Well try as I might, I didn’t get much riding done this week  I commuted on Tuesday, but had to drive on Monday, Thursday, and Friday so that I could get to my daughter’s basketball games after work.  Wednesday’s bike commute was cancelled so I could drive my daughter, a relatively new driver, home from school in the snow and freezing rain. This was a good plan except for the fact that there was no snow and freezing rain.  So that leaves today.  Today I did my errands by car because I had to get the car inspected.  Try as I might, I could not get our 2004 Accord to fit on the back of my Sequoia.  Since I was already out with the car, I did a coffee run and my trip to the pharmacy, leaving very little for me to do on my bike tomorrow.

The weather was supposed to be lousy today so I decided to ride my recumbent in the basement. It’s attached to a resistance trainer which keeps me from riding in very tight circles.  It was only my second basement ride this winter which is proof positive that I am getting lazier with time.

So what do I do while riding in the basement, you ask?  (I heard you.  Yes, you over there with the cappuciino.)
I watched the movie The Visitor.  I highly recommend it. Richard Jenkins, a character actor who you will surely recognize, was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, but the rest of the cast is wonderful too.  I bought the DVD at a sale for $5 about 6 months ago and just now got around to watching it. Two thumbs waaay up.

After that was over, I decided to watch some of Seven Worlds Collide, a DVD of a series of concerts in support of Oxfam,  Normally, these agglomerations of stars from different bands sound dreadful, but this one is excellent.  It doesn’t hurt when the band includes Neil, Tim, and Liam Finn, Eddie Vedder, Johnny Marr, Ed O’Brien and Phil Selway from Radiohead, Sebastian Steinberg from Soul Coughing, and Lisa Germano.  I made it halfway through (I watched it at least 4 times before) and decided to come back above ground.  Three hours is a long time on an indoor bike. I learned that the whole time I was spinning away the wind was howling outside so no regrets about riding indoors from me.

I might get a Utilitaire ride in tomorrow. We’re out of AAA batteries and the remote to the crummy old basement TV needs some.  I have to do it early because I have to drive my daughter to Dulles which will pretty much kill the afternoon.

My hat’s off to those of you who are forging ahead with MG’s Utilitaire Challenge.

Chelli’s Killer Guacamole

Something like 111 million Americans watched the Super Bowl last night.  I feel sorry for the guy who had to count them; he missed a good game.  Rootchopperette sided with the Giants only because I rooted for the Patriots.  I grew up rooting for the Giants in the Fran Tarkenton era, when they were rarely better than mediocre.  Then I lived in Boston and Providence in the Chuck Fairbanks era, when the Patriots were rarely better than mediocre. Having become a Red Sox fan and endured Bucky Effing Dent and all that rot, I am never more a fan of New York teams.  And so the outcome of last night’s game was depressing.

To make up for that I had way too much of Chelli’s guacamole during the game.  Then there was the beer (Shiner Bock’s pretty good), the Italian food and the carrot cake and ice cream.  I didn’t get to sleep until after midnight so I awoke groggy, bloated and unmotivated. It’s a wonder I could get my leg over my bike this morning.

Overcoming all this adversity, I saddled up for a chilly ride to work.  The 26 degrees at the start ever so gradually gave way to temperatures in the mid-thirties.  Along the way as I was warming up, I passed Alex and Belle, our resident bald eagles, sunning themselves in a tree along the Mount Vernon Trail.  (Seeing them never gets old.)  Fortunately, the wind was at my back.

I arrived at work remarkably comfortable and survived the day with little energy for the ride home. It was still light out (spring is getting closer!) and the temperature was 50 degrees, which allowed me to ignore the headwind. 

Stupid Sign with Beer Circle

About a week ago I started noticing little circles on the traffic signs on the trail. Apparently a beer lover has decided to decorate the warning signs along the trail.  I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to the signs anyway, especially stupid ones like this one.  If I do what the signs say, I stop and get off my bike.  Then, apparently, it’s okay for me to re-mount my bike and ride it across the road.  Why don’t they have signs for car drivers that tell them to stop then get out of their cars before crossing? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? . 

