SLOW DOWN

Three and a half years ago, I finished a blog posting with the words “slow down.” Okay, I added an f-bomb for emphasis. That post described the day when my wife was run over by an SUV during broad daylight. If you are a cyclists or pedestrian, you really don’t want to be on the business end of a motor vehicle. At best you’ll end up with broken bones, a concussion, painful hematomas, and other aches and pains. Just ask my wife, or my friend Charmaine, or my friend Rachel. Or Theresa, an acquaintance from a morning last autumn at Friday Coffee Club. At worst, you can lose your life. For that you’ll have to ask Lorena’s friends and family.

All of their pain and suffering probably could have been avoided if a driver simply had slowed down and paid attention. These things aren’t accidents. They are evidence of a perverted communal acceptance that tens of thousands of people are expendable to convience and commerce.

Not a week goes by that I don’t have a close call with a motor vehicle while riding my bike to work. Considering the fact that I ride most of my commute on a carless trail and the fact that I am totally paranoid about being hit that’s pretty remarkable.

Lately, signs are springing up in my neck of the woods. They say, “SLOW DOWN. We live here. You live here.”

Whoever is putting these up, you have my heartfelt thanks. I do hope they do some good.

Coffeeneuring #4: Bittersweet Indeed

I had to go to the bike shop to get a few things so Little Nellie and I took off for Spokes Etc. about 5 miles from home. The shop is extremely bike commuter friendly in that they’ll do simple repairs while you wait. So I frequently forgo the e-commerce route when buying bike stuff. You should too.

Once I had done my bike shop thing, I headed into Old Town Alexandria in search of coffee. I had a hankering for fish and chips but, alas, Eamonn’s does not have coffee on the menu and the Queen of Caffeine does not count Guiness as an appropriate beverage for the Challenge.

So I walked a couple of blocks to Bittersweet Bakery. They were crowded but there were only two customers in line. Somehow they managed to turn a simple purchase of coffee into a 10 to 15 minute annoyance. I noticed they sold Swing’s coffee so I endured the hassle. I had a tall Costa Rica Light coffee. It was fine but tasted very watered down. Most disappointing. After my coffee break I headed home to give my bikes some TLC and to mow the lawn in the brisk fall air.

Cofffeeneuring Scorecard

Date: October 18

Location: BIttersweet Bakery at 823 King Street in Old Town, Alexandria.

Drink: Swings Costa Rica Light. Tasted watery.

Observation: The food at Bittersweet looked quite good. The place was crowded. It took me over 10 minutes to get just a cup of coffee.

Miles: 14.5

Things to Be Happy About

What makes you happy?

Happiness is movement through the cool morning air.

Happiness is seeing the glow of the sun on the horizon just before the sunrise.

Happiness is seeing a early morning runner, now pregnant, still out there walking.

Happiness is seeing the beaming new mom headed toward me pushing her incredibly cute little one in a stroller.

Happiness is getting to Friday Coffee Club and seeing a packed house including young people whom I haven’t seen in far too long. This means you Katie and Megan and Rachel.

Happiness is doing a perfect on the TR Bridge. (I didn’t come to a stop once to squeeze by any riders or runners. It all timed out just right.)

Happiness finding out your co-worker passed the bar exam on her first go. (Congrats, Kelly!)

Happiness is extending my lunch break by 15 minutes just to bask in the midday sun.

Happiness is riding home and feeling just as fresh as you did on the ride to work at the begining of the week.

Happiness is the anticipation of a Sunday hike in the fall foliage with my friend Flor.

Sunrise – Dyke Marsh

The boardwalk over Dyke Marsh was slippery from rain and fallen leaves. Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent, has a skewed weight distribution making it prone to having the front wheel slide out. When I saw the sunrise over the hills of Prince Georges County, Maryland I risked a crash and very slowly braked to a stop. Yeah, it was worth it.

Bread and Water and Coffee and Scone

I had planned to go for a long hike today with my friend Florencia but she is under the weather and, come to think of it, so is the weather. So we are postponing our adventure until next weekend.

It was gray and drizzly out but I can’t stand to sit still on a weekend. Luckily, the Queen of Caffeine has laid down the Coffeeneuring Challenge. It’s as if she anticipated days like this. She is wise.

After the rain let up around midday, I hopped on Little Nellie, destination unknown. I decided after 4 miles of pedaling toward Old Town on the Mount Vernon Trail to bang a left on Belle View Boulevard and head toward Bread and Water, a new-ish cafe in the Belle View Shopping Center. The inside was rather warm with some loud toddlers so I took my mocha and chocolate chip scone outside to eat. I chose wisely. Usually scones are triangular in shape and very dry. Not this one. It was square and moist with a crumble topping. Way tasty! And the mocha was also right up my alley.

Appropriately fortified I headed out on my bike only to be greeted with drizzle. What a shame. The temperature was just right for a bit of a ramble but the wet and gray pretty much ruined my mood. So I rode back toward home in a wide arc of sidestreets.

