This year for the first time I participated in the Ride for Your Life, an event that is tied to World Remembrance Day for Traffic Victims. The purpose of the ride is to remember those who have been killed in our area while using our roads. The motivating force behind the event is Dan Langenkamp. Last year Dan’s wife Sarah was run over by a flatbed truck and killed in Bethesda, Maryland while riding home from a daytime event at her sons’ school.
The 17-mile ride connected the dots between five ghost bikes. Traffic safety advocates place these bikes painted white at the sites where people have been killed. They are grim reminders that road users need to be mindful of vulnerable road users.
After Dan and others gave some speeches, several hundred riders headed down Old Georgetown Road in Bethesda. Within a half mile we passed the ghost bike of Enzo Alvarenga who was 19 when her was killed in 2022. His family stood around the bike and his grieving mother said “Thank you” through her tears as we rode past.
We crossed the road and soon passed another ghost bike, that of 17-year-old Jake Cassell who was killed three years ago. (The four-lane highway now has protected bike lanes on either side, evidence that our civic leaders often wait until it’s too late to make simple safety modifications.)
After a meander through some neighborhood streets, we took the Capital Crescent Trail to Georgetown. Along the way we rode on a bridge over River Road. Down below was Sarah’s ghost bike.
The group proceeded cautiously, mostly in single file, as they passed dozens of weekend trail users enjoying the sunny 50-degree weather. We stopped at Georgetown Waterfront Park to regroup then proceeded across downtown DC past the fourth ghost bike, that of Nijad Huseynov, a 23-year-old graduate student from Azebaijan. After crossing into the Northeast quadrant of the city, we ended up in the seemingly serene residential neighborhood of Brookland. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear you were in a small town. Lovely little single-family houses along two-lane streets with sidewalks. Each intersection seemed to have four stop signs and crosswalks. It was in a crosswalk at 14th and Irving Streets Northeast where five-year-old Allie Hart was killed by the driver of a passenger van . The van, like so many others in the area, drove through a stop sign. The intersection is next to Allie’s school where she had been attending kindergarten.
Allie Hart’s ghost bike.
There were more speeches. Allie’s mother told us of her dashed dreams for her daughter. I looked around and saw tears in the eyes of the people in the crowd. Christy Kwan of DC Families for Safe Streets spoke about how her organization, here and with chapters all over the country, works to advocate for the cause.
Dan and one of his sons stood near the bike. His son, perhaps ten years old, had ridden the entire route. He sported a red motocross helmet and cool reflective son glasses. He reminded me of my own son who, at about the same age, proudly rode his bike in an event through the streets of Baltimore so many years ago.
I left the ride and headed back up to North Bethesda to get my car. (The start was over 30-miles from home so riding there would have been quite a slog on a cold morning.) My route took me across DC to Rock Creek Park. Once on Beach Drive I traveled about ten miles, nearly car-free. The cool breeze and the low-angled sunlight made for a meditative ride.
We all know someone who has been hit by a car. The lucky ones, we (my wife, Charmaine, Rachel, Jeff, Nelle, Kate, and me, to name but a few) survive. Others like Dave and Lorena aren’t so fortunate.
On November 1 I passed 10,000 miles for the year. I’ve pulled off this trick for each of the last six years. My ass hurts.
The 10,000 miles included 360 miles on my recumbent indoors. To put the boo birds to rest, I passed 10,000 miles out-of-doors on November 13
On the 4th, I rode the Cider Ride with a really great group of people. The ride was 60 miles long involving river views, rolling hills, donuts, apple pie, and hot cider. And yellow jackets. Yellow jackets looove apple cider. One member of our group brought along a single stalk of celery for a mid-ride snack. No, I am not making this up.
Little Nellie moved into second place on my favorite bike reaching 2,000 miles for the year and surpassing 24,000 miles since I bought it in 2007.
