Pictures of the Year 2015

Pool Noodles for the Win: Sam got us organized. We were going to occupy the Pennsylvania bike lanes to get barriers installed between 13th and 15th Street to keep cars from making illegal u-turns. Somebody got the idea of using pool noodles as props, to indicate where the barriers would go. Afterward, Dave carried them off. I think they took him to the nervous hospital later.

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We all had a blast. Human bollards come in many shapes and sizes. Here’s the Katie Lee model. It’s generally impervious to u-turning cars, but can be moved aside with tickets to Packers games and Phish concerts.

Here’s Sam, the mad genius behind #biketivismdc. It’s funny what getting run over by a car does for your determination to make streets safer.

Kelly Biked to Work!: Kelly sits across from me at work. She had hip surgery which meant she couldn’t run for weeks. So she took up bike commuting. The smile means it was a success.

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To her credit she really got into the bike commuting thing. Here she poses at an underpass on the Four Mile Run Trail. A few days before rising water during a downpour caused her to abandon shelter and head into the maelstrom. She survived and added a snorkel to her bike commuting gear.

Like Father Like Daughter: I went to a bunch of baseball games this year. Katie Lee and I attended a couple of games together. She is a meticulous genius at scorekeeping, an art she learned from her late father. At one game, there were two little boys in the row in front of us attending their first baseball game. They were trying to figure out how to keep score. Katie moved down and gave them a game long tutorial. It was an act of kindness that just knocked me out. Somewhere her dad is smiling.

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Posh Bike Parking: For some inexplicable reason, our office building started getting all environmentally conscious this fall. Without telling anyone, they replaced their absolutely crappy bike racks with a pretty awesome, secure bike room. Combined with the gym and showers one floor above, it’s a pretty darn bike friendly place to work.

Here’s the before shot.

Here’s the after.

No Wrong Plan: Ryan, Kevin, and I rode from Pittsburgh to DC. It was my first bike tour in a decade. Here we pose in Georgetown’s Waterfront Park at the end of our trek. Any resemblance of me to Hoss Cartwright is entirely coincidental.

In Williamsport, Maryland, we stopped at the Desert Rose Cafe for breakfast. They made us sandwiches for lunch. Inside the bags they included napkins. Each one had a personal message. Such nice people. Such good food. Eat there. (They speak veggie and vegan too!).

Going Up: I did quite a lot of day hiking this year branching out to Shenandoah National Park for several exceptional hikes. All my hikes were solo except for this one with Ultrarunnergirl. She kicked my ass all the way up to Little Hawksbill, the highest point in the park. Then the mountain kicked my ass all the way back down.

On my 60th birthday, I hiked Old Rag. It was a tough hike and convinced me that rock scrambles are for the young and frisky. Also, the thin.

Glory Days: Mrs. RC is a very talented quilter. When I had to quit running about 25 years ago we talked about using my race t-shirts to make a quilt. Nothing came of it until she made the quilt as a surprise for my 60th birthday. What an amazing gift. Oh how I wish I could run like that again.

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Around the World in 19 Days: My kids were living in Sydney, Australia and Phuket, Thailand. We decided to go visit them. While in Australia, Mrs. RC and our daughter Lily went to Uluru for dinner under the stars. Here we enjoy a drink just before sunset.

After trips to Melbourne and the north island of New Zealand, we headed for Phuket. The island is very hilly so everyone rides a motorbike like this one my son Eamonn uses.

We paid a visit to Big Buddha. He was aptly named.

Lily made friends with a baby elephant.

Cookies and Cider: I did a bunch of event rides this year. The Cookie Ride had a good hook. Cookies at every rest stop. Here I pose with a human cookie along with Paris and Lisa.

I missed my two favorite rides of the year, the Backroads Century and the 50 States Ride, which both occurred while I was traveling. I swore off the Cider Ride last year but decided to give it a go after they moved it into November. Finishers got this cool mug. Thanks to Michelle for her event magic on behalf of WABA.

Sunrise: The year is nearly over but I am pretty sure that the new one will start something like this. Thanks for reading.

Go Ask Alice

What more can you say when it is 70 degrees on Christmas Eve in DC.

Oh, and it was muggy to boot.