My commute is nearly 15 miles long so by the time I passed the Beltway it was dark. Mesmerized by the white circle from my headlight, I neglected to look up to see if Belle and Alex were still around.  When I reached Dyke Marsh a mile later, I stopped to take a picture of the full moon but, as usual, it came out as a white dot.  The Sequoia showed up nicely though, just before it fell over on its side.  Unharmed, I pedaled home in the dark, giving me Utilitaire  no. 3, and my second and last night Utilitaire.

Dotting the Sequoia at Dyke Marsh

When I got home Rootchopperette showed me the t-shirt that she wore to school. “I Love NY”.  Pass the guac, please.

Fellow bike blogger MG has come up with a little contest to make riding in the last weeks of winter more challenging and purposeful.  It’s called the Utilitaire 12.  The idea is to do two bike rides per week for six weeks.  The gist of the thing is you run errands on your bike, see?  It’s actually a contest more appropriate for someone who lives in the city.  Out here in the suburbs, running errands can add up to quite a lot of riding.

I have already done one Utilitaire ride this week.  It was my bike commute on Wednesday. It was 29 1/2 miles.  That was pretty easy since I ride to work as often as possible anyway.  So today I decided to run errands.

At the Barbershop (pole in background)

Now according to the rules, I get credit for only one more Utilitaire ride this week.  Mine was a doozy.. I started by riding  a little over a mile to the barbershop.  The barber once again exposed way more of my scalp than I care to see but he can’t be blamed for the thinning of the hairs.

Getting My Powerball On

After the barbershop I rode about a tenth of a mile to the 7-11 to buy lottery tickets.  The jackpot is in Croesus territory so I had to buy a ticket. For the next five or six hours I can dream about buying a Caribbean island like Richard Branson.  Unlike Sir Richard,  I will install sprinklers, however.

The Supermarket Has My Bank Inside

Back on the bike, I headed over to scenic US 1 to go to the bank to cash a check. Apparently, this is National Chatty Teller Day.  There were five people in line as the two tellers made small talk with a couple of customers.  Sometimes I just which tellers would be rude so I could get my money and run.  After a ten minute delay, I had my cash and I was out the door. 

Scoring Some Wiper Blades

In another quarter mile I arrived at Auto Zone to buy some windshield wiper blades for the Millennium Falcon.  The MF is the car we bought for our son. It is a Mitsubishi Lancer.  I don’t know any Japanese but I’m betting lancer in Japanese translates to something like turd in English.  One of the wiper blades was 26 inches long, too long to allow me to close my panniers. Actually, it stuck out so far that I caught my leg on it as I went to mount my bike.  I nearly crashed before I started.  What a klutz!  After some careful thought I removed the wiper blade from the pannier, got on the bike, then out the wiper blade back in the pannier like a cowboy putting away his rifle before heading after the bad guys.

Wiper Blades Are Too Long

I tried to find a shortcut through an adjacent apartment complex.  I was shocked at how large the complex was.  After about 1/2 mile of riding down dead ends, I gave up and headed back to route 1. Back to the house I rode without incident thanks to the access road that runs along the highway.  By the time I reached home I had reached 7 1/2 miles of Utilitaire riding.  I put the wiper blades on the MF and then headed back out.

My final chore was to buy some Assos chamois butter.  Cyclists who wear cycling shorts don’t wear underpants; instead bike shorts come with a built in pad to cushion the ride. Unfortunately, if you ride enough you’re nearly guaranteed to get saddle sores.  Saddle sores are bad news.  Butt cream to the  rescue. A container of Assos costs more than $25 but my buttocks are worth it. My local bike shop is four miles from home.  Hi Yo Silver, Away.

