I sit here at my desk with an ice pack alternating between my left knee and my right.  I’ve probably downed about a gallon of fluids while sitting here.  How did this come about?  It seemed to make reasonable sense at the time….

I spent most of the day yesterday doing some painting on the exterior of my house.  I hate house painting but it’s pretty easy to do.  You just have to be patient and it eventually gets done.  I finished my little paint project after breakfast this morning and decided to reward myself with a bike ride in the country.. I grabbed my copy of The Washington Area Bicycling Atlas and selected a ride in Virginia wine country.  The ride starts in the town of Marshall, heads southeast to Waterloo, then returns through the towns of Orleans, Jerry’s Shop, Hume, Leeds, Upperville, and Rectortown.  I had done this ride 10 or 15 years ago and seemed to recall enjoying it.  I glanced at the description and saw the words “rolling hills” and the 55 mile distance and thought, “Perfect”.

When I started out in Marshall, the heat was pretty nasty.  No worries.  I took off and immediately made a wrong turn.  Hey, it’s an old atlas; the route numbers have changed. Really.

In short order I was on back country roads, bombing along at a brisk pace. The hills were modest; the heat was hottest.  I started to take pictures of the countryside, but I realized that I’d never finish if I shot everything that was picturesque.

For the first ten miles or so, I thought “Some of these hills aren’t exactly ‘rolling.'” I slogged up the hills and enjoyed the breeze from the ride down the other side. At about 20 miles, I stopped for food and water in Orleans.  I bought a biscuit with a slice of ham in it.  Dang was it salty!  On a normal day, I think it would have been inedible but on a hot day like this one, it tasted wonderful.   I re-loaded my water bottles and hit the road. 35 miles to go.

I was feeling my oats.  Cruising along and spotting one oddity after the next:: a young longhorn cow, a sign for alpacas, and vineyards to name a few.  I could see the Blue Ridge Mountains looming over me to the west.  How pretty.  Good thing I don’t have to climb those babies. Then came mile 38.

Mile 38 started like most of the rollers I had been riding but it kept going up. Around a curve to the right – UP. Around a curve to the left – UP. Steeper and steeper. By the time I reached the top of this beast my throat was burning, my head was on fire, and my knees were screaming at me.  Only after the ride did I see the fine print:: “rolling hills with a few steep climbs.”  That would be mile 38 right there.  It was still pretty, except I was looking straight at the pavement in front of me.  Mile 38 looked a lot like pavement to me.  Really scenic pavement as pavements go.

Truth be told, before and after mile 38, there was plenty of scenery to take my mind off the heat. 

After about five minutes I recovered from Mile 38.  The slalom down to I-66 was fun to be sure.  Then the long slog back up past Sky Meadows State Park began.  Yes, mile 41 was another monster. Somehow, I had the climbing rhythm thing down now and took my time riding up beast no. 2. 

The next five miles were on major highways.  These thankfully had smooth pavement and, in the case of US 50, a nice tailwind.  I reached the town of Upperville all but out of water.  I spotted an elderly woman watering some flowers in front of the fire station. She kindly filled up my bottles and wished me well. Angels do exist.

The last ten miles were more to my liking. No more monster climbs.  At one point I spotted what looked like a dog in the shadows on the left side of the road.  As I approached, the dog spread its wings, lifted it red head and took off, just a few feet ahead of my moving bike.  It was a vulture. Ugly.

I had no plans to be his next meal so I got down to business and polished off the last few miles.  When I was finished I had racked up 56 hard-earned miles.  Next weekend I’m heading to West Virginia. In a car.

When it’s hot and muggy out, riding in the rain is a relief. Tonight’s ride included a 100 foot slog through 4 inches of water on Union Street in Old Town Alexandria. I passed a runner who had drifter to the left in front of me. She apologized for getting in my way. Laughing, she said she was trying to avoid a huge puddle on the trail, “but I don’t know why”. She was right; we were both already soaked to the bone.

I’m downright impressed with myself.