Take one El Nino and one Climate Change and call me when winter really gets here? If ever. I bought a new blade for my snow shovel a few weeks ago. Apparently, I jinxed winter. Next year I am buying a snow blower in November.

During the afternoon I jumped on the Cross Check for a spin around the neighborhood. In shorts.

During my 30 mile jaunt I saw a runner in shorts. And shoes. And nothing else.

I saw kids playing on swings. In shorts and t-shirts.

I saw big fluffy dogs looking decidedly unhappy about the warmth.

I saw a blond squirrel. My first one. Ever. It was the color of a golden retriever. I tried to get its picture. It ran away.

Go ask Alice.

John’s Story: I Bike For My Health, My Pocket Book, and Bald Eagles!

“If you think bicycling in D.C. is good now, wait until you see what WABA’s efforts will bring by the time you turn 60!”

Source: John’s Story: I Bike For My Health, My Pocket Book, and Bald Eagles!

The Last Bike Commute

Today was the last day of autumn. At 11:49 tonight DC goes into winter. Tomorrow there has less than one second of daylight than today. Wednesday we pull on the rope and say “Screw you, South America” and pull the sun back.

Or something like that.

I am working from home or taking vacation days until 2016 so I am done with bike commuting for the year. Unofficially, I’ve ridden to work 160 times this year. Not half bad considering I took more vacation and teleworked more than ever before. So this was the year that I drove to work the least since I moved to Fairfax County in 1989.

As I left for work, I momentarily panicked. I couldn’t find the battery for my headlight. Then I remembered that my new headlight also can be run off the battery for my old headlight. Yessss!

The morning was comfortably cold. As the sun rose the temperature followed and my base layer became noticeably wet. Traffic on the Parkway and the Mount Vernon Trail was predictably light. I cut a little off my commute by taking Royal Street through Old Town. I could do this safely because St. Mary’s School of the Holy SUV was closed so I didn’t have to deal with its drop off line.

The willow trees across from the Washington Monument are losing their now yellow leaves. Yellow and gray.

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It was a nice ride so I didn’t complain. The office bike commuter matrix was all full of non-complainers. (Of course, Kelly was out of town so that may be why.)

The ride home was much warmer. I took my time. My bike commute is so nice I really wanted to milk the last one for all it was worth. The trail work on the Mount Vernon Trail is really taking shape. Pavement went down today. It is only a matter of a few more days before the detours are removed and we get to ride on the new, straighter and wider trail.

I moseyed on down to Old Town where the trail meets the city streets. The stop sign where the trail meets the street had a new addition.

I New sign #mvt #oldtownalexandria Passive aggressive city was happy to see this because it proves my point that the city is biased against bicyclists. I have never seen a sign that shows a picture of a car with the words “must obey all <STOP sign>”.

As I rode the length of Union Street through Old Town I counted the cars at stop signs. Sure enough, 7 of 8 rolled through the stop signs.

After another five miles, I pulled into my yard. Another year of bike commuting under my belt. One of these days I’m going to ride to work and then not stop. Just keep going until I hit the blue Pacific waters. Could that happen in 2016?

Hmmmm……

My Top Ten of 2015

The year began with a paper lantern rising in the post-midnight sky over Old Town Alexandria. I hoped it was a sign of good things to come. Here in no particular order are the highlights of what followed:

Around the World in 19 Days: When your kids move to the other side of the world, you have a perfectly good excuse to go visit them. We flew via LAX to Sydney to meet up with our daughter who was studying abroad at Macquarie University. We explored Sydney, Uluru, and Melbourne in Australia and Rotorua in New Zealand. Then we flew to Thailand where our son now lives, teaching English at a school in Phuket. We flew back via Abu Dhabi and JFK, completing our trip around the world. Speaking of travel….

Six Days without a Plan: I did my first bike tour in ten years, riding 370 miles from Pittsburgh to home, nearly entirely off road in six days. Kevin and Ryan made for good company. The Meth Man not so much. Earl and Anne, two friends from my years in Boston, met up with us for Mothers Day brunch. And we saw the Pirates execute a triple play at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. Speaking of baseball….