Ass Cream Sold Here

On leaving the bike shop I noticed that I had already logged 11 1/2 miles of Utilitaire cycling in one day.  If you count the bank and Auto Zone, the barbershop and 7-11, and the bike shop, I had already done 3 rides today.  I only get to count one because that’s MG’s rule and she is Queen Utilitaire of the Interwebs.  Unfair I say!

It being the case that I was already 4 miles from home and a little less than 30 miles from a 100-mile week, I decided to go for a spin.  I headed north on Fort Hunt Road and made my way back to Washington Street in Alexandria.  I rode north from there to Slater’s Lane where I headed east.  I reach US 1 again but here it has a brand new bridge with a bikeable sidewalk.  On the north side of the brdge I entered Potomac Yards, a new development on the site of an abandoned railroad classification yard.  (A classification yard is where trains are assembled from rail cars coming from a lot of heres and going to a lot of theres.)

The Bridge to Lady Bird Johnson Park

The principal advantage of Potomac Yards is that it is pool table flat and has a brand new boulevard that cars don’t seem to want to use.  Fools!  In five minutes I was on the north side of Crystal City, riding through the new Long Bridge Park.  The Park isn’t intended for biking but the road next to it is a mess.  After riding through the park, I made my way along the north side of the pentagon and hung a right into Lady Bird Johnson Park.  There I glanced at the big stone monument to her husband. I stopped to use the bathroom facilities but the men’s room was filled with shady looking characters.

Anacostia River Trail

Not wanting to buy any meth, I left and rode under the GW Parkway and over the 14th Street bridge into DC.  There I picked up the interim Anacostia River Trail. Interim means :we ain’t finished yet.”  What was finished was very impressive. It is especially so since so much of the area is empty lots and old industrial buildings.  Unfortunately, the trail is closed at the Washington Navy Yard.  back tracking a bit I found the Trapeze School..  You’re kidding me.  No sir.  There it was and there we people inside taking lessons.  I wish I was young, athletic and fearless.  Sadly, three strikes and I’m out.

Around the Navy Yard complex, I hooked up with the Anacostia River Trail again.  This led me to the 11th Street bridge across the Anacostia. With a couple of quick turns. I was on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.  MLK is a hilly beast right through some of the poorest neighborhoods of DC. There are four hills from the 11th Street bridge to the Wilson Bridge across the Potomac.  Four, that is, if you avoid the high-traffic South Capital Street in DC which turns into /Indian Head Highway in Maryland.  Wanting to save a hill I took the highway.  Drivers were pretty mellow today so I had no trouble getting to Oxon Hill Road.  I took a left and began a screaming downhill on near virgin pavement toward the base of the Wilson Bridge.  If you take this downhill all the way to National Harbor you can reach 40 miles per hour. (Been there, done that.)  Today, I left the downhill about midway to cross over a bike path that would take me to the Wilson Bridge bike path. 

Navy Yard Closed

Trapeze School – Check Out the Motto

In no time at all I was back on the Mount Vernon Trail. One mile later I left the trail to ride up the big hill on Park Terrace Drive. Even though I had ridden nearly 40 miles the hill seemed preferable to the flatter but more circuitous MVT.  

I arrived home in a light sprinkle.  I had ridden 42 1/2 miles and accomplished a whole bunch of errands. I treated my Sequoia to a quick chain cleaning and a fresh application of Pedro’s Ice Wax.    I treated the engine to a fresh application of see-food.  Utilitairing makes me hungry.

 I missed riding in yesterday’s warm weather so I was pleased when we were treated to day two of Springmaggeddon.  It was 64 degrees for most of my ride home. I was wearing bike shorts for the second time this year.  My panniers were packed mostly with bike clothes that I didn’t need.  Oh, the weatherman said it would be really nice this evening, but, this time of year, if he’s wrong, the consequences can be most unpleasant.

Approaching the Roosevelt Bridge on the Mount Vernon Trail

The ride in started in a light rain.  It was in the low 50s and I broke out my tweener gear.  That’s my long fingered gloves, arm warmers, and my Buff head gaiter.  The holey sweater stayed home.  So did my boots.  Once the rain stopped it was pretty nice.