My bike commute has another Marlin Perkins moment. I am thinking of switching my insurance to Mutual of Omaha

I spent part of the Independence Day weekend in Albany NY.  I was visiting my mother who keeps the house at about her age in Fherenheit. She seems to like it just fine but it’s a tad warm for me.  I just happened to bring along Little Nellie in case we were found to be in the good graces of the weather gods. Basically, almost anything would be more comfortable than the inside of my mom’s place.  And as it turned out, the weather gods were in a very good mood.

After reading the local newspaper and confirming that Albany is about as dead as I remember it, I headed out on Little Nellie to go visit my father, who lies in peace in a cemetery in Menands, just north of Albany along the Hudson River.  I had intended to take the Hudson River bike path but the city was dead at 8 a.m. so I kept to the streets.  I passed through Washington Park on the way toward the river.  When I was a kid, I think I set foot in this park a half dozen times. Now that I am older I appreciate the fact that this park is just about the prettiest spot in the city.  On three sides it is faced by gorgeous old buildings, probably built 90 or so years ago.  The park has flower gardens galore but I was only passing through.

I made my way to Lark Street which, in Albany, passes for bohemian.  I followed Lark north and the cityscape became decidedly less upscale in a hurry.  It must be a hard life in this section of town because people need to be reminded to smile. I followed the sign’s instruction and rode on.  At Pearl Street I picked up NY Route 32 which seems to go north and south withing shouting distance of the river.

From my younger years, I remember a couple of notable signs in this area. One was a huge Schaefer Beer sign on the side of the local brewery,  I seem to recall someone claiming it was the fifth biggest sign in the world.  Why anyone would keep track of such a thing, I’ll never know. Are there people who go around the world measuring signs?  Well, I didn’t find the Schaefer sign but I did come across a couple more winners.  Did you ever have a car problem that nobody could fix?  You probably wondered to yourself, why can’t they fix this thing.  It’s a car repair; that ain’t rocket science. Sadly, in Albany, it appears to be just that.  Of course, they imported some Bavarians to pull it off.

When I was little I remember seeing a dog on the top of a building near here. I thought this one was long gone, but Little Nellie found old Nipper still perched high above the North Albany streets.  He looks none the worse for wear. 

TeThe neighborhood of North Albany was made famous by the depressing Albany Trilogy of William Kennedy.  The third book in the series, Ironweed, earned Kennedy the Pulitzer Price for fiction. It was made into a movie with Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep.  Some of the streets nearby were spruce up (or down) for the film.  Kennedy himself grew up in North Albany.  I stumbled upon his boyhood home. I’ll bet it was filled with all sorts of ne’erdowells and rapscallions.  Nowadays, some punk with a bike lives here.

One main reason for me staying on Route 32 is that I know this is the road that the cemetery is on.  I can never remember how far north the cemetery is though.  So I rolled north, pleasantly surprised by the absence of traffic.  Soon I came to the cemetery entrance road and after another ten bumpy minutes, I came upon my father’s gravesite.  Somebody got the wise idea to plant a pin oak next to his grave.  The front yard of our house in Albany had several pin oaks and they were always a favorite of my father.  This particular tree seems to have come under the persuasion of my father’s green thumb.  It seems perfectly shaped and shades his grave nicely.

After tipping my helmet to my old man, I rode off north. I crossed the Mohawk Rover where it meets the Hudson at the town of Waterford.  Here I began to pick up signs for the Champlain Canal system, built to connect the Hudson with Lake Champlain.  Lo and behold the old canal still exists in parts.  I followed the towpath whenever I could. I thought it was odd that no one else seemed to be enjoying this beautiful stretch of green.  All mine.

Knowing that the Erie Canal currently in use was built long after the original canal, I thought that a more modern version of this canal must be around here somewhere. And it was. I found it in the Village of Waterford, not be confused with the apparently larger Town of Waterford.  Here is a towboat in one section of the canal.

A short while later I stumbled upon a canalside festival of sorts. A splendid packet boat similar to those I saw on the Erie Canal during my ride across New York State was sitting in wait of riders. Further along I saw some incredibly cute baby steam boats. These can be rented for short excursions on the nearby canal and river. The best part is each boat has a steam whistle that goes “TOOT, TOOT.”

