Welcome Winter

We have had an exceptionally warm winter so far here in the DC area. That ended today. And wouldn’t you know it, today was the first bike commute of the new year.

Nothing says fun like riding into a headwind when it is 28 degrees outside.

And so I did.

After about three miles I was comfortable. I was also protected by trees and short buildings in Old Town Alexandria. After a while my fingertips started feeling cold. And my toes. Then “Hi, John!” It was Linel.

We talked for a while. Or tried to. It’s hard to hold a conversation while riding, with your ears covered, in a headwind.

About that headwind. It got stronger as the tree protection fell away. Linel and I swapped leads. When we came to the exposed area just north of the airport, I took the lead. Oof!

Linel turned off to go across the 14th Street Bridge. I proceeded into the headwind.

Pedal, pedal.

I took the trail bridge across the Parkway. I was about 15 feet up and the headwind was now a cross wind. Whoa! (It turns out that Linel was exposed to this crosswind for about 1/2 mile. Not much fun.)

Damage report. All decks.

I arrived at work with numb toes. The shower I took made them burn.

The ride home was a ride on a tailwind. I didn’t struggle. I just went with the flow. Bikes passed me. Fast. I didn’t care. A tailwind is a terrible thing to waste.

Near the Memorial Bridge, large gaggles (weird word that) of Canada geese were bumbling about on either side of the trail. The trail was covered in geese poo. Lovely. Honk your own self.

It was cold but with the wind at my back I was surprisingly comfortable. And in a good mood. Until I reached Old Town Alexandria.

At the first cross street, a car made a u-turn across the trail as I was riding past. The driver could have continued 100 feet and used the circular turnaround in front of some office buildings. Instead the driver decided to take a chance on running me over. This happens all the time for some reason.

A quarter mile later I was in the bike lane on North Union Street in Old Town. A car was parked perpendicular to the curb completely blocking the bike lane. It was parked at 406 North Union. This is a frequent occurrence. I was cold so I didn’t stop to take a picture or knock on the door. I did note that the license plate was Virginia J 3. This sounds like a well-connected individual. The house is worth well over $1 million. When I got home, I called the Alexandria Police. They took my information and said they’d check it out. In light of the fact that Union Street is patrolled by a parking enforcement person every night, I suspect that the city looks the other way at resident parking scofflaws with deep pockets. Call me cynical, but I doubt anything will change. Except I will keep complaining to the police, because it’s a bicycle friendly city. It says so on a sign.

The rest of the ride home was uneventful. Cold but uneventful. Tomorrow will be colder still. I will be wearing hiking boots with chemical foot warmers inside. Tights under wind pants. An additional layer up top. A balaclava will complete my stylish look. I hope I can pedal under all the clothing I’ll have on.

Of course, I could drive or work from home.

Except nothing says fun like riding into a headwind when it is 18 degrees outside.

Christmas Comes Late

My kids bought me a gift certificate to Performance Bikes. So I took advantage of the good weather to ride to their Springfield Virginia store.

Here’s a tip for bike store companies: try locating your store in a bike friendly place. To get from my house to the store, I rode across US 1, over to South Kings Highway through some neighborhoods. South King’s highway is hilly and has no shoulder (way to go VDOT) even though there is ample room for one. Riding up a hill on Big Nellie, my recumbent, with cars zooming past at 40 miles per hour is not a lot of fun.

Once over the hill I picked up Telegraph Road which has a bike lane for all of 200 yards. In that 200 yards the bike lane gets spliced by a turn lane. Just a totally stupid design.

Next came hilly Kingstowne. Lovely name. Sounds so regal. It has side paths with are asphalt sidewalks so I rode in the shoulderless street. The roads in Kingstowne feed into the Fairfax County Parkway, I-95 and the Springfield Mall area. There is beaucoup traffic. A very unpleasant place to ride a bike. As I crossed Beulah Street I actually picked up a wide paved shoulder (I knew you could do it VDOT). After a turn this took me all the way to the store which is located in a strip mall with very cramped car parking and no bike parking.

In the store I bought some rain pants because my old Marmot Precip rain pants were shredding. The Precip pants are intended for hiking so it’s not surprising that they wear out when confronted with the friction of a saddle (on a regular bike) and a chain (on a recumbent). I also picked up some chain lube and a bell which will probably go on my Cross Check.