On the Boardwalk under the Roosevelt Bridge

The ride home was way better. I wore a jacket over a light base layer. I stashed the tweener stuff and broke out my normal bike gloves. Then I took off. What can you say about 64 degrees, no rain, and a light tailwind?  And I had fresh legs from taking yesterday off. My legs said, “Let’s boogie!” and so we did.  I covered most of the first half of the ride into Old Town Alexandria going about 17 miles per hour. I NEVER go that fast on the trail. 

Once I started encountering runners and walkers, I slowed my roll. It got dark but the temperatures stayed around 60. What an excellent ride. Then two lights bounced just ahead of me.  A bunny! In February.  It was the legendary Punxatawney Bunny.  As the story goes, if he gets caught in your wheels, we get six more weeks of winter (and you get a trip to the ER).  Fortunately, I was too alert and he was too fast.  So winter is officially over.  Feel free to thank me with a cup of Joe or a cold beer. 

Riding up to Washington Street along the Great Wall of Beltway

Actually, according to the news tonight we are benefiting from a jet stream that is stuck along the US-Canada border.  The same jet stream dips south in Europe. It’s snowing like a bitch in southern France, central Italy and the Balkans. And its 20 below in the Ukraine. And I’m in shorts.

Of course, now that I’ve jinxed us, we’re screwed.  Sorry about that.

This mild winter has left me with pretty impressive numbers.  I logged 463 miles on my 3 trusty steeds. 59.5 miles on my New World Tourist (Little Nellie), 24 on my Tour Easy recumbent (Big Nellie), and 379.5 on my Specialized Sequoia. Only the 24 miles on the Tour Easy were indoors which is really unusual for me. Usually I ride away the snowy days in the basement.  We’ve had hardly any snow at all this year.

I did nine bicycle commutes for about 265 miles.  The first one was on Little Nellie, the rest on the Sequoia.

I rode 16 out of 31 days.  On the days I rode I averaged 28.9 miles.  Including off days I rode 14.9 miles.  Although it seems like I’m on track to do 5,500 miles for the year, I did 360 miles last January with 5 commutes and rode 6,900 miles for the year.

I did a little over 70 miles over the weekend and felt sore and tired all day Monday, and my knees and shoulders ached. I figured out why on Monday evening. The mechanic at the bike shop broke the bolt that holds my seat post on.  When he installed the new bolt, he didn’t tighten it enough so the seat slid down a bit.  Just a couple of millimeters makes a big difference with me. I’m pretty sure that I will feel much better tomorrow when I ride to work. Of course, 60 degree temperatures won’t hurt either.

Onward into February….

Two years ago this week, we were enjoying something that we in DC call Snowmaggedon.  We had two feet on snow on the ground.  DC shut down. Normally, DC residents are weather weenies.  Snowmaggedon was the real deal.  Having lived through the New England Blizzard of ’78, I feel I am qualified to say that Snowmaggedon was definitely a major league storm. Unlike 1978, I was a homeowner in 2010 so Snowmaggedon was a much bigger pain in the ass.

But enough about snow.  When I left the house this morning there wasn’t even the suggestion of snow on the ground.  It was nearly 50 degrees outside. Crocuses are in a state of biological confusion.  People are running in shorts.  Yeah, baby!  Time for a bike ride.

My first stop was the site of a recent house fire about a mile from my home.  The emergency responders went ape with their sirens to get to this fire.  This was necessary because it was nearly one a.m. on a weeknight and the streets were deserted.  They must have been bored because they emptied the fire house. When I got to the house today, I was expecting to see a gutted structure.  Instead I saw an upstairs bathroom window covered with plywood and a tarp covering a small section of the roof above.  Fairfax’s finest beat that fire into submission big time.  It wasn’t even worth taking a picture.