Watching
All the Light We Cannot See: This four-episode, four-hour limited series on Netflix is based on the excellent novel written by Anthony Doerr. The series does a good job of capturing the environs of Saint-Malo, a walled city on the coast of France under seige by Allied forces near the end of World War II. Unlike the book, the series uses flashbacks to describe how the characters arrived in Saint-Malo. This is an economical choice, but upsets the flow of the story. The series totally nails the environs described in the book. Unfortunately, the actors portraying French people seemed challenged by the accent, most disappointingly this applies to Mark Ruffalo, an actor I very much otherwise admire.
Cocaine Bear: This is one of the great films in cinematic history. Not. It’s gory beyond belief but the gore is played for laughs. I felt rather stupid laughing at some of the sight gags and jokes but they were undeniably funny. To its credit, the film is only 90 minutes long.
Get Out. Damn, they don’t make horror movies like this anymore. Great acting. Great script. Great editing. Great directing. Creepy music.
Whiplash: A light comedy. NOT. Totally intense study of the use of abuse to motivate genius. J. K. Simmons earned a well deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance.
Squaring the Circle. A documentary about Hipgnosis, a small company that designed some of the most recognizable album covers of the 70s and 80s. Their clients included a whos who of popular music. Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel. 10CC, Wings. Let’s just say that creative artists are different from the rest of humanity.
Reading
Brave Companions: Portraits in History by David McCullough. I have yet to read a book by McCullough that I did not greatly enjoy. This one is no exception. Time magazine asked McCullough to write an essay about the events of historical significance that occurred during Time’s first 50 years of publication, from1936 to 1986. This essay is joined with several other essays that were written from research McCullough did when writing other books. Suffice it to say, I am now primed to read his account of the building of the Panama Canal and his 1,000-page biography of Harry S. Truman.
The Celery…oops…Cider Ride Crew in Greenbelt, Maryland
I did it again. 15 times and with a terrific posseBike Tour 2023: It was a code purple air quality day in Erie PA. I rode with an N95 mask on and hardly noticed.Bike Tour 2023: At the top of one of three wikkid climbs on my way across New England.
Bike Tour 2023: Looking down from one of the towers on the Penobscot Narrows Bridge in Maine
Bike Tour 2023: Her name was Mary Anne.
Bike Tour 2023: Finally rode in a foreign country. For 35 very wet miles.
The flowers never disappoint at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. (Photo was not touched up.)
Bike Tour 2023: On the penultimate day of my bike tour, I ran into Kevin in Shepherdstown, WV.
Maybe Beth is right. Maybe I should change my bike’s name from Big Nellie to Old Nellie after all.
Bike Tour 2023: Horseshoe Falls at Niagara Falls from the rear in Canada
Drop bars were causing me so much back pain that I almost sold Little Nellie. Then I put H-bars on and liked them so much I rode over 2,000 miles on it.The Mule had taken quite a beating over the last couple of years. Here’s one of the rims. Bikes at Vienna did a ton of work on the bike last winter and it rolled like a champ all year long.
I attended a book signing at Bards Alley in Vienna, Virginia. David Goodrich rode the Underground Railroad. It was unexpectedly good preparation for my bike tour on which I passed several stops on the railroad in upstate New York.
Changing tires on Little Nellie is usually brutally hard. The sides of the rim are tall and the rubber on the tire sidewalls is stiff, often resulting in nasty blisters on my thumbs from mounting the tire. Fortunately, Little Nellie hasn’t had a flat in several years. Today I learned why. Until I did a make over on this bike, I had barely ridden it in three years. No ride, no flats. Genius.
This year, after the make over, I have ridden it over 1,800 miles. Today, I went outside to go for a ride and the back tire was all squishy (sorry about the technical terminology). The back tire had a rusty roofing nail in it. The tire was a Schwalbe Marathon, a tire that has a later of green flat-deterrent material in the tread. The nail managed to miss the green stuff by a couple of millimeters.