For the ride home I made my way back to Beulah Road and took its bike lane south, around most of Kingstowne and the vast Huntley Meadows Park. (Well worth a visit for a leisurely stroll in the woods and out through a marsh on a wooden deck.) When I picked up Telegraph Road I was now two miles or so south of where I rode earlier. Here the road has been redesigned with bike lanes on both sides. After riding up a hill, I let Big Nellie take off on the downhill. About halfway down the hill I took a right on the new Jeff Todd Way. There is a wide side path but at the speed I was going getting on the sidepath would have required a 90 degree right turn through a curb cut. Instead I maintained my speed and stayed in the street. Jeff Todd goes up and down. On the downs I was going 30 miles per hour, nearly the speed of the cars. On the ups, I was crawling. The right lane seems to be wider than usual and the passing cars gave me plenty of room.

The rest of my ride involved re-crossing US 1, riding to Mount Vernon, and then home via the Mount Vernon Trail.

So my little errand covered 22 1/2 miles. Just the thing for my last day of staycation. Tomorrow it’s bike commute number 1 for 2016.

Recumbents and Vultures and Toros

January 2 is a pretty big disappointment. The day after the New Year is so pathetic sounding. Christmas gets Boxing Day. Thanksgiving gets Black Friday. Even Halloween gets All Saints Day. (Okay, July 5 doesn’t really cause goosebumps but it’s summer time and nobody much cares about goosebumps. Unless you are in Tierra del Fuego. If you are in Tierra del Fuego, you deserve whatever you get.)

Bored and wanting just to get out of the house, I took a spin on my long neglected recumbent, Big Nellie. I had no where to go and wasn’t in a hurry to get there. I decided to ride up toward National Airport and see how the new 50 yard stretch of the Mount Vernon Trail was sizing up.

In Belle Haven Park, three vultures circled in the sky above. Were they expecting me to die? (No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to RIDE.)

As for the trail repair at the airport, it’s wider than before. Straighter than before. And bumpier than before. I guess they haven’t de-bumped it yet. Can’t wait. I was getting sick of the detour through the mulch.

I didn’t see anyone I knew and my feet were starting to get cold (it was in the mid-40s) so I rode home on the new Potomac Yard bike trail. This trail is nice and wide but it merges with a sidewalk at haphazard intervals. An old man in a sweatsuit doddered across the trail/sidewalk directly in front of me. Good thing I have the reflexes of a 60-year old so I could avoid him. (You politely use terms like “old man” and “dodder” when you ride a recumbent. It says so in the user’s manual.)

About two miles from home, as I approached the stone bridge, I heard an ominous, horrifying noise from behind a wooden fence. It was a lawn mower. Are you effing kidding me? I was feeling very mindful and peaceful and stuff so I let the fool do his yard work in peace.

So there you have it. My exciting first ride of the year. You should take a nap now. That’s what I’m going to do.

Let’s Just Dupe 2015

I had such a good year last year that I decided to do exactly the same hikes and bike rides every day this year. (I’ll wing it on the 29th.)

Okay, I’m just funnin’ you.

But today I did do the exact same hike as last January 1. It’s a coincidence. Really. I had a few hours to get some outdoor time and I didn’t feel like riding a bike for the fifth or sixth day in a row. So I drove to Great Falls Park in Maryland and hiked the Billy Goat B and C trails. This hike is pretty flat, has a few easy rock scrambles, and is six-ish miles in length.

There wasn’t any wildlife in view, unless you count kids and dogs. There were some four and five year olds out there with their parents. A few were whining. Mostly they were just scrambling all over the place. Cute.

I did my best to hike fast. The trail was dry in most places. So I got to trucking. Temps were in the high 40s and low 50s, very comfortable.

The one interesting feature of the hike was the height and flow of the Potomac River. It has rained quiet a lot here recently and the river was moving fast. It was fun to watch. The lack of leaves and the gray sky made for a rather dull landscape though.

Falling in would be a bad idea. Other than a quirky looking tree, there wasn’t much to note visually.

Last year when I did this hike, my head was as bleak as the landscape. I am grateful that this year my mind is in a much better state.

Winter returns to DC this week with temperatures below freezing for most of the week. January is a good time to recharge your batteries. I have a stack of books on my nightstand. As matter of fact, when I put Dead Calm down, the U-20 submarine had just launched a torpedo at the Lusitania. I wonder what happens next….

A Year Well Ridden

For a guy who spent three weeks on a bike-free vacation and the better part of the winter waiting for a thaw, I rode a whole bunch in 2015.