So after my exciting plywood moment, I got on with the ride. I took the Mount Vernon Trail into Old Town Alexandria and bypassed the epicenter of touroids by riding Saint Asaph and Pitt Streets instead of Royal and Union.  I rejoined the MVT north of the soon-to-be-closed power plant.  I took the tunnel to Crystal City and made my way to Clark Street.  Clark Street is a beat up old road that once was the home of a cement plant.  That site has been turned into Long Bridge Park, which is pretty fab.  Clark Street, alas, is anything but.  Pot holes, patches, humongous puddles, one after another.  I watched a Jeep gun it through a pond in mid street.  It looked like Cecil B. Demille’s Red Sea crossing.  The water came way over the top of both sides of his Jeep. Impressive. Fortunately I was several hundred feet away so I didn’t get wet at all.

After Moses did his thing, I rode past the Pentagon and Arlington Cemetery into Rosslyn.  Here I met up with some car traffic but they stayed out of the bike lane and I stayed in it.  On the DC side of Key Bridge I portaged down a few steps to the C&O Canal.  The towpath in this section has seen better days. The Sequoia was up to the task of bouncing over the stones and swerving around the mud puddles.  At Fletcher’s Boat house I switched over to the mercifully smooth pavement of the Capital Crescent Trail.  After a mile or two I spotted a paved trail to the right.  This was the Little Falls Trail, a quaint little path that meanders through a wooded park.  After my wooded interlude, I popped out on some quiet neighborhood streets. It seemed a little hilly but I was up for some work.  Then I came to Albemarle Street.  Albemarle means “steep son of a bitch” in French . (Vraiment, mes amis. I was president of my high school French club.  Would I make something like that up?)  And it was.

I didn’t have a clue where I was but the houses were nice and the streets were smooth and traffic-free.  So I climbed up Albemarle eventually coming to Massachusetts Avenue.  Mass Ave has the nicest stretch of down hill riding in town.  Unfortunately, the start of the down hill was a little higher up.  So past American University I climbed. Then around a couple of rather crazy traffic circles including Ward Circle, an always fun near death experience.  Finally, I reached Washington National Cathedral in the aptly named Cathedral Heights neighborhood.

And the fun began.  Down Mass Ave into a head wind went I.  I was barely pedaling and my odometer showed 25, 26, 27,…  I was thankful for the head wind when I hit a depressed man hole cover near the Observatory.  If I had hit it at 40 miles per hour that man hole cover would have launched me for sure.  Onward I rolled unscathed along Embassy Row.  It’s one damn impressive street.  I was going too fast to get the names of all the countries so you’ll just have to go there yourself.  Collect them all.

I blew through another traffic circle before reaching Dupont Circle,  Normally either one of these is so full of automotive mayhem that a cyclist will see God as he dances with certain death.  Today wasn’t bad at all.  I only saw two saints and an archangel.

I reached one more traffic circle and decided not to tempt fate.  I turned down 16th Street and headed straight for the White House.  It’s so cool living here. It’s the damn White House! There was a protest going on in Pennsylvania Avenue.  In front of the White House, Pennsylvania Avenue is a plaza that is closed to cars and truck bombs. I stopped and took a picture of the demonstration. The participants were calm but seemed very depressed.  I think they were Syrian.  If I were them, I’d be depressed, too, I suppose.

I cycled past the protest and around a street hockey game.  These guys were pretty good.  I weaved through the bollards at the end of the plaza and took a right onto the 15th Street cycle track. This is a two-way bike trail on the street separated from cars by flimsy plastic posts.  I spotted a sign that said “No Pedestrians in Bike Lane” as I followed a runner. She must be a local because everyone in DC is more important than you or me.

On my way back to the river I passed the Jefferson Memorial. Old Tom doesn’t get any respect.  The White House has bollards.  The Lincoln Memorial has bollards.  More than ten years after 9-11 the Jefferson Memorial still has jersey barriers.  All over the place. Apparently, some friend of W had the jersey barrier contract for the National Park Service.  Why can’t Obama get rid of them?  I bet bollard replacement will cause our national debt to be down graded to junk bond status, but it’s worth it, don’t you think? 