There was just one thing to do. I flipped the bike over and began surgery. To my surprise, the tire came off with a minimum of hassle. I taped a dollar bill over the hole on the inside of the tire. This tire boot keeps the hole from pinching the new tube and causing a mystery flat after a couple hundred miles. Been there, done that.
I put a new tube in the tire and, as god is my witness, the tire went back on the rim with a minimum of fuss. No blisters. My hands barely got dirty.
The inflated tire held air for a thirty-mile jaunt but the dollar bill caused an annoying bump in the rear tire. Seeing as how the tire was over five years old, I ordered a new tire (and tube) to give me something to do over the weekend.
Before fussing with the tire, I removed my side mirror. Riding without a mirror gives me the creeps. Cars sneak up on me like hungry predatory beasts looking for a fleshy snack. Every time I put Little Nellie in the trunk of my car, the trunk lid would hit the handlebars. To provide clearance, I would rotate the side mirror. After doing this a dozen or so times, the mirror’s mounting hardware started to tear the tape on the handlebar. I removed the mirror and covered the gashed bar tape with duct tape. Next I borrowed a bar-end mirror from Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent. This mirror mounts to the open end of the handlebar, avoiding the bar tape altogether. I can always loosen it with a small allen key when putting the bike in the trunk of the car.
After some fiddling, I oriented the mirror just so. It looks a little odd but at least now I can ride without fear of being attacked by a big metal thing. Not to leave Big Nellie defenseless, I ordered a new replacement mirror.
In the further interest of stimulating the bicycling economy, I recently ordered a new Light and Motion headlight to replace the old light I had that recently died. The new light arrived today. It is twice as bright as the old one so I’ll be sure to singe some retinas on the way to Friday Coffee Club this winter. Bwa ha ha.
This year marked the 11th Cider Ride of the Washington Area Bicyclists Association (WABA). It is the last riding event on my calendar for the year. In 2013 and 2014 the ride was held in early December. After nearly freezing participants, WABA wisely moved it to early November in 2015.
We gathered at the start at 8:30 with temperatures in the 40s. Fortunately the sun was shining and the winds were light. The weather would improve with each passing mile, allowing us to take off layers at each pit stop.
The route starts in the middle of DC and makes its way on streets through Northeast DC to the Anacostia River Trail system. Following various trails we rode north through Hyattsville and College Park, Maryland. In College Park we shifted over to roads that took us through and beyond the Beltsville agriculture preserve before turning around at the Patuxent Research Refuge. We rode back through Beltsville and across the agriculture preserve to Greenbelt. Then it was back to the Anacostia trails on the eastern side of the river to Southeast DC before returning back up the western side of the river to creepy and decrepit RFK Stadium. We took city streets over Capitol Hill, around Union Station and, using the Metropolitan Branch Trail, back to the start. It was 60 miles in all. Mostly the route was flat, with the northern third of the ride featured rolling hills, and one whopper as we rode into Greenbelt.
Our ten-person crew included Michael and Chris who have done more of these rides with me than I can recall. We were joined for the fourth time by Sara and for the third time by Domitille. Monica, having ridden this year’s 50 States Ride, returned for more abuse. She must have amnesia. We were joined by Timothee, Miguel, Katja, and Lisa.
Michael decided to ride the entire route in one gear.
Chris had a shiny, brand new e-bike but he decided to forgo the electric assist.
Sara, as always, took charge of enthusiasm.
Domitille rode remarkably strong despite having knee pain and wearing a brace on her left knee. She complained often. She is from France. She brought two handsome, athletic male friends.
Timothee, Domitille’s French friend, was our ringer, easily outpacing the rest of us escargots. He kindly waited for us whenever he reached a turning point.
Miguel, Domitille friend number two, was pretty quiet. He abandoned the ride because of mechanical problems.
Monica wore blazing pink for much of the ride allowing slow pokes like me to keep visual contact with the group on the confusing trail system. She also called out “HAZARD” whenever we encountered glass or potholes.