After checking out the festival I stumbled on the old canal again. I followed the towpath for about a mile when the canal suddenly stopped and the path continued up a barren hill. This looked like a landfill.  I couldn’t believe that this beautiful little historic canal was less important that garbage.  The path ended at a chain link fence so I back tracked and hit the road again. At points the road runs along the river bank.  The views were just gorgeous.At one point I meandered onto an island in the river and rode in a circle popping out a mile south. On a day like this, who cares. 

Not surprisingly I came upon signs for another lock in the new canal. Of course, I checked it out.  This one was actually taking a boat in to the lock so I watched the proceedings.  A heron perched on a railing along the canal’s edge was more interested in fish than boats..

It was time to make tracks.  All this canal touristing was eating up my day.  So I started rolling hard for the City (no town or village here) of Mechanicville.   This is where my father grew up. I decided to tour some old haunts.  First stop was my grandmother’s house. I remember this as a dark place inside and out.  My brother tells me that it is now owned by one of my cousins. He’s really doing a nice job keeping it up. I especially like the old stone chimney.

I rode up a steep hill to the cemetery to check out the family gravesite. Here lie my paternal grandparents and several aunts and uncles. One of them is my uncle John after whom I am named. He died at the age of five long before I was born. Nothing gives you the chills like seeing your name on a gravestone. I wonder what kind of an uncle he would have made. Would he have survived the war? If he had lived, I wonder if my parents would have named me something else. 

I decided to head back home so I turned west and south and started climbing. I eventually made my way back to the Mohawk, this time a couple of miles up river. Here the river is broad and makes for nice pleasure boat riding. I took a wrong turn and ended up on the lower side of a dam.  Here Little Nellie posed for a picture.

After a brief visit with a sibling I was back at my mother’s house.  All in all, 69 miles of blue skies, low humidity and some pretty interesting discoveries.  I am glad Little Nellie came along on this trip home.
 

The air was dry and clear. The ride home was aided by a gentle tailwind. The river was deep blue. I had to stop and take it all in.

I have two cycling friends who do brevets.  These are something like a cross between and ultra-marathon foot race and an auto road rally, except that they are done on bicycles.  People who do brevets are call randonneurs, although for some reason I prefer randonistas.  The distances they ride are either appalling or inspiring and are typically measured in terms of hundreds of kilometers.  In a weekend. There is a brevet that goes from Boston to Montreal and back.  Most people wouldn’t be willing to drive that distance but randonistas do these sorts of things all the time.  For fun.  So they say.  My friend Gersemalina seems to do most of her brevets as the stoker (back seat) on a tandem captained (front seat) by her husband Felkerino. (We here at the Rootchopper Institute heart noms de guerre.)  Gersemalina does most of the work.  (She paid me to say that.)  These two stout-hearted wheelpersons are going to do Paris-Brest-Paris this summer.  This is the mother of all brevets.  The Super Roll, if you will.

For some reason I find her tales of riding these inspiring.  So inspiring that it dawned on me that I had never ridden a century (100 miles) on a conventional (non-recumbent) bike. Last Saturday, after reading the paper and downing a pot of coffee, I decided to rectify this situation.  I left the house at 10 am on a warm but pleasant day.  I decided to ride to White Ferry, Maryland on the C&O Canal towpath, cross the Potomac on the ferry and return on the W&OD Trail.

Just before I came to the canal, I encountered a bike rider loaded down with all kinds of stuff.  I asked him where he was headed and he responded abruptly with one word: “Maine”.  Then he rode off, heading toward Rock Creek Park.  He managed to make it about 200 yards before turning towards “Pittsburgh” which I am pretty sure is not in “Maine”.  I caught up to him and straightened him out.  By now he’s probably in North Carolina.

I made my way to the towpath and started the grind to White’s Ferry, about 35 miles away.  (As the crow flies it’s probably only 30 miles but the river goes whatever damn way it wants to, and straight it ain’t.)  Near Great Falls I came upon an all too familiar site, storm damage.  Every ten years or so, the Potomac River floods.  Waters, pinched between cliffs, can rise dozens of feet, especially in this area.  This Spring’s flood carried away a chunk of the hill side that the towpath passes over.  The Park Service was kind enough to put in a detour that was easily ridden. It will likely take years to fix this. Congress doesn’t like to appropriate money to such things.  Better to spend it on subsidies for rutabaga growers. 