Now that I think about it maybe the jersey barriers are part of the memorial. Jefferson was an inventive guy.  Just tour Monticello and you’ll see how clever he was.  He probably invented the jersey barrier.  That must be the explanation.

Rant over.  I crossed the Potomac via the 14th Street Bridge where I fell in line with the slowest adult cyclists in the world. Clearly, they were physicists testing how slow a bicycle could be ridden before it fell over,  Passing was out of the question because the MVT was packed with runners, bladers, cyclists and dogs.  I jumped off the trail at Four Mile Run and made my way through the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria along Commonwealth Avenue, a tree lined boulevard with nice big bike lanes. It also has traffic calming brick speed tables with low spots for bikes.  These are way better than speed bumps.

I weaved my way past Old Town and popped out near the Beltway.  Here, I took a trail over to Fort Hunt Road in Fairfax County instead of jumping on the MVT again.  Fort Hunt Road has a shoulder that comes and goes. This apparently is VDOT’s idea of sound road design. After a couple more hills, it was down hill in traffic.  I was cruising along at 25 miles per hour and VDOT had decided that I didn’t need a shoulder and could use some asphalt patches.  Some asshat with diplomatic plates took time out of his day to scream at me out his window as he drove past.  I responded with my very best and most sincerely diplomatic F bomb.

Another mile and a half on side streets and my ride was in the bag.  41 1/2 miles of trails and traffic, hills and flats, pavement and towpath, street hockey and political protests, bollards and jersey barriers, 24 inches of snow and early spring.  Riding in DC has so much variety. You should try it.

I see some pretty interesting things along the Mount Vernon Trail.  Today it was about 40 degrees out and a bit windy. I imagine it was colder in the Potomac River along the trail.  These two gentlemen were out doing their American Sportsman thing when they became mired in mud in the river.  They must not have been the sharpest knives in the drawer because just to the left of them outside this picture is about a quarter acre of mud.  Undaunted they guided their boat right into the quagmire.  There was just one thing to do. They got out and pushed. That’s when I came across them. Up until then, I was feeling a little chilly and a bit foolish for riding my bike in this weather. Not anymore

Probably the most famous event to take place along the Mount Vernon Trail was the crash of Air Florida Flight 90 into the Potomac River 30 years ago today.  I pass the crash site every day amazed that anyone was pulled alive from the wreckage.  Only 5 people survived and one person, Arland D. Williams, gave away a lifeline several times before he drowned.  One of the three 14th Street Bridge spans is named after him.

I saw a small memorial between the trail and the river on my way home this evening.  A colorful wreath was propped up where the plane hit the ice-covered river.  In front of the wreath was a small, framed cartoonist rendering of the events of the day. 

I have a fascination with plane crashes because I saw a plane come down when I was in high school. It happened almost 40 years ago. My friend Owen and I were out for a walk, two bored teenagers with nothing else to do on an overcast, gloomy night. Just after I said, “Nothing ever happens around here,” something happened.

We lived in the flight path about five miles south east of Albany Airport and were accustomed to seeing planes on their final approach.  That dark night a plane came in overhead.  It sounded strange and the configuration of its lights made no sense to us.  We couldn’t tell what size of plane it was, but we sensed it was in serious trouble. We ran in the direction of the plane and, after sprinting a short ways, heard a dull “THUD” in the distance.  No explosion.  Owen said, “That plane crashed.”  I said, “No way. We would have heard an explosion.”  We ran to the nearest pay phone which happened to be directly across the street from a hospital.  We called a friend who lived further along the flight path.  He hadn’t heard a thing.

As he told us this, we heard sirens from all directions. Every emergency vehicle in town was racing to the crash.  So did we.  We hitched a ride (the only time in my life I ever hitched a ride) in a white Mustang.  We went about a half mile and jumped out at a red light. I remember that the car door wouldn’t close. “Sorry, man!” We ran in the direction of the flight path and overran the crash site by a couple of blocks. By the time we arrived there were several hundred people in a semicircle facing a passenger plane, lodged in a house. It , looked as if the pilot had tried to drive it into the garage.  The telephone lines and a big deciduous tree directly across the street were both somehow completely intact.