Kayja, a skier at heart behind reflective sunglasses, was very quiet until near the end of the ride when she revealed that her college roommate is, like my son, a scuba instructor in southern Thailand. What are the odds?
Lisa is a founding member of Friday Coffee Club. She and I have done many, many rides in the past, but haven’t seen each other since the before times. She stopped and took pictures and fell off the back of the group. Since she rode the route from Hyattsville to the start, she finished at home.
With Timothee going off the front, the pace was a bit faster than usual. The group spread out. I lagged back partly because recent riding binges had left my legs feeling like lead for the first 20 miles. Also, this way I could maintain contact with the core group while keeping Miguel and Lisa nearby. Miguel and I lost the group on a trail in College Park. Rather than check the cue sheet, I asked a walker who pointed Miguel and me in the wrong direction. (Hey, I’ve only done the route eight times. How can I be expected to not get lost?) Then, I stopped to check the cue sheet and lost contact with Miguel so I turned around and caught up to the core group waiting about a half mile along the route. I think Domitille texted Miguel and he was saved from dying a slow, lonely death somewhere along Paint Branch Creek.
There were three formal pit stops. The first at Proteus Bicycles in College Park had donuts. So many donuts. And hot cider. The second in Buddy Atticks Park in Greenbelt had apple pie and hot cider. And a bazillion yellow jackets (always check your cup before drinking!). The final stop was in Bladensburg Waterfront Park on the Anacostia. More donuts and cider and apples as big as softballs.
Our posse was the kind of eclectic group that makes DC life so appealing to me: French, young, female, arthritic, educated, artistic, whiny, and witty. And that’s just Domitille. We were also Hispanic, Asian, male, old, athletic, geeky, balding, vegan, aspiring to mountain mommahood, and, of course, a few spokes shy of a wheel.
We gathered at Metrobar at the finish for post-ride refreshments. I managed to convince Katja to ride next year’s 50 States Ride with us thus demonstrating that we, as a group, are also persuasive and gullible.
As always, thanks to WABA for all the work in staging this event and arranging for good weather. Thanks to the many volunteers who endured long hours and bee stings to keep us riders in good spirits. Thanks to the nine knuckleheads who rode with me.
And, finally, we missed you Kevin!
From Left: Monica, Me, Michael, Katja, Domitille, Timothee, Sara, and Chris in Buddy Atticks Park
Clockwise from top left: Katja (with unidentified interloper), Michael, Timothee, Sara, Chris, Monica, and Domitille.
Baseball playoffs: I watched an absolute ton of baseball this month. It always bothers me that the teams that do best over the course of 162 games often get washed out by lesser teams that get hot just at the right time. I shouldn’t complain. Neither the 2004 Red Sox nor the 2019 Nationals won their divisions.
Ahsoka: We finished watching this Star Wars mini-series. Except for when Ray Stevenson was on screen, it was boring. Sadly, Stevenson died earlier this year and, thus, won’t be back to reprise his role.
Lupin: The third installment of the tales of Arsanne Diop, the gentleman bandit, who uses Arsene Lupin, the hero of a century old series of novels, as his inspiration to steal and thwart bad guys. Well worth watching.
Bleeding
Donating: I made a double red blood donation early in the month. Instead of just taking a unit of whole blood, my blood was transferred to a machine that separated out two units of hemoglobin. It wasn’t painful, but I was a bit off my game for about ten days afterward.
Destroying: I managed not to lose any blood after using a line trimmer to golf an acorn into a storm door, breaking the tempered glass into thousands of pieces. It took the better part of two hours to clean up the tiny pieces that fell all over our front steps. We couldn’t find any paper work indicating when or where we bought the door. A sticker on the door had the name of a distributor as well as some other information including a date from September 2014. I took a photo and sent it to the distributor’s representative. He figured out who the manufacturer was and the manufacturer is sending a replacement under warranty.
Reading
The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman. This is the fourth installment of the Thursday Murder Club mystery series. Four pensioners solve the case of the murder of their friendly neighborhood antiques dealer. Heroin, antiquities, and a host of baddies make for a very entertaining read.