For the year I clocked 7,518.5 miles. Nearly two thirds of this total was from riding my bikes to work 162 times. Pro tip: if you want to boost your annual miles, get a job farther from home. The remaining 2,601 miles was on various weekend and bike touring excursions. The No Wrong Plan Bike Tour was about 370 miles including riding to the shuttle at the start and riding home on Bike to Work Day at the finish.

The tour made May my biggest mileage month at 951. September, usually a big month, was my lowest mileage month at only 296.5 miles. I spent nearly three weeks on vacation and didn’t touch a bike despite the fact that I could have laid claim to riding in Asia and Australia and New Zealand. Oh, well.

The Mule, my oldest bike, got the most use, 3,342 miles, including exactly half of my bike commutes. The least mileage went to my new bike, a Surly Cross Check, at 1,000 miles. Of course, I only had this bike for four and half months. None of these miles was from commuting.

I rode indoors on Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent six times for the equivalent of 99 miles. Otherwise, Big Nellie fell into disuse. I rode it only 86 miles since August. Over the course of the year, I rode it to work 25 times. Its total mileage for the year was 1,289.

Little Nellie got much more use than I expected. It is a Bike Friday folding travel bike but I didn’t travel with it. Instead I just rode it a lot locally. I did 56 rides to work and 1,887.5 miles overall. Being able to stash it in the trunk of the car came in handy many, many times.

My longest ride of the year was exactly 100 miles from my house to Whites Ferry and back on Big Nellie. The second longest ride of the year was the 18 mile ride home from the Tour de Fat event. I find riding a bike after a beer or two not to be problematic. Riding a bike after drinking beer in the hot sun for five hours, is considerably more challenging. Next year I will volunteer so as to remain sane. (Of course, I say this every year and rarely get around to volunteering. Bows his head in shame…) Another rather long bike ride was my bike commute the day after returning from Thailand. I was jet lagged out of my mind. It was not a lot of fun.

Other than the tour, the rides I liked best usually involved baseball games at Nats Park. The Nationals’ bike valet service is just about the best thing going. Every ballpark, major or minor league, should do this. A couple of times I had the pleasure of riding with Katie Lee to the Capitol and watching her do a victory lap – riding around in circles, hands free, head back, with an ear-to-ear smile. Pure bike joy. And then there’s always the fun of a ride home after a night game. I love riding home in the dark on a warm summer night.

The last ride home on the bike tour on the C&O Canal was special. Ryan intercepted us on his way to Brunswick. Then Rudy gave us a full escort from Great Falls. Near Fletcher’s Boat House, Mary came out to escort us. Somewhere along the line Chris showed up. We rode to Glen’s near Dupont Circle for a celebration where we were joined by even more #bikedc friends. I was escorted on my ride home against the Bike to Work Day flow on the 15th Street cycletrack and down the Mount Vernon Trail by Mount Vernon resident Ed. This day was in stark contrast to the last day of my other tours when I was greeted with a ho-hum from non-biking relatives. (This is why I made it a point to meet Linel in Belle Haven Park at the end of her C&O Canal tow this year.)

I don’t recall how many times I rode to Friday Coffee Club, but it’s a thing and it’s fun.

I went to several bike events: WABA’s Vasa and Cider rides and holiday bash, the Great Pumpkin ride, the Tour de Fat, the kinetic sculpture race in Baltimore, the Cookie ride, and the #biketivismdc protest on Pennsylvania Avenue.

I hiked a bunch too. I honestly can’t say which trail was my favorite. They all have their distinct characteristics. I learned that I don’t much care for rock scrambles or crossing steams on slippery logs. In my running days I was a pretty darn good downhill runner. I am a pretty lousy downhill hiker.

I am not much of a massage fan but I had three massages this year. The last and only other time I had a massage was after a century in 1991. I liked the oil massage in Thailand the best. It was outdoors under a shelter in the rain. The next best was a Thai massage from a friend in McLean Virginia. This was relaxing and nothing like any of the other massages I’ve had. The reiki at the end was also pretty cool. The sports massage I had near my home was rather vigorous. I was sore for days afterward. I am still not much of a massage fan. I’m just not into pampering, I guess.

Enough with looking back already. It’s 2016. Let’s get on with it!

Crossing 1,000

MG over at Chasing Mailboxes recently decided to put in as surge of running to get to 1,000 miles for the year. I thought this was not such a great idea because it reminded me of my running days when I discovered what I called junk miles. Junk miles are miles you run for reasons other than fitness. I wanted to run 3,000 miles one year (I biked a whole lot less in those days). So I was running lots of 70 mile weeks. Do the math. Mostly this meant that I spent a lot of time nursing injuries. After the year was over, I discovered that 60 miles per week worked every bit as well so I dumped about 10 junk miles off the weekly running schedule.