The left wing of the plane clipped the brick house to the left causing the corner of the house to buckle.  The garage to the right was untouched and was being used as a staging area for the bodies of the victims. We all watched in silence. A whisper here and there.  Light snow was falling on the proceedings.

After it was all over, something was bugging me.  There was no music. There’s supposed to be Max Steiner music when something dramatic happens. Like in King Kong or Casablanca. Real life has no sound track. Just the music in our heads. Along side the creepy memories of a gloomy night in March 1972.

Depending on which weather forecaster you listened to, today’s weather called for seasonable temperatures with the slight possibility of light rain in the afternoon. In the morning the weatherman was spot on. I bundled up with a base layer under my holey sweater and Marmot Precip outerwear, slapped on my balaclava, and I was good to go. 

At lunch time, I was slurping my hot and salty vegetable beef soup when I overheard another diner say, “It’s snowing.”  As Paul Simon said in his song Papa Hobo, “The weatherman lied.”

About an hour after returning to my office I received an e-mail from Mrs. Rootchopper who was using-not-losing her annual leave back at the Rootchopper Homestead.  “It’s snowing like mad here!” Oh, joy.  I called her for more details, she said, “Be careful of the bridges.”  She knows from past experience that the bridges, especially the wooden ones, on the Mount Vernon Trail can be incredibly slippery when wet.  One past experience totalled my bike and left me in a full leg brace for two weeks.  (Thank you, Hurricane Hugo.)

A few hours later I left the cosy confines of my office high atop scenic Rosslyn, Virginia. It was snowing moderately but the roads were too warm for any accumulation.  Pretty, pretty.

Two blocks later I turned onto the Mount Vernon Trail.  Apparently, car tires have something to do with this accumulation thing because there was a thin layer of snow across the trail.  There was just one thing to do. Ride on, cowboy.

And so I did.

It really was quite pleasant.  The snow started falling more heavily.  Pretty, pretty.  It was hard to see.  Too many headlights bouncing off the Parkway.

I made it passed the icy patch south of the Memorial Bridge.  Except it wasn’t icy, it was slushy. 

I rode through curves cutting the corners and reminding myself, sometimes audibly, to relax my arms. Stay loose.

Bridge after bridge passed.  No worries. 

As I approached the notoriously twisty and slick wooden bridge north of Slaters Lane, another commuter sped passed me. I called out, “You first!”  He made it across unscathed as did I.  A quarter mile further, on the wooden bridge that winds around the Slaters Lane apartment building, I saw a big smear in the snow on the trail. Somebody hit the deck here.  After the turn, another one.  Not pretty. Stay loose.

On I rode without the slightest slip.  I made sure to cross the railroad tracks near Old Town at a 90 degree angle. No problem. Stay loose.

By Old Town the snow had stopped. Only a bit of drizzle remained. I hoped it didn’t freeze. My cycle computer has a thermometer in it. Above freezing.  Good to go.

I made it into Belle Haven Park where I saw two cyclists standing next to their bikes just off the trail. “Are you okay?” The girl turned an smiled, “Yeah! Just taking pictures.”  She was right. Pretty, pretty.  The snow was clinging to branches.  Enjoy this, said I to myself..

One more big boardwalk to go. This one at Dyke Marsh.  There, in the middle of the trail was another smear.  Another unlucky rider. Not pretty. Stay loose.

I slogged on in a deliberately high gear.  All the way home. I pushed my bike over the lawn into my backyard where it would roll no more.  As we used to say when I was a kid, it was good packin’.  The snow was clinging to my tires and filled the entire space between my tires and my fenders.  I picked my bike up and walked the final 30 yards to the door of my shed.

My Sequoia doesn’t need a weatherman to know which way the shed is.

Stay loose.