An Immense World by Ed Yong. This is an intense and remarkably entertaining exploration of animals’ perceptual environment. Yong takes us into how animals experience the world, how they eat, see, hear, smell, and otherwise detect their environs. Nearly every page is mind blowing. (Did you know that dogs noses detect odors when they exhale? Or that barn owls big round eyes act as receiving dishes that channel sounds to their ears which are situated under feathers next to their eyes?) Our human sensory abilities bias us in how we understand and treat or mistreat other creatures.
DIYing
My wife did a big solo road trip from DC to Hartford to Chicago and back, While she was gone, I repaired two prominent cracks in drywall that have been taunting me every time I climbed the stairs. It took several days to complete and made a big mess each time. I ended up having to paint an hallway to avoid having two-tone walls. So far my wife hasn’t noticed I did anything which is only fair since I didn’t notice the painting she did while I was away on my tour this summer.
Riding
It has been a while since I reached a milestone, but this month’s was a whopper. Big Nellie, my 2002 Tour Easy recumbent, cracked the 50,000 mile mark.
I rode the Great Pumpkin Ride in the Virginia Piedmont for the umpteenth time. Like last year, I rode alone this year but with a twist: I brought snacks. This way I could avoid the crowded pit stops and just boogie. The foliage was at its peak, the best I’ve seen in my many years of riding this event. The weather was more like early September than late October. And The Mule rolled like a champ.
I managed to ride 906 miles for the month, ending at 9,980.5 miles for the year. But for a 3 1/2 mile ride to and from the car mechanic, I decided to take the last day of the month off so 10,000 will have to wait a day. The Nellies did the majority of the miles this month. Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent, logged 417.5 miles. Little Nellie, my re-designed Bike Friday New World Tourist, rolled 357.5 miles. The rest was on The Mule. The Tank, my new name for my Surly Cross Check, sat idle.
I started doing the Stu McGill Big 3 core exercises, which help stabilize the lower back. I don’t know if they help my stenosis all that much but my balance is much better. Also, I couldn’t execute a squat before doing the Big 3; now it’s no problem.
I was finishing up 50,000 miles on Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent. I was four miles from home when my rear cable snapped. I still had three usable gears so I made it home without too much aggro. I took the bike to Bikes at Vienna and left it in the care of Beth.
When I picked up my bike a few days later, I had a new cable and a new chain. Actually, I had three new chains because that’s how many chains the transmission on this long bike takes. Beth did a light tune up, replacing some seriously noisy brake pads. As I went to take my bike for a test ride, Beth pointed out her aesthetic enhancement to the bike. I had long ago broken off the small, cheap plastic fender flaps and replaced them with black duct tape. Beth noticed the tape had become ratty. She took it off and replaced it with these enormous mud flaps. I think they look awesome. Thanks Beth.
Left to right: Busted cable. Rear fender flap. Front fender flap.
Cats
My friend Rachel lives in Oregon, the high desert part. She has lots of critters. Chickens, a couple of dogs, and a cat. She posted a picture online of how she screened in her porch to create a catitat, or his it habicat? I told her about my friends Mike and Lisa who have built elaborate habicats or cat houses onto the front of their home. It was a lovely day so I rode Big Nellie 23 or 24 miles north to check take some pictures for her. One section is connected to their porch. Another is stands next to the front door. Cats can pass back and forth between the house and cat structure through a basement window.
Clockwise from top left: The porch cat house from the side. The view from the porch. The house next to the front door. The porch house from the street. The front door house from above. The front door house from the side.
After talking with Mike and Lisa and their house guests, Mike showed me an easy way to get to Rock Creek Park for the ride home. Just a couple of blocks through an alley and down a side street, we came to the old Walter Reed Army Hospital grounds which is being converted into a mini-city. Mike is especially happy that they included a Whole Foods store. Most of the development is new but many of the old brick buildings that were once the hospital complex still stand and are being renovated into housing. Mike pointed out one building which was where Dwight Eisenhower died. Imagine living in a condo where an ex-president died.