After about 15 miles I stopped to chat with a young couple looking a little testy on the side of the trail.  They were coming from Pittsburgh, the entire way on unpaved trails.  I congratulated them on being so close to the end of their journey and continued on.  They managed a smile as I rode off.  Stiff upper lip, you two.

Another five miles into my travels I encountered two men of a certain age.  They were coming from the far end of the canal in Cumberland Maryland.  They had already ridden over 150 miles, much of it through mud.  If it bothered them, they sure weren’t showing it.  They were having a blast, even with bikes caked in dirt.  Their mud worries were a thing of the past, as I assured them it was dry all the way to DC.

On I cycled taking in the green all around, listening to the birds, enjoying the river views and listening to the constant crunch of tires on the path.  The C&O is a very pleasant place to ride but, if you ride it far enough, you’ll learn that it is a grind.  Rocks, tree routes, ruts from service vehicles all make for an honest day’s work.  Gliding is not allowed; you’ll slow to a stop in 30 yards if you do.

A canoe slid by at one point in the quiet waters of the canal.  A dog sat between the paddlers. It ignored its instincts to chase every little critter that moved.  Spoiled by Milk Bones.

Some parts of the canal are covered by pond scum.  In its way, pond scum has a beauty of its own.  This particular stretch reminded me of Dead Man’s Pond, a refuge of my Albanian childhood now filled in by evil adults who could not appreciate its importance to 10 year old kids bored beyond belief by too much summer vacation. 

 In another section of the canal, a gaggle of kayakers were paddling to and fro.  I like kayaks but this seemed a little confined. Kayaks are like bikes in that they are meant for exploration.  Penning them up in a canal defeats their central purpose. Free the kayaks!

On I rode. On I pedaled. Gliding I did not.  Bugs swam on my sunscreened arms. I wondered what SPF dead bugs were rated at.  I pondered the possibility that I was covered in deer ticks carrying Lyme Disease. Ah nature!

After several hours in my linear sanctuary, I made it to Whites Ferry.  The ferry was unloading cars on the far side of the Potomac so I had time to use the restroom.  As I was about to enter, three women came out and headed for their bikes parked nearby.  In short order I learned that they were headed for Pittsburgh.  They were clean and smiling. They had not yet faced the mudfest that awaits way out west.  Good luck, m’ladies. May the bugs leave you be, may the rains pass you by. Tailwinds.

 I’ve taken the cable ferry across the river a dozen times. It’s always a treat, despite the smell of diesel and the chug of the engines. The ride is so smooth it feels little different than standing still.  It’s hard to believe that this years’ floods carried the ferry boat far down river. A couple of times in the distant past, flood waters reached the second floor of the white building in the picture.
Once on the Virgina side, my unpaved grind came to an end. I was on asphalt for the second half of my trip. A few miles of roads led me to the W&OD trail in Leesburg. I took a left and started pumping. I had a tailwind now but the heat of the day was upon me and, unlike the towpath, the shade was more miss than hit.  I came upon a new highway project involving the placing of huge steel beams over the trail. Another highway to support the sprawl of metropolitan DC. What a shame. These used to be fields of crops when the trail was first built,

Twenty miles from home I came to the Beltway. It, too, was under construction.  This somehow seems to be its natural state.  The construction involved widening the Beltway which meant that the trail bridge across the highway had to be longer.  Out with the old (straight ahead in the photo), in with the new (on the left).

The second half of the ride featured many stops for fluids (in and out) and snacks.  The one thing I truly hate about cycling is bonking.  It’s the equivalent of hitting the wall in running.  Unlike running, your legs are not beaten to smithereens by the pavement so you often don’t see the bonk coming.  When it hits, you lose all energy in your legs.  You eyelids become heavy. You legs turn to lead,  You start to yawn. My Anatomy has had enough and is taking over for Mr. Brain.  Fortunately the bonk can be averted by frequent oral intake of high quality foods such as Klondike Bars, soft pretzels, hot dogs, cookies, Pepsi, and such.  Fueled by this nutritionists nightmare  (hey, I actually ate an apple so cut me some slack), I managed to plod through the last few miles, even going out of my way to climb a big hill near my house that I could easily have avoided.