Where’s My Ring?: I pretty much went all in as a Washington Nationals fan this year. I attended 8 or 9 games (one was a rainout) and watched dozens more on the tube. In the process I discovered the wonderful bike valet service at the ballpark, bottles of ice water (mostly ice) sold outside the stadium, and SeatGeek, a web service for cheap seats. Sadly, the Nats completely fell apart in August and September ending with the sad display of a bad apple reliever choking the eventual league Most Valuable Player. Speaking of things surly…

Getting Surly: My bikes were getting old. And so was I. So I decided to buy a new one, just for riding events and such. I bought a Surly Cross Check on the enthusiastic recommendation of a half dozen friends who own one or wish they did. I’m still working on giving it a name. My fleet of now four bikes carried me over 7,000 miles this year. Speaking of mileage….

Turning the Odometer: I hit 60 in August. My brain still can’t believe it but my body does. Denial only gets you so far in life. I celebrated by hiking Old Rag. My advice is to do this hike long before your 60th birthday. Mrs RC made me with a quilt from my old running t-shirts. This totally surprised me with it even though she made the thing right in front of me. Still, turning 60 was inescapably depressing. Speaking of depressing…

Goodbye Blue Mondays: I started the year dealing with rather severe depression, not the “I’m sad” kind but the clinical kind. It’s a drag just thinking about it. I forced myself to socialize (see below), ate vitamin D supplements (I had a severe deficiency), and began daily meditation at the repeated suggestion of a friend. You could say that when it was over I had become comfortably numb. Speaking of numbness…

My Right Foot: I also started the year with a mysteriously numb right foot. I saw a neurologist who was incredibly enthusiastic, competent, and beautiful about my case. She sent me to a physical therapist who gave me a set of exercises including bird dogs, side planks, and nerve flossing that I still do every other day. On a whim, I went for a Thai massage. It didn’t do a thing for my foot but it was just about the most relaxing 90 minutes I can recall. “Use your third eye, John.” I also went to an acupuncturist who didn’t do a thing for my foot either. He did fix a pain in my upper arm and recommended some orthotics for my shoes. Speaking of shoes….

Ramping Up My Hiking: After each of my hikes last year, my back and knees were killing me. The second I put the orthotics in my shoes, my back felt better. I did ten hikes this year, most of them in Shenandoah National Park and a little further north on the Appalachian Trail. All but one were solo hikes. The exception came when Ultrarunnergirl kicked my ass all the way to the top of SNP and back. My knees and back hardly protested. Speaking of protests…

What’s a Park It?: Bike riders in DC had been getting hit by cars turning illegally through the Pennsylvania Avenue bike lanes. I attended a protest that was designed to bring awareness to the fact that new barriers called Park Its had not been installed on two blocks of the avenue. The protest was successful (the Park Its were installed a few months later) and was a great opportunity to get together with friends old and new. Speaking of new friends…

Do I Even Have a Fusiform Gyrus?: Three months after apparently meeting me at a December 2014 holiday party, a woman walked up at a post-ride reception and said “Hi John.” I had no idea who she was. She later said I needed to have my fusiform gyrus checked out. So began my improbable friendship with Katie Lee. A few days later we spent four hours in a booth in a downtown tavern. Two peas in a pod, pod people you might say, engaged in an incredibly intense conversation. I felt as if I had caught lightning in a bottle of Shiner Bock. On my way home for the first time in months the fog of my depression had lifted. Like a paper lantern. I know a sign when I see one. Thanks for showing me the score, KL.

Encore, you say?….

Sitting in the Lap of the North Wind: A year or so ago, Mrs RC bought me a CD of celtic sounding music by a Quebec folk group called Le Vent du Nord. As luck would have it, they played very small venues near DC twice this year. We were in the second row for both performances, practically in the lap of the foot drumming, song singing, fiddle player. Even though I studied French in high school and college I can’t really follow their lyrics but I have no trouble enjoying their hurdy gurdy fueled music. Tres bon.

And People Say I’m Crazy?

Almost without fail, when the weather is bad, a non-bike commuter will look at me in my bike commuting get up and say, “You’re crazy.’ Just like “Watchin’ the Wheels.” I expect them to “give me all kinds of advice to save me from ruin.”