So what does this have to do with biking? Shortly after commenting to MG about the concept of junk miles, I noticed that I had about 900 miles on the odometer of my Cross Check. Hypocrisy be damned, I went for it.

After many miles of riding flat neighborhood streets I decided to put the 100-mile challenge to better use. I started seeking out hills. I hate hills. So I tackled Oxon Hill (twice), Mason Hill near my home (twice today), Beacon Hill (once is plenty), and assorted other hills leading from the GW Parkway near the river up the hill that runs roughly parallel.

To my surprise, I actually got better. Even today when I forgot to take my asthma medicine. Of course, I had help. El Nino and climate change have conspired to bring us unseasonably warm weather with generally light winds.

After doing my hills, I headed up the Mount Vernon Trail. On Union Street in Old Town Alexandria I came upon an old friend who I hadn’t seen in nearly a decade. I could tell because he was cycling with his son who was now 13. The last time I saw the boy he was a rugrat.

As we were talking, a co-worker of mine ran past. He’s pretty fast. Every time I see a runner with good form I feel a twinge of jealousy.

After the chat I did a loop north to Four Mile Run and back to my neighborhood.

I pulled into the driveway to record this picture:

Mission accomplished.

See you next year….

Active Rest

After climbing hills for a couple of days, I wanted to give my legs some rest. I toyed with the idea of an easy hike but went for a gentle ride instead. My plan was to avoid anything that looked like a hill and I think I succeeded. The Cross Check and I rolled around the Fort Hunt neighborhood, never exceeding 20 miles per hour and reaching that for only a minute or two.

This kind of thing is called active rest. I intended to take pictures but that rarely pans out for some reason. I did, however, return to the scene of the house demolition to see how it is progressing. Basically the middle half of the house, except for the chimney is gone. There is a garage to the right and the remnants of what might have been an addition on the left. It’s as if some giant came along and took a bit out of the middle of the house.

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I spent the rest of my ride doing laps around Fort Hunt Park. As if to prove I was taking it easy a rollerblader passed me and proceeded to leave me in his dust going up hill. After three or four laps a mist started falling, the perfect excuse to head for home.

After showering I ran some errands. One involved purchasing some beer so rather than risk tragic breakage I drove. I could feel a bounce in my step as I shopped. Looks like the active rest day did its thing.

Tomorrow I hope to do a last ride of the year. Nothing special. There is at least one hill nearby that I haven’t climbed this week.

My Ride to the Star Destroyer

It was supposed to be a flat recovery ride. I got a bit carried away. Within a mile and a half I was riding up the hill on Sherwood Hall Lane. Then I rode up the grade on Fort Hunt Road, descended and rode another hill past the golf course to the Beltway.

Okay, I’ll be good. I’ll ride the new Alexandria bike trail all the way to Crystal City.

It was flat. So I continued on to the Pentagon.

It, too, was flat.

I worked my way over to the Mount Vernon Trail and the Humpback Bridge, mostly because the Humpback Bridge sounds cool.

Over the river on the 14th Street Bridge and up Maine Avenue past the incredibly big Wharf construction project. First phase set to open in 2017. Yes, it’s that big.

M Street took me to the 11th Street Bridge across the Anacostia. Whoever decided to put a bike path on this thing is a frickin’ genius. (Is “frickin'” even a word?)

Now the fun begins: the long slog up Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard. If this is junior, I don’t want to know about senior. I had multiple flashbacks to my seven 50 States Rides during which I admired the fit behinds of all the riders who can climb faster than me. Which is to say every entrant ever!

One thing I noticed during my climb, it matters what pants you wear. Pants that are tight around the hips make it harder to climb. Today I wore loose mountain bike shorts under baggy wind pants. Claudio Chiapucci I ain’t but the climbing was not so bad.

It goes up and up. Then it goes down conveniently stopping at South Capitol Street so that all that downhill momentum is lost. Then up some more for a while until I plunge down the steep hill to the Police Academy complex. Every time I see the sign for Police Academy I think of the dreadful movie. At least it had Bubba Smith in it.

Of course at the bottom of the hill there was a stop sign. I stopped. A police cruiser noticed and gave me a friendly toot on the horn. (Take note Alexandria Virginia Police!! You don’t have to treat cyclists like criminals.)

