday morning was my first post-op appointment with my hand surgeon. As expected my (3) stitches were removed. They were replaced with three steri-strips, which will hold the incision together for the next week when they should fall off.

I disclosed all my symptoms to the surgeon and he said “That’s normal” over and over again. I have various pains in my hand and even my elbow but the doctor said that unless they persist they are not a big deal.

I go back to the doctor in mid-March for another status check. In the meantime, I can use my hand “as tolerated”. It was time to put the hand through its paces.

Later in the day we had our second significant snowfall of the season. Mrs. Rootchopper and I went outside after three hours of snowfall and had at it. There was about two inches of snow on the ground and more was coming down fast.

I started by using a tool to clear the snow off our cars. My right hand didn’t much like this but once I warmed up, adapted my grip, and gave most of the work to my left hand, I had no problem. Next I picked up a snow shovel and cleared the sidewalk, driveway, and other areas. No problem. My hand was a bit sore but functioned well. More snow fell overnight so I went back out before breakfast and had at it again. If anything, my hand tolerated round two of shoveling better than round one.

Second snowfall of the winter

Yesterday, I took The Tank out for a ride. This was my first time on a conventional bicycle since the surgery. I made it ten miles without discomfort. I soldiered on, moving my hand position and unweighting my right hand, for another 20 miles. At the end of the ride, my neck hurt much more than my hand. My body is a wonderland of pain. Before riding today, I rotated the handlebars a smidge toward me. That did the trick. My neck tolerated the ride just fine. My hand held up without discomfort for 18 miles. I continued on as before, for another 12.

My bigger concern during today’s ride was the scary drivers I encountered. One driver turned sharply across my line of travel. I made eye contact and yelled at him. I could see that his car showed signs of multiple fender benders.

Earlier I passed Porto Vecchio, a condominium on the Mount Vernon Trail. Today, a car blew through the red light across the trail to make a left turn across traffic heading in both directions. How the seemingly oblivious driver avoided a crash is beyond me. Not to be outdone, left-turn driver was immediately followed by a right-turn driver who blew through the red light, just as a driver who hit me at this very spot in 2019. I third car pulled up aggressively as if to blow the light. I yelled at the driver to stop as I about to cross in front of the car. WTF.

After the snow shoveling and bike riding, I iced my hand for a half hour. So far, my hand seems to be bouncing back from these efforts without problems.

Sooo,

Today, I signed up for the Adventure Cycling Association’s van-supported Natchez Trace bike tour. It’s 456 miles in seven days. I have been putting off this decision for days, thinking that I might not be in shape for some seriously long days in the saddle (the longest day is 82 miles). Thanks to the van, however, I’ll be touring, for the first time, without carrying 40 pounds of gear; I only have to carry rain gear, some basic bike tools that I carry all the time, and snacks.

My next objective is to lose some weight in the next seven weeks.

No gut. No glory.

Temporary Southpaw – Day 3

Last night was a bit of a set back. I took Tramadol at 11 and it seemed not to work very well. About 2 a. m. I popped some ibuprofen and, a couple of hours later, strapped an ice bag to my hand and wrist. That did the trick. I woke up with barely any discomfort in my hand. Somehow I was still groggy so after breakfast I hit the couch for an hour-long nap, with the ice bag once again strapped to my hand and wrist.

Next up, I tried to do my neck and back exercise routine. I omitted a couple of poses (bird dog and a psoas stretch) because they would have put weight on my right hand. The stretching went well.

I headed to the basement for a two-hour session aboard Big Nellie. The gears are changed using something called Grip Shifters which require a twist of the wrist. My right hand could shift up without pain but shifting down was uncomfortable. The bike is set up on a resistance trainer so it’s entirely safe to reach over with my left had for downshifts.

After the ride I took a sink bath (not wanting to risk getting the bandage wet in the shower), took some extra strength Tylenol, and hit the couch for another session with the ice bag.

