Keep My Boss Happy

The Tour de Fat in DC is a big time fundraiser for the Washington Area Bicyclists Association. Last year, it was sunny and hot and Yards Park was filled with people having a great time. Revenues from beer sales were off the charts. This year not so much. It was cold and rainy and not very nice out. It wasn’t all that bad (I was under a tent drawing beers from a keg so what do I know?) but attendance was way down. Unfortunately, so were revenues that go to WABA and other local cycling organizations.

So WABA needs some mid-year love. Wanna get your merit badge for the month? Do what I did: open up your wallet and throw some green WABA’s way. While you’re at it, renew your membership. If you’re not yet a member, now’s a good time to become one.

Why? Bicycling in the DC area is getting better every year. WABA is a huge part of that. If you live in the suburbs and think WABA is irrelevant to you, think again. Changes in DC are being noticed and envied by suburban politicians and their constituents. They can see that DC is booming and that bicycling is a big part of that rebirth. The suburbs are losing young professionals and their families to DC. I heard this with my own ears at a Fairfax County meeting on bike lanes last year. I almost fell over.

Of course, this is not news to me. Every day I park my bike next to my boss’s bike. His bike is a longtail designed to carry two kids on the back. He rides from his home in DC’s Columbia Heights neighborhood to Mundo Verde Public Charter School on the eastern edge of Shaw. Then he rides back through the city to our office in Rosslyn,Virginia across from Georgetown. He loves it. His kids love it. This would simply be impossible without the decades of work of WABA.

So keep my boss happy. Donate to WABA. Here’s the link.

https://org.salsalabs.com/o/451/p/salsa/donation/common/public/?donate_page_KEY=2154

Indian Head 100 – Okay 98.5

After beating my body up yesterday, I got up before dawn in crisp 58 degree air to ride the Indian Head (a.k.a. Southern Maryland) 100. Indian Head is a town that time has passed by. It would be nice if this ride did something for the town’s economy but, from what I could tell, the town has no economy. I should look up why this place is called Indian Head but I am too lazy. Regardless it’s a better name than Dead Strip Mall Village.

I started a little after 7 am which is appalling given the fact that this is a holiday (Labor Day). I didn’t see anyone I knew. Most people I know had the good common sense to be asleep. I wore a vest and arm warmers for the first 18 miles. The cold air also made my asthma kick in so at the first rest stop I took a couple hits of albuterol. I ain’t messing with lung problems anymore this year, thank you very much.

I was riding Deets, my Surly Cross Check. After the first year of fiddling with the set up, I have this bike dialed in perfectly. I was zipping along at 14 miles per hour. (For me with knobby tires, this is zipping.)

Indian Head.JPG

For the entire ride I kept my cellphone stashed. No tweets. One picture with a camera. Just me paying attention to my body. I tried to keep my respiratory rate stable. Except for a few nasty hills, I succeeded. I also focused on keeping my pedaling efficient. Don’t mash, spin with even pressure on the pedals all the way around. It occurred to me that paying close attention to my breathing and to specific parts of my body mechanics is rolling meditation. Every so often I had to double check to make sure I hadn’t missed a turn.

One thing that kept me from getting too zoned out was the fact that my bashed up left knee, arm, and shoulder were aching on and off. It’s going to take a few days to get them back to normal. One thing that didn’t hurt at all was my back. This never happens. Deets is definitely dialed in.

The first 40 miles were low effort. At one point we rode on a road with fresh pavement and rolling hills. Zoom down one, tucking for maximum speed at minimum effort, then take the next uphill with only a few pedal rotations. I love hill hopping. I thought of @BobbiShafoe who hill hopped the Backroads metric century we did a few years ago.

There are several abrupt climbs on this ride. At one point we were making our way up a hill when the road turned to the left. Just before the turn someone had painter the word “HILL” on the road. We made the turn and there was steepage. About a dozen cyclists had dismounted and were walking. Not. Gonna. Happen. I dropped into my lowest gear and went at it. Pedaling to the rest stop at the top was sweet. This old man on a cross bike with knobby tires and no granny gear felt like feeding quiche to all the walkers. That would be mean. Anyway I didn’t have any quiche so I grabbed a snack and pedaled on.

This section of Charles County Maryland has some truly beautiful country roads. I do have two complaints. Some of the prettiest roads, country lanes almost, are paved with chip seal. It’s cheaper than asphalt but it’s much less smooth. The other complaint is the depressing rural poverty. We were 35 miles from DC and I saw people living in dilapidated mobile homes with portapotties in the yard. Many of the single family houses lacked paint. It’s like an economic black hole.