What goes down must go up. After a meander through the messed up Oxon Cove Park I confronted the beast. I don’t mean this apparent imperial star destroyer under construction. (It’s a trap!)

Side note: Oxon Cove Park could be a local jewel. It has the misfortune of being located in a poor, out of the way section of Prince Georges County Maryland. The few people who live near it rarely use it. What a shame.

The beast was the long, ever steepening climb at Oxon Hill Farm. I HATE this hill. It starts with the indignity of a false flat. Then a true hill emerges in front of you. And emerges and emerges.

I made it to the top without calling for my mommy.

Across the Beltway on Oxon Hill Road and down the side path to the river. Up the spiral ramp (I love this spiral) to the deck and back across the Beltway. Somehow I now had legs and rode over the Wilson Bridge actually accelerating as I made the climb.

I headed home on the Mount Vernon Trail but after a few miles I bailed out to take on one more hill: Westgrove Boulevard, as suburban street that also steepens as it rises.

Mommy!!!

Okay, I made it. In pretty decent fettle. I made my way back home once again riding up the Sherwood Hall Lane hill. For the life of me I can’t figure out why riding up the steeper part going west is so easy. I just thrash it every time.

So 31 1/2 miles. On a rest day. When I couldn’t help myself. If it rains tomorrow, I spy a museum. (If I get out of bed.)

Some Ride/Hike Ideas for 2016

About a year ago I was admonished by a friend for sounding wishy washy regarding my 2015 vacation plans. “Stop planning. All we have is today” was her way of saying don’t plan, DO! Irony alert: in January 2014 she told me of her plans to obtain certification to teach in DC schools and to open a business. She followed through on none of it, eventually leaving town. Even so, she had a point.

I suck at advance planning. Somehow I managed to do a bike tour, a non-bike trip around the world, nearly a dozen day hikes, half a dozen bicycling events, and take in a bunch of Nationals games. So with that in mind I began thinking about things to do in 2016.

I anticipate one non-biking vacation (to Sweden and thereabouts) to visit my daughter. (A return to Thailand in the dry season would be nice but I can’t face the 18 hours of flying right now. Maybe 2017.) That will leave plenty of vacation time. So here are some ideas I am tossing around in my head.

Hiking: there are still many, many hikes to do in the Shenandoah National Park. Also, I have barely scratched the surface of hiking in nearby Maryland and Pennsylvania along the Appalachian Trail. One possibility is to gear up and do some overnights. I have never done this and it would be an interesting extension of my day hikes (not to mention save on driving home after a day’s worth of hiking).

Biking Events: WABA swears that it’s going to offer a century ride this year. If it works into my schedule, I’ll definitely do it. Then there are the usual events: Vasa, Cider, 50 States, Backroads, and Great Pumpkin. I’ve done all of these several times, but the Backroads course was moved to West Virginia this year. I was in Australia and missed it. I can’t wait to do the new version. Two more that I keep threatening to do are RAGBRAI and the Five Boro Ride in New York City. Both of them are cattle drives. Both offer logistical challenges. Some of what follows are a lot easier to do.

Bike Trails: There are all kinds of cool trails around here that I haven’t ridden. Here’s a list of Virginia trails:

The Virginia Capital Trail goes between Williamsburg and Richmond. This could be a fun 2-day deal or a long single day ride.
High Bridge State Park down near Farmville and Appomattox looks really cool with a long, high bridge.
The Virginia Creeper Trail is a bit of a drive from DC. It’s only 34 miles but could be a beast of an out and back ride.
The New River Trail is a 57-mile trail that looks really promising with 30 trestles and bridges and two tunnels. This is a two-day ride with camping I think.

In Pennsylvania the Pine Creek Rail Trail runs 63 miles through the Grand Canyon of the East. Looks like a good overnight camping round trip to me.

Bike Tours: Right now I have eight possibilities on my list. All in the Eastern U.S.

Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway: This is a monster tour, 578 miles from Front Royal, Virginia to Cherokee, North Carolina. How the hell I’d get back is anybody’s guess. It’s also super hilly so I figure I’d be lucky to average 45 miles per day, 13 days of riding. This could be beyond my physical abilities. (Never stopped me before.)
The Natchez Trace: This 444 mile road is truck free. Tack on another 90 miles or so and the route would go from Nashville to New Orleans. Logistics on this one is a bit pricey (two bike flights). Bike Friday to the rescue?
Figure 8 in Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York: Adventure Cycling has two routes that form a figure 8. One loops around Lake Champlain, the other does a lap of the Adirondack Park. This one would be logistically pretty easy as I have family in the Albany area where the Adirondack route begins. The total distance exceeds 700 miles. The riding in Vermont and upstate New York is incredibly nice. Also weather up yonder is pretty much perfect for cycling in June – August.
La Route Verte: There are over 5,000 kilometers of marked bike routes in Quebec. The possibilities are endless. Then there is the interesting prospect of conversing in my horrid, mostly forgotten high school French. The idea of cycling to Quebec City, which I have never seen, or around Montreal is pretty intriguing. Getting there is a bit of a haul, but c’est la vie.
A New Kind of Rail Trail – North: Amtrak now has roll on bike service on the East Coast. Theoretically (relying on Amtrak is always an iffy proposition) I could take my bike on a trail and ride to Brunswick Maine, then ride up to Acadia National Park and ride all or part way home.
A New Kind of Rail Trail – South: Alternatively, I could take the train to Florida, ride to Key West, ferry to Tampa and ride across the state to Amtrak in Miami. Or just ride home.
Around Lake Michigan: This one starts in Monroeville, Indiana, one of the most bike touring friendly small towns in the US. It heads north through lower Michigan into the Upper Peninsula. Then across to Wisconsin and returns by crossing Lake Michigan on a ferry. It’s 1,100 miles. Logistics would be simplified by using my in-laws house in north central IN as an alternative starting point.

In the increasingly likely (yet still somewhat improbable) possibility that I retire there is this:

The Trans Am/Western Express/Northern Tier Cross Country Ride: There remains a faint possibility that I might retire this year. If so, adios, amigos! I don’t know which route I’d take but the possibilities are numerous. The Trans Am is the classic route from Yorktown to the Oregon coast through Yellowstone. The Western Express shortens the Trans Am by taking a b-line across Utah and Nevada for California. The Northern Tier goes close to the US-Canada border.

Once I find out when the WABA Century and the Sweden trip will happen, I’ll pick two of the tours and as many events and hikes as my aging bones can handle.

Ride Hills and Chew Grape

I normally sell some of my leave back to my employer. It’s a good benefit for sure but this year I decided to use it all. I thought I had it all planned out. One week off for my tour. A few days here and there for hikes and baseball games. Then a bunch of time off for my once-in-a-lifetime vacation in Australia/New Zealand/Thailand.

Somehow I ended up with 40 hours of vacation time. So I took a day off last week and took this week off.

Since Mrs. RC has to work (her biggest annual deadline is tomorrow), I am staycationing. The holidays and rain have conspired to keep me off my bike for several days so yesterday and today I got the Cross Check out on the neighborhood streets.

I live near Mount Vernon next to a horse farm. Sounds kind of nice doesn’t it? Well, I live closer to US 1 than the Potomac River and the horse farm is a mud pit and a dump (literally, they seem to dump old equipment along the farm’s perimeter).

One nice thing about it is that there are five traffic lights between my house and the Beltway, a distance of about five or six miles. Most of the streets are quiet neighborhood streets. If I want more I need only ride down past Mount Vernon where there are many more miles of suburban streets with only two traffic lights. And for the hell of it I can ride 1 1/4 mile loops in Fort Hunt Park.

So I took advantage, paying special attention to climb some hills, something I avoid with great dedication. Yesterday’s jaunt included riding up to Oxon Hill Road from the Wilson Bridge. This is a mile-long slog but the ride back down is pretty sweet. I also picked off the Park Terrace Drive hill, which I once used daily to prepare for a tour. The rest of the hills were not too hard.

Today’s ride featured the Regent Drive Hill which climbs above the Park Terrace Drive hill. Most cyclists just avoid this one because its more bad. Another fun hill that I typically avoid is Belle View Boulevard which climbs Beacon Hill. Not today. I rode up that sucker.

In between bouts of cycling masochism, I rode some flat-ish streets. One of them is East Boulevard Drive which runs on the opposite side of the GW Parkway from the Mount Vernon Trail. Today I saw a giant construction machine chewing up a house. It was a big house. If it were in good shape it would sell for nearly $1 million. Whoever bought it decided that some new monstrosity would better suit its massive lot.

In Old Town I spent five minutes taking pictures of polar bears in a tree and this faded sign on a brick wall. I love these old signs. I recall one from my childhood for the soft drink Moxie on the side of brick building in my father’s home town. I also like Mail Pouch tobacco signs on barns in the Midwest. They almost make you wish tobacco was as tasty as chocolate.

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