When I woke up my hand felt very good. It still won’t bear much weight and there is pain in the fleshy part of my palm on either side of the ligament that was cut, but the numbness is all but gone in my fingers. Of course, how good I feel may be a product of the medications so I still need to be careful. The doctor did say, however, that the mobility in my fingers should improve after a couple of days so I am right on track.

Tomorrow I get to take the bandage off. If the wound looks okay, I’ll switch to a band-aid. I am looking forward to taking a shower.

Onward!

Temporary Southpaw Eve

Just to bring folks up to date, I have moderate carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand. Some days I have no problems but, more typically, if I do something that stresses the base of my hand (e.g., pushing a lawn mower, riding a conventional bike, shoveling snow) my hand goes numb. Sometimes it’s only a finger (usually the middle finger) or two; other times, like during today’s ride on The Tank, my whole hand just kind of checks out.

The nerves in the hand are extensions of nerves that pass through a structure called the carpal tunnel at the base of the underside of the hand. The tunnel is capped by a ligament. When the ligament gets tight or inflamed, it impinges on the nerves leading to the hand causing the symptoms. If left untreated, the condition can become constant and painful. Typically the condition is caused by repetitive stress, like riding a bike a bazillion miles.

Tomorrow morning I will be undergoing endoscopic carpal tunnel release surgery on my right, dominant hand. The surgery is low risk and should take no more than 15 minutes. (For reference sake, this is about as long as each of my cataract surgeries.) The procedure is pretty straightforward. I will be given mild sedation (comparable to my cataract surgeries or my colonoscopy) and a local anesthetic in the area of my hand and wrist where the surgeon will be working. The surgeon will make a small (less than an inch wide) incision in the underside of my wrist just below my hand. He then will insert an endoscope into the slit and, using a tiny camera, maneuver it into position beneath the ligament. Once in place, he will sever the ligament using a surgical blade inside the endoscope. After he removes the endoscope, he’ll clean the wound with some saline, stitch the incision, and bandage the area.

After the surgery my job is to ice the area intermittently and to keep the wrist above my heart to promote healing. After three days, the surgeon’s bandage will come off and I will replace it with a Bandaid. In one week I go back to have the surgeon assess my progress. During this period, I am prohibited from raising more than five pounds with the hand. He said that I should be able to ride my conventional bike after a week. I think that’s pretty optimistic but we’ll see what happens. In the meantime, Big Nellie and I will be hanging out in the basement.

In preparation for the surgery I’ve been trying to get some minor tasks out of the way. I went to the pharmacy to get my post-op medications (anti-inflamatories, pain killers, and anti-nausea drugs). This was the first time I used my new Medicare D insurance and I shocked at the cost. My out-of-pocket expense for the three post-op medications was less that $3. (I am not making this up.) I also refilled my asthma maintenance medicine. It is $20 cheaper per month than my old insurance. My asthma rescue inhaler cost only $5. Dang.

Since I won’t be able to ride The Mule for a week anyway, I spent the last week riding it daily, until I reached 78,000 miles on the odometer. Then I drove to Bikes at Vienna and handed over my steed to mechanic Beth for some TLC. I told her about the surgery and she suggested a more cushiony bar tape that should help my hand over the coming weeks.

While we were chatting, Beth told me about a friend who had the surgery about eight years ago and said that it was a total success. Joan, a reader whom I met in Wyoming on my 2022 bike tour, told me that she had carpal tunnel release surgery on both wrists after riding the grueling Paris-Brest-Paris randonneuring event years ago. She, too, had excellent results. While waiting for her wrists to heal, she trained for a marathon (because she is an athletic beast!).

I’ve been spending much of the rest of my time doing small tasks that I’d rather not deal with using my left hand. These include changing the water filter in my refrigerator, installing new wiper blades on my car (the rubber on the old ones was disintegrating!), pumping up the tires on my bikes, and doing laundry.

I hope to post an update about my progress a few days after the surgery.

In unrelated news, during my ride today I passed a man mowing his lawn. I think he takes this Groundhog Day thing way too seriously.