My measured breathing and pedaling paid off during the second 50 miles. I did lose a little speed but that may be attributed to the temperatures rising into the high 80s. Riders were cramping up all over the place. I drank energy drink at rest stops and lots of water. I knew that near the 90 mile mark was Rose Hill. This one nearly did me in the first time I rode it a decade ago. I was shocked that I rode up it today with no problem, even without a granny gear. Go Deets.

The last ten miles were a breeze. At mile 93-ish we turned onto the Indian Head Rail Trail. In past, shorter Indian Head rides, I have found this to be frustrating. It’s a false flat. It looks flat but gradually rises. When you are tired and hot and want the ride to end, a false flat can really mess with your head. It didn’t bother me at all today. In fact, I was surprised to see the end of the trail.

I rolled into the finish at 98.5 miles. I would suspect that my odometer was off but I overheard some other riders saying the same thing. We call it 100, okay?

So it’s on to three bike commutes, a night baseball game (or two?), and Saturday’s 50 States Ride. Can’t wait.

Dumbo in Trumbo Hollow

Reading on the deck just wasn’t happening this morning. It was beautiful out. You know, puffy white clouds, gentle breezes, low humidity. So I decided to go for a hike.

I chose Trumbo Hollow because I was getting started late and wanted to make sure I could find a place to park my car.

The highways were all but deserted and there was ample parking. So an hour after I left home I was on the Appalachian Trail heading south.

After a half mile of gently flat trail, I started up. And up. Switchback after switchback. Rocky footing. Eventually the hill and rocks gave way to a grassy meadow. This was a first for me. Mostly woods lead to more woods. After the meadow came a downhill to a street. Then across the street and uphill again. You’d think they’d designed these trails so that they don’t go up and down and up and down. Just for me because I am the only important person in the universe.

There were quite a few other people hiking today. This included a group of about 14 hikers who were getting their social fix where introverts like me go to get away from people like them. I am grateful that they were heading in the opposite direction.

There were some couples here and there out on a date hike. It’s apparently like a bike date except you leave the bikes at home. You know you’re getting somewhere with your date when she tells you to bring a tent. Hike dates are not at all subtle that way.

The hike took me a little over 3 miles to a shelter that served as a landmark for the turnaround. One of the date couples I saw earlier had passed me and were hanging out there. She was on the phone. In my book she is not tentworthy.

I turned around and headed back. About a mile later, on a mostly smooth part of the trail and a rock reached up and tripped me. I swear it moved. I went down HARD on my forearm. Thankfully I landed on a rock-free part of the trail. My forearm just missed landing across a basketball size rock. This would have been ugly. Snap. Scream. Blood. Pain.

But it wasn’t. A stabbing pain went up my arm into my shoulder nonetheless. Ow. F-word. This HURTS. I stayed down for a minute as the pain subsided and came to realize that I didn’t break or dislocate anything. In all the arm fun, I missed the part about my left knee whacking the ground. It was bloody and aching. Both my palms hurt too. Suffice it to say a bruised knee and two bruised palms is a less than idea condition to ride 100 miles with. So tomorrow’s century ride will be interesting indeed.

Albino caterpillars have been known to trip hikers

I dusted myself off. Poured water over the bleeding bits and continued on. But for the limp and the icky blood I was having a pretty good time. About a mile from my car a through-hiker came barreling toward me, aided by his adept use of two hiking poles. These hikers are in phenomenal shape. He had earbuds in. This kind of ruined my mental picture of through-hikers, but maybe he could hook up with phone girl at the shelter.

I made it back to the car in one piece but my knee was stiffening up. After stopping for some nutritious food (an M&M cookie ice cream sandwich counts, doesn’t it?…Oh, shut up. Don’t judge. I had a boo boo.), I drove home. After a shower and some real food (involving a bagel, cheese, and a tomato) I came out on the deck and made good use of some frozen veggies. And a beer.

Deets Turns 2 and a Blast from the Past

I rode Deets, my Surly Cross Check, to the barbershop. I wore a baseball cap. I always get the same haircut. This time the barber must have mistaken me for a second grader. The short haircut became a buzz cut. Ugh. Good thing I had the baseball cap. I’ll be wearing it for about six weeks.

I rode to Old Town along the Mount Vernon Trail. The weather was breezy and just warm enough. Perfect. Just north of Belle Haven Park police cars were parked next to the trail with their lights flashing. A police officer was taking down yellow crime scene tape along the river side of the trail. I couldn’t see any desperados or axe murderers so I rode on.