When I got home I looked down and saw 101.00.  Mission Accomplished.  Did I feel all pumped up with an inspirational sense of accomplishment? Yes. Did every effing muscle in my body want to kill me in my sleep? Mais oui!. For the next several days, in fact. Luckily, they were all too tired to pull off the assault,  It’s now been three days and I feel recovered, more or less.  We’re out of Oreos and Ho Ho’s.  I don’t know if they helped my muscles but they felt pretty damned good going down.

A tip of my Ho Ho to Gersemalina and Felkerino. Bon chance en France.

For bike commute number 56, I ordered up a perfect biking day. The bike commuting gods were kind and delivered a beauty.  The morning had temperatures in the mid-70s with a light wind out of the southwest. I cruised along with a gentle hand on my back pushing me ever so gently toward the city. 

For the next 8 1/2 hours, my bosses tried desperately to make my day suck. As usual, they succeeded.  I have been working on a presentation for over a week. My boss who is a poster child for adult ADD kept adding extraneous slides.  He also neglected to get me on the agenda to the meeting next Monday. The damn thing isn’t happening for 2 weeks. I found this out at 4 pm. 

Having a crap day at the office has its upside: the ride home is an escape from madness.

And so I rode in 80 degree weather with a beautiful 10 mile per hour tailwind.  It’s Friday; I’m tired and frustrated and this ride is to die for.

After about 12 miles I stopped on a boardwalk at Dyke Marsh along the Potomac River to admire the intense green of the river grasses. The Sequoia read the interpretive sign while I took his picture.

Tomorrow, I don’t have to stop for 8 1/2 hours and deal with nincompoops. I can just keep on riding. 

Sounds like a plan to me.

I had intended to do a long ride somewhere away from the city but the sandman and some bike maintenance stole most of the morning hours. I spent about an hour adjusting the seat on my Tour Easy recumbent.  On a normal bike adjusting the seat position takes a couple of minutes. On the Tour Easy, it takes a half hour or more. On a normal bike, the saddle adjusts with 2 bolts; on a Tour Easy 8 bolts are involved, including 2 that are low to the ground that require lying down.  Long story short, it’s not a lot of fun.

Once the seat, I rode off at what my bicycle computer said was 40 miles per hour. Damn, I’m in shape! Well, maybe not. I replaced the battery in the computer yesterday and it scrubbed the previous settings, one of which is the wheel diameter.  I looked up the setting online and, lo and behold, After 20 minutes I realized that the computer is metric. What is this world coming to! I multiplied the setting my 0.62 and I was good to go.  

I rode the Mount Vernon Trail to Fort Belvoir then along the scenic okay, not really) Fairfax County Parkway.   I made my way back home via the equally scenic Springfield Mall area and made my way all the way to South Arlington before returning home.  Most of the ride was through soulless suburbia. Someday Americans will wake up to the fact that they have turned their lives into driving to one big box store after another where the minimum wage workers could give a rats ass what the customers want to buy. 

I am pretty sure that suburban planning is what college students do when the fail freshman English.

The ride wasn’t a total loss. It was the longest ride on my Tour Easy in a year and it was infinitely easier than riding either of my upright bikes.  My foot problems continue (they are much worse when I ride this bike for some inexplicable reason).  And much of the ride was actually in some pretty bike friendly areas like the Mount Vernon Trail, Fort Hunt Park, and Fort Belvoir.  About 5 miles from home I came across this critter along the MVT.  I love turtles. They don’t smell. They leave you alone. And, as long as you don’t handle them, they won’t harm you.

I wished him a happy Father’s Day. No. I didn’t check to see if it was a male. If it was a she, she didn’t appear to be offended.

This little boat caught my eye as I rode over the Washington Channel on the Case Bridge. The green paint job looked flawless. I half expected a giant 7-year old boy to reach down and pick it up.

I want one.

It won’t give me motion sickness, will it?