It’s raining today. I drove to work. My mode choice had to do with an after work social commitment in the city. (Irony alert: it’s the Washington Area Bicyclists Association’s holiday party.) It was just me an tens of thousands of other worker bees driving to work alone in their cars. On a Sunday, driving the 15 miles to my office takes between 20 and 25 minutes. Today it took an hour. Mostly I spent the time stopped in traffic looking at the tailgate of a humongous Ford pick up truck. When I got bored with that I looked over at the Mount Vernon Trail and watched the bike commuters go zipping along.

No wonder bicyclists generate so much anger from motorists. How dare they actually enjoy their commute. You should have to sit here like the rest of the world and rage at the traffic gods. (It’s not my fault that there is so much traffic. It’s the other drivers’ fault. If only they’d get out of my way!)

Traffic is a sure sign that Americans are dumb as stumps. How else could so many people be sucked in by such BS as “See the USA in a Chevrolet” and “Zoom, Zoom” and “Farfegnugen” and “Fine German Motorcar?”

My bike has “Farfignewton.” It has “Pedal, Pedal.”

The only advantage to driving to work that I can see is I get to listen to music. Today’s car tunes are Le Vent du Nord’s Les Amants du Saint Laurent and The Notting Hillbillies’ Missing… Presumed Having a Good Time.

To paraphrase the Beatles: “Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, NO!”

The Office Bike Commuting Matrix

I work in an office of about 25 to 30 people. Several of us ride our bikes to work.

As readers of this blog know, I ride to work nearly full time. I don’t ride with ice on the roads, jet lag, or unavoidable conflicts. So far this year I have ridden one of my bikes to work over 150 times.

My boss is Mohammad. He recently upgraded from a garage sale Schwinn to a Yuba Mundo cargo bike. He uses it to take his kids to school in DC. He’s an everyday commuter.

During her recovery from hip surgery, Kelly needed to get some exercise or she was going to go insane. (Not that anyone would notice.) This summer she began bike commuting. She’s currently on bike commuting hiatus but seems on the verge of starting up again.

Kirk is a fair weather bike commuter. He rides incredibly fast for a man who is retirement eligible. A few years ago a runner on the Mount Vernon Trail did a crazy Ivan maneuver (known in football as a button hook). He turned right into Kirk’s path. There was blood and pain. He’s now fully recovered from the crash and presumably more careful.

Charlie is a once a week bike commuter. He plans his commute meticulously and avoids riding in the dark. We try not calling him a wuss.

There is a white board outside of Mohammad’s office that has news of the day for staff. For example, at the top it tells us the day of the week because some of the staff are, well, challenged chronologically.

Every morning a conversation evolves around who rode to work. Invariably somebody complains about something. So Mohammad and Rebecca his administrative assistant cooked up the bike commuter matrix to keep tabs. She is the commissioner.

23529133352_b4ff772f33_z The commissioner adds graphics to make things interesting. That’s actually Mohammad and his kids on the Mundo in the upper right. That’s not Kelly in the lower left. A more recent picture showed Kelly being pursued by a chainsaw murderer. There have been two homicides on her route so she has suspended bike commuting until the killer(s) have been brought to justice. What a wimp.

You either did or didn’t ride and you either did or didn’t complain. I recently was tagged for complaining (see above) after I merely observed that it was foggy. I wasn’t complaining. I was simply stating meteorological fact. Still I was recorded as complaining. I filed an appeal with the commissioner and she ruled against me. I’d appeal to a higher authority (not that there is one) but the commissioner erased that matrix the next day.

You may notice something at the bottom of the frame. It says “D.U.S.T. = XX days.” This has nothing to do with bike commuting. DUST means Days Until Spring Training. Rebecca looked this up on the Yankees website. I was going to protest as a member of Red Sox Nation but I felt badly. She grew up in Albany (which I can assure you is punishment enough, says this native Albanian) and hasn’t been sent for proper deprogramming yet. We’re working on it.

Little Nellie Turns 16

For the first two years after buying this bike, it made my back ache. I finally got it dialed in and it’s been a blast to ride ever since. It’s now 8 years old and tonight it crossed the 16,000 mark on the way home. One of these days I’m going to put it on a plane and go somewhere with it. In the meantime, the little wheels make me feel like I did when I was a kid.

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What This Town Needs Is Later Sunsets

And that’s exactly what we are getting. The tilt of the earth and some other astronomical BS means that, although we are still losing daylight, the sun is setting later. Don’t the gods care about symmetry, goddamit?