Coffeeneuring Run #3

Date: October 13

Location: Bread and Water, Belle View Shopping Center. http://www.breadandwatercompany.com

Drink: Large mocha with a chocolate chip scone. Both were delicious.

Observation: I would much rather be hiking but this little trip put a bright spot in a dreary day.

Miles: 20

Coffee and Contrabands

I haven’t ridden in four days. I was away on a business trip Wednesday through Friday. I brought my Bike Friday and intended to ride it after work on Fridat but, alas, twas raining so I just drove home. Yesterday was rainy and cold. Not very inviting biking weather. By evening I was getting irritable, which is a sure thing when I don’t get enough exercise.

So despite feeling really not into it, I jumped on Little Nellie and headed out for a short ride. I took the Mount Vernon Trail to Old Town. The trail was covered in wet leaves so I was extra careful to avoid sudden moves. On Union Street in Old Town I stopped at a stop sign so that a huge SUV coming from my left could (a) not yield to me and (b) roll through its stop sign. Bikes are obviously the problem.

A few blocks further north, I saw a dad and his toddler son get out of an SUV on the opposite side of the street. The little boy had on a plastic green army helmet under a hoodie. As dad turned to close his car door, little boy bolted across the street directly in front of me. I said, “Whoa, dude!” Dad turned around and said, “Sorry.” You might want to keep you “sorries” for mom when you get your kid killed through your negligence, dad.

I rode up King Street in search of coffee. There are about a dozen coffee places to choose from. I made it all the way to the Metro station and turned around. I settled for Dunkin’ Donuts or Dunks as friend of the blog @lkono calls it. (We used to call it Drunkin’ Donuts because most of its late night customers in Providence were piss drunk.) If you ever lived in Massacusetts or Rhode Island you’d know that there are more Dunkin Donuts than traffic lights. In my 11 years in Boston and Providence I must have gone to Dunks 200 of 300 times. I really liked the coffee and minchies. Not anymore. It just tastes funky to me now. The coffee cake muffin I had wasn’t bad though.

On the way home, I stopped at the Freeman’s Cemetery. This cemetery is actually a memorial to a cemetery that was established in 1864 for the runaway slaves who found their way to Union-occupied Alexandria during the Civil War. The Contrabands (as the were originally called on a account of their legal status as property) lived in squalor. Many succumbed to smallpox. Over 1,700 were laid to rest in this cemetery. Over the years the cemetery was repeatedly disturbed by road building and other ventures. The last venture was a Mobil gas station. When the Woodrow Wilson Bridge was replaced, the gas station was removed and a cemetery was restored as a memorial.

Some pix of the cemetery can be found on my Flickr page

Cofffeeneuring Scorecard

Date: October 12

Location: Dunks on King Street near the Metro station in Old Town, Alexandria

Drink: House brew with coffee cake muffin. The muffin was way better than the coffee.

Observation: Dunkin Donuts used to be my default coffee shop when I was in school. What the hell do students know about coffee, anyway?

Miles: 18.5

A Much Needed Sunrise

The older I get the more I appreciate each day. This time of year bike commutes along the Potomac River are rewarded by such beautiful sunrises. I just have to stop to take in the moment. Today I stopped three times but this is the best of the three pix I took.

Coffeeneuring in Car Hell

The fourth annual coffeeneuring challenge is upon us. This challenge entails riding your bike to coffee shops on the weekends and meeting rules that only a randonneur would love. I wasn’t going to do it this year but I had a Sunday to burn and a gift certificate to a new coffee shop burning a whole in my saddle bag.

To me rolling out to get a cup of coffee seems kind of silly since I have a perfectly good coffee maker in my kitchen. So I combined today’s coffee trek with some errands. I started with a ride to the hardware store for some bird seed. Little Nellie, my New Wrold Tourist with little wheels, does a terrifc job of carrying the unbalanced load without making me feel like I’m going to tip over.

Once the seeds were off loaded at home, I turned around and rode the Mount Vernon Trail to Old Town to use an ATM. I could have done this at the Safeway near home but I needed some therapy miles. Call it bikescendental meditation. My brain shuts off, I sing songs badly, I look at the egrets and herons. All is calm.

After ATMing, I headed off to the coffee shop on Telegraph Road south of the beltway. I rode over to the Eisenhower Valley (why does this invoke tanks in my mind) and used the nifty newish trail over the beltway at Telegraph. It drops you right smack dab in the middle of a spaghetti bowl of ramps and traffic lanes going every which way. This being Sunday traffic was light. Riding this on a weekday would take nerves of steel. This sort of road pattern is what I call Car Hell. Car Hell is why Fairfax County is a bike hostile community.

After waiting three minutes for a traffic light, I headed south on Telegraph. The shoulder comes and goes so taking the lane is the only option. People were driving their cars responsible though so it was not an entirely unpleasant experience. Telegraph wends through a hilly area. There was one hill I had to climb (right after Climbhill Rd., I kid you not) and I made it without breathing hard.