January 2025 – Watching and reading and riding in a polar vortex

Watching

The Holdovers – Director Alexander Payne’s second collaboration with Paul Giamatti (the first was Sideways) about those left behind during Christmas break at a New England boarding school. Terrific.

American Primeval – A tail of blood and hate and deliverance from director Peter Berg. Mormons, the U. S. Cavalry, settlers, Shoshones, and Paiutes contest the Utah territory. Incredibly violent. Taylor Hirsch, long left in the dust after playing Tim Riggins in Berg’s Friday Night Lights, makes a stellar protagonist. Great cast, cinematography, and direction. Written by Mark L. Smith who also wrote The Revenant.

Michael McIntyre, Showman – A Netflix stand up special. Absolutely hysterical.

Rams – Disease breaks out among sheep herds in Australia. Flocks must be destroyed but one man keeps a ram and three ewes in a back room of his small house in defiance. Interesting tale staring Sam Neill (who is an actual sheep farmer in real life). We had trouble figuring out if it was meant to be a comedy.

Mat Ryder’s Tour of Aotearoa (New Zealand) – Mat’s at it again riding from the northernmost point in New Zealand all the way to the southernmost. Here’s the first five days, but the video series precedes his departure from Wales.

Football – I watched several NFL playoff games in preparation for the Super Bowl, otherwise I would not have a clue beyond Taylor Swift and such.

A nearly nightly binge of coverage of Trump’s first 100 days on MSNBC, CNN, and The Daily Show.

And the month ended with a horrific mid-air crash near National Airport. It brought back memories of a gloomy night, March 3, 1972, when a Mohawk Airlines turboprop flew over my head and, about a mile away, crashed into a house.

Reading

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman. The man who brought you The Thursday Murder Club is at it again with a new series about three unlikely (Osman’s stock in trade) crime solving partners. This is my first book of 2025, having waited three months so that my wife could buy it for me for Christmas. Well worth the wait. Witty. Clever. Loads of interesting characters. Someone is killing social influencers and the blood of Amy (one of the “We”) is found at the site of each murder. Who done it?

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Hadn’t read this since I was a tween. I got lost in the dialect back then. Liked it much more now but found some of the escapades went on ten pages too long. Precursor to reading James.

James by Percival Everett. A re-telling of the story in Huck Finn (mostly) from the perspective of Huck’s companion Jim. a runaway slave. I say “re-telling” because this book’s plot, especially in its second half. diverges from Twain’s narrative. James is worthy of all the praise heaped on it last year when it was published.

A Firing Offense by George Pelicanos. The first book by the much praised DC author. It’s a private eye novel set in DC in the early 1990s. Pelicanos captures the vibe in DC at the time to a t. A pretty impressive first novel. Half way through, I ordered his next two books which continue the boozy adventures of Nick Stefanos.

Nick’s Trip by George Pelicanos. The second Nick Stefano book by Pelicanos. Like the first one Nick takes on a case and solves a second for personal reasons. A literally incredible amount of alcohol is consumed by the characters who mostly remain functional and coherent despite their drinking. Still, this captures the vibe of the time and places (DC, southern Maryland).

Any Road Tour by me. I was between books so I decided to read the journal I created out of the nightly blog posts during my 2018 bike tour from Mount Vernon, Virginia to Portland, Oregon. It could use a little editing and a handful of photos are missing but it’s still not a bad read, if I do say so myself. I found that my memory had mixed up sequences and locations of events. Also, I seemed to think that I had far fewer headwinds than the entries suggest.

Riding

I managed a pretty decent month of riding despite snow and ice and the infamous polar vortex. I clocked 775 miles, riding 29 of 31 days. I rode indoors for 12 days on Big Nellie for the equivalent of 256 miles. Most of the rest was on The Mule at 398 miles. The switch to platform pedals really paid off this month. My feet are secure and I don’t have to find a way to jam them into toe clips. Also, the Catalyst pedals are proving to be well worth the money.