I mean this really messes up everything. I am firing my shaman and getting a new jungle drug. My consciousness is in retrograde.

One consequence of all this cosmic buffoonery is I am leaving for work later. Subconsciously my brain says “get ready to leave” in the morning only when a certain amount of daylight is evident. I tend to leave a few minutes later each week as a result.

Sunrise at Dyke Marsh seems to be on schedule. I leave home ten minutes before sunrise and arrive Dyke Marsh just after the sun has cleared the trees on the other side of the river. My brain says, “You’re right on schedule.”

This trickery doesn’t seem to be affecting others though. Running Mom was heading north, back to Old Town this morning. All I saw was her back. Usually I see her front as she heads south along the trail. Swivel Light, a southbound woman bike commuter with a red blinky light on a pivot on the top of her helmet, was nearly in Old Town when I saw her. Normally I see her up at the airport, some 3 or 4 miles closer to DC.

Too bad Trump isn’t president. He’d declare war on Argentina to get our daylight back. They’d fold like a cheap suit by March.

On a somewhat more serious note:

I saw some surveyors doing measurements on and near the Dyke Marsh bridge. This bridge was damaged by several storms over the last ten years. The surface twists and turns a bit as a result. Most of the other bridges on the Mount Vernon Trail have been replaced over the last five years. This bridge and the beaver bridge (just north of the Slaters Lane turn off) are past their sell date. Let’s hope an upgrade is coming this spring.

To Be or To Document

One of the things I struggle with when doing this blog or when doing life in general is when to just experience the moment and when to document it. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen something that intrigued me and thought a minute afterwards “I should have taken a picture.” Had I actually taken the picture I might have missed the moment. Perhaps the Kodak moment is inferior to the moment of the mind.

Should I be selfish and enjoy the experience in all its spontaneity and freshness or should I stare through a view finder to bring it home?

A few months ago I was in Rotorua, New Zealand attending a Maori cultural ceremony. Members of a local Maori tribe were performing songs and dances. Mostly all I could see were cell phones and tablets held up so that the people in the ten rows between the stage and us could record the moment for re-viewing. Were they even experiencing it in the first place, in the moment that it was happening?

I think of so many moments that are pictures and movies in my head, perhaps to be lost someday to senility or some other impairment. Like the time President Reagan, rolled by my sister, my wife, and me, in his limo, interior lights illuminated. He spotted my sister, her first time in DC, waving like an imbecile as we stood alone on the curb of Constitution Avenue only a few blocks from the White House. Reagan, forever the showman, looked our way, pointed at my sister, gave an ear to ear smile, and waved to her. There are no pictures or videos of this moment in time but it was a bona fide OMeffingG moment.

I think of running my first marathon in 1981. The wind blowing off Rhode Island sound as we made our way on Ocean Drive in Newport. It was November and I was a poor grad student running in a cotton t-shirt and shorts. I can close my eyes and smell the salt air. I can feel the chill of the ocean breeze as I ducked behind other runners for shelter. The voice of the old track coach on the side of the road “Keep it smooth. You look great.” The crashing of the waves. The subtle crown of the asphalt road that would cause me so much leg pain in the weeks after. I have this movie in my head 34 years later. So much better than seeing it on the screen. Like yesterday. The pictures are still fresh, not faded with the passage of time.

Riding on the Erie Canal towpath in 2004. The packet boats gliding by in the morning fog. People on the boats saying “Good morning” as I pedaled by at a lazy 10 miles per hour. The crunch of my tires on the unpaved path. The serene quiet.

We didn’t take a video when my wife repeated the words “I love you” in a high pitched voice to our infant son. Impossibly, long before he would learn to talk in his own right, responded in a sing-song voice of his own: “I wuv you.”

Are we too obsessed with getting everything for our digital devices?

I am reminded of my oldest brother, a magnificently skilled photographer. He once told me that out of the hundreds of pictures he takes only a handful are “good.” How many good moments did he miss altogether in his quest for a satisfactory picture?

Without a doubt the very best moments of my life in 2015 were not photographed. The essence of these moments were not visible anyway. They happened in my head and in my heart. In my consciousness.