I made it to the bank and did my business with the magic money machine. When I turned around there was Emilia. We did the 50 States Ride together in 2014, one of my very best days on a bike. It was also a very hard ride. She hasn’t talked to me since. (Just kidding.) What a great surprise.

I dawdled a bit in north Old Town before heading home with a very pleasant tailwind. A police officer was still sitting in his car at the scene of the mystery but I decided to leave it to some other citizen crimestopper to find out what was going on.

On the way home, Deets decided to hit a milestone: 2,000 miles. He’s all ready to ride the Southern Maryland 100 on Monday and the 50 States next Saturday.

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An August Month

I think I did a healthy amount of riding this month. My longest ride was a 50 miler on Deets, my Surly Cross Check. I rode to work 19 times, 10 on Deets, 5 on Little Nellie, my Bike Friday New World Tourist, and 4 on Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent. I rode to four Nats games (and drove to three more with my kids). The Mule got the month off for good behavior. For the month, I racked up 684 miles, with 400 on long-neglected Deets. It turns out that my Cross Check may be my favorite commuting bike.

For the year I’ve ridden 5,239 miles. 3,367 of those miles came from riding to and from work. 832 came from my bike tour. I’ve ridden to work 115 times.

The biggest accomplishments came in the form of milestones. First, I hit 100 commutes at the start of the month. Then, Big Nellie hit 40,000 miles. Little Nellie got jealous and hit 17,000 miles. I capped it off on my birthday when my four bikes together crossed the 100,000 mile mark.

September holds two bike events and a bunch of baseball games. One of these days I might actually go on a hike. And somewhere in this mess of activity I might actually ride or hike with someone other than my own self.

WABA in the Wild – C&O Canal Trip

Last year I rode the length of the C&O Canal as part of the No Wrong Plan tour. It’s a great tour, especially for first timers. I had previously ridden it in the opposite direction for my 2005 bike tour.

Many of my friends keep talking about riding the length of the C&O DSCN3912_1039 Canal but they never seem to get around to it. As Flogini, the erstwhile spiritual adviser to the Rootchopper Institute, once said: “We only have today. Tomorrow may never come. Stop planning and hoping and dreaming, and start doing!” I took her advice: in the last 18 months I have done 2 bike tours and visited nine countries. Flogini will be the death of me.

You really should do this ride. (I am out of town that weekend or I would do it myself.) The logistics are a bit of a hassle though. There’s good news: if you are willing to do some fundraising WABA will solve the logistics issues for you. I even think they’ll cook you some s’mores if you ask nicely. So check it out over here.

I can’t promise wildflowers for miles but if the weather gods cooperate you might just see some awesome foliage along the way.

Day Game after a Night Game

When baseball players get old, manager often rest them when a day game follows a night game. The Nationals did not rest their oldest player and I followed suit. Both decisions worked out pretty well.

On Friday I rode to work as usual. I had not been to the first two games of the Nationals home stand because they were against the Orioles and Orioles fans are obnoxious. On Friday, the Colorado Rockies came to town so I decided to ride to the game after work.

Just after parking my bike at the bike valet, I ran into Klarence. After about a 20 minute talk it became clear that Klarence seems to have won the happiness lottery. Seeing someone like this reminds me of Dave Stoller’s dad in Breaking Away: “I didn’t want you to be this miserable. A little bit’s all I asked for.” There’s not a little bit of miserable in Klarence these days. Way to go, Klarence.

We split up on the way to our seats. Klarence, as usual, went to the cheap seats. I somehow managed to find a (relatively) inexpensive seat on the Club level behind home plate about 1/3rd of the way up in the stands. The concourse behind the seats is enclosed and air conditioned. I didn’t make much use of the posh concourse because it was breezy out, but the food selections are pretty decent.

I sat in a folding chair with a big padded seat. I had to keep my eyes on the game because foul balls could come shooting back at any time. Eek. (Only one did and missed my row by 40 feet. It’s way more dangerous out in left field where rockets come booming in when pitchers get tired.)

The game was fun. The home team won. I got to ride home in the dark which is one of my favorite things. On the way home. I saw two lights ahead in the dark. A young deer was standing next to the trail paralyzed by my headlight. A few minutes later I saw another set of lights. This time the critter ran off before I could id it.

For some silly reason, I stayed up to almost 3 am.

At 8:30 I crawled out of bed. Groggy. By 10:30 I was back on my bike headed for Nats Park for a 1 pm game. Without adequate sleep I was a zombie on the bike. Deets did his best to keep me moving forward but the headwind was not floating my boat one bit.

My seats this day were out in left field. For most of the game I sat in the hot sun. I spent far more on fluids (soda and water, no beer) than my seat. A woman a few rows in front of me disappeared for an inning. She came back in different clothes. After about three hours, shadows from the first base side of the ball park brought cooling comfort.