A fun downhill led to a left hand turn (always fun) into a strip mall (planned American retail blight). There I found the Grounded Coffee Shop.

I locked Little Nellie to a street sign because, this being Car Hell, there was no bike parking to be found.

Inside I found a very pleasant, kid friendly place (toys and games were placed on shelves and a Lego pit was off to one side). A young man was playing guitar and singing songs for tips.The customers ranged in age from 1 to 70. A student did homework on a laptop.

I ordered tomato soup with chicken and orzo, a banana, and a 16-ounce house coffee (dark roast from the Congo). This being the first crisp fall weekend day in these parts, the warmth of the soup and coffee alone would have made me happy, but they were both top notch. (The banana lacked a certain je ne said quoi, but it is an essential bike food.)

The ride home involved South Kings Highway which included one whopper of a hill. The road has a paved shoulder that comes and goes. And when it goes it just drops off in an way that would mean a trip to the ER. Way to go VDOT!

I managed the hill with the forebearance of some drivers. When confronted with the next, steeper hill bailed out and took side streets until I popped out at US 1 and the entrance to the Hybla Valley strip mall farm. That this monstrosity was actually planned by someone is simply astounding. Fearlessly, Little Nellie took on the mass of cars and we made it through somehow. In fact, in about 5 minutes I was turning onto Parkers Lane using the turn lane and ironically not 30 yards from the spot where my wife was mowed down (actually thrown in the air) by an ex-con driving an SUV, when a driver honked at me. I wasn’t in her way. I wasn’t doing anything illegal. My offense was I was not in a car. Some people need remedial driver’s ed.

So I arrived home unscathed from my first coffeeneuring adventure. Here are some stats:

Date: October 5.

Place: Grounded Coffee Shop, 6919 Telegraph Avenue, Alexandria VA. http://www.groundedcoffeeshop.com

Drink: Congo dark roast, most delicious. Also, pretty darn good tomato chicken and orzo soup.

Observation: Grounded Coffee is a real find. I have $6+ left on my gift certificate and look forward to going back. I’l probably drive though because it’s located in Car Hell.

Miles:19.5

Call Me Euthymic

I went to a brand new doctor this week. He gave me a short test to see if I was depressed. In his notes he said I was euthymic. I went to a fancy pants (literally, it was a military school) high school with lots of vocabulary tests. FN, one of my English teachers, would have called euthymic a $1 word. Do you know what it means?

Before I reveal the answer to today’s quiz, I’ll tell you a little story. My father was an ophthalmologist. Every morning, before I dragged my lazy butt out of bed, he was at the hospital doing rounds. One morning he walked by a patient’s room. She was asleep. Not wanting to disturb her he asked a nurse exiting the room, “How’s she doing this morning?” The nurse replied, “Quite well. She’s vocalizing.”

My father asked the nurse if it was show tunes or opera. The nurse didn’t get it.

Today, was a weird day. I kept seeing Facebook messages from extremes and it was driving me. One minute a post would pop up paying tribute to my friend’s friend who died suddenly last week. The next, a picture would appear showing one of my #bikedc friends having a blast as a member of a wedding party. Sadness. Glee. Sadness. Glee.

On my ride home, I saw this scene which made my day

Now back to our quiz. Euthymic means that I was in a normal, run-of-the-mill good mood. Medicine would be cheaper if they used 25 cents words instead of $1.

Despite his use of arcane language, my new doctor is a real find. He is my third doctor (the other two are eye doctors) who rides a bike. He also does yoga and urged me to do a 60 to 90 minute session at least once a week. He even tried to demonstrate a balancing position before teetering into the examination table. So we’re going to get along fine.

September by the Numbers

I made a pretty good show of it in September on my three bikes. Yes, three. The Mule, my now ancient Specialized Sequoia, came out of the shed for an epic bike commute on the last Friday of the month. I finally got around to using the bike valet at Nationals Park. It was my first commute on the Mule since late May. I mostly rode Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent, to work and Little Nellie, my Bike Friday New World Tourist, for events. Here’s how it stacked up.

19 commutes for 573.5 miles. 16 were on Big Nellie.

3 event rides all on Little Nellie including an abbreviated 46-mile ride at Indian Head, Maryland with Ultrarunnergirl. Next came the 50 States Ride with the rookies. The last ride was my first full Backroads Century, again with Ultrarunnergirl.

Total miles for the month was 793.

Many thanks to all those folks who rode with me, or waved as they sped past me on my rides to work or during events. I may be fat but I’m slow. Extra thanks to Ultrarunnergirl who endured my company for nearly 150 miles. And extra, extra thanks to the 50-States rookies and the official rookie support team. And to Mike Ross and Lisa Eaker who make riding to the rest stop at their house the highlight of the ride.