The game was actually not all that exciting until the Nationals rallied in the bottom of the 9th. The player who had the game tying hit was the oldest player on the field who should have taken the day off. So props to the Nats left fielder Jason Werth for making an old bike commuting fan happy. (When he came out to play left field after his big hit, all the fans in my section gave him a standing ovation. He subtly pointed at us and nodded in appreciation.)

One way to tell how hot it was is to look at the picture below. Nearly all the fans in direct sunlight in the grandstand behind center and right field had evacuated. The game went into extra innings. They never got any shade. I suspect most of them had left anyway.

The Nationals lost the game in 11 innings. The ride home was surprisingly enjoyable. I am proud to say that despite having ample reasons to do so, I did not cuss out a single Lance Mamilot. I did not say the f-word once to the tourists who blocked the entire width of the trail despite obviously impeding cyclists going in both directions. (Maybe they came there from the outfield grandstand and their brains were fried.)

Even though I hydrated like a camel, I woke up dehydrated. So no bike for me today. I will drive into DC to scout out parking for the 50 States Ride in two weeks. (It’s sold out but you can still participate for free by signing up to be a pit stop volunteer here or a course ride marshal here.) After my recon work, I will go over to Atlas Brew Works for the #bikedc fundraiser. I don’t plan on drinking but it will be a good chance to reconnect with #bikedc people after having been out of touch for most of the summer. Cheers.

The Sick Rule

One of the benefits of bike commuting is good health. This year has been an exception for me. In May I missed two days of work recovering from a respiratory infection that resulted in an ambulance trip to the emergency room in the middle of the night. Scary stuff. Today, I missed another work day. I woke up at 2 am with cold sweats and a sour tummy. I sat in a comfy chair for two hours and felt crummy. I waited until my stomach calmed down and went back to bed.

When the alarm went off I stayed down. I was groggy and just felt lousy. My head felt heavy. My tummy felt queasy. It was time to invoke the sick rule: if i am too sick to ride to work, I am too sick to go to work. Whenever I have violated this rule, and it’s been many a time, I have regretted it.

So I stayed in bed for most of the morning. I couldn’t sleep so I practiced some breathing meditation. I’d have preferred a deep sleep but you take what you can get. At least I was relaxed when I got up.

I hate wasting really good bike commuting weather but my tough-it-out days are over. I feel much better after a day of lazy about, eating, and reading.

I feel better now. I feel better than James Brown.

Tomorrow, I’m riding Deets to work. On the way home, I think I’ll take in a Nats game. And if that works out, I’ll go to the afternoon game on Saturday.

There is no sick rule in baseball.

It’s Like January in Providence

I used to live in Providence. The weather in January was unbearable. It was cold and wet and the streets inevitably turned into glaciers. Going outside was an exercise in misery.

DC is like that. Sort of. In August. It’s hot and muggy and the bugs are biting. I did a 50 mile bike ride yesterday. At 20 miles I stopped to take a meditative moment and enjoy the view of Belmont Bay from the back of the ranger offices in Mason Neck State Park. I took off my helmet, settled into a rocking chair, and admired the few. For about a minute. Then the bugs starting feasting on my lower legs. ACK!

IMG_20160820_103136 — The View before I Went Off My Rocker

I hopped on the bike and rode on, the breeze dissipating some of the heat and humidity. I decided to cut through Fort Belvoir on the way back. A guard at the Kingman Road check point had other ideas. After 9/11 Fort Belvoir became part of DC’s security theater and was closed to people without a military id. A few years later without publicizing it, access was reopened to people with photo id. I could finally go onto the base and enjoy low traffic, roads that were fun to ride on. Now it is closed again. I realize the military has a job to but Fort Belvoir has become a shitty neighbor. Closing the base to local cyclists is the equivalent of giving stop sign tickets to bicycle commuters on the empty streets of Old Town on weekday mornings. The prime accomplishment is to piss people off. It doesn’t make anybody safer.

Screed over.

The ride home was uneventful. As usual I didn’t drink enough water and I arrived home zonked. So today, rather than grind out miles in the heat, I am staying inside and watching the Nats on TV. You can’t do that when its cold and wet and icy outside.

Milestone Number 4: 100,000 Miles

Today on my ride home from work, the odometer on Deets, my Surly Cross Check hit 1,647 miles. That’s no big deal. I rode 8 more miles to home then added up all the miles from the odometers on my four bikes: 100,008 miles. I started this little project 25 years ago. I think I could use a shower beer right about now.