Mike’s tour ended with the two of us directly opposite Sherill Road and the entrance to the park. The trees are just starting to turn. It will be a riot of colors in a week or so.
Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park. You can almost feel the crisp autumn air.
I bought Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent, almost exactly 21 years ago. It was my go-to bike for about five years but, in recent years, it has become my summertime shorts-and-sandals bike and my wintertime reading-in-the-basement bike. The odometer on the bike records only outdoor miles. Nevertheless, I have been dutifully riding it nearly everyday for the last month so that, today, Big Nellie hit a milestone: 50,000 miles.
When I arrived home from my morning ride to Washington DC, I received a text from my daughter. In 2014, she became a resident assistant at her college. This job gave her free room and board. She had already scored a four-year partial tuition scholarship. As a reward for her hard work at lower the financial burden on her parents, we decided to buy her a car, a Subraru Impreza. Below is the photo from her text message.
Earlier in the summer, I had let my grass grow quite long. It was long enough to completely obscure a box turtle. As I pushed through a very tall and thick patch, I heard a sickening thud. Bye, bye turtle.
Yesterday, I decided to mow the lawn before it reached turtle depth. The mowing part went fine. Then I took out the line trimmer to neaten things up. I was trimming along the concrete steps that lead to the front door when I heard a “thud” followed immediately by a “whack”.
I had managed, apparently, to whack a small stone which shot like a bullet into the storm door on our front entry. I looked at the glass and it had the coolest looking spider web pattern to it. The stone had it near the upper left corner and the web radiated from the contact point.
Fortunately, the glass was tempered so it didn’t shatter and send shards everywhere. Instead, th glass stayed in place, broken into thousands of tiny pieces. I touched the pane and the pieces rained down onto the front steps. So much for my afternoon nap. I spent the next 90 minutes carefully sweeping up the specks of glass. Once I had them all collected I packed them in a pair of cardboard boxes marked “GLASS” for the trash pick up on Monday.
The frame of the storm window had glass bits all around the inside opening. I used duct tape to keep them in place and put the frame under our sunroom for disposal during our next special trash pickup.
Remarkably, despite being on aspirin therapy for blood thinning, I managed to only incur one pin prick on a knuckle on my left hand during the clean up process. Home free? Nope. Mrs. Rootchopper put a screen panel in the empty space in the storm door. I finished my trimming and opened the screen door to go back inside. The door, lightened by the absence of glass, sprung back and whacked me in the elbow. I ended up with a nasty bloody welt on my elbow.
How’d he do that?
I stayed up late watching the last few episodes of Season 3 of Lupin, a French Netflix series. It’s about a resourceful master thief in Paris. Assane Diop, a Senegalese immigrant who learns his wily craft from a series of 1920s novels about Arsene Lupin, a gentleman thief. It’s funny and clever. Diop, a larcenous magician, pulls off impossible robberies, often taking advantage of his blackness that makes him socially invisible in lily-white upper crust Paris. Jump-cut flashbacks are used to demonstrate how the deeds are done. Despite being dog tired, I slept poorly and managed only about five hours of sleep.
More blood
This morning I donated blood for the second time this summer. This time, instead of a whole blood donation, which involves extracting a pint of blood, I made a power red (or double red) donation. In this procedure, blood is extracted into a machine that separates hemoglobin (oxygen carrying red-blood cells) from the rest of your blood (plasma and platelets). Thus, two units of hemoglobin are donated instead of one. The remaining extracted blood augmented by some saline is returned to your arm via the same needle and tube.
The procedure and my lousy night’s sleep left me a bit groggy. No riding for me today. The morning was cool and rainy, and the rest of the day filled with playoff baseball games so I picked a good day to power down.
I won’t be able to donate again until February. It will take a couple of weeks to build up my hemoglobin to normal levels, just in time for the last two fall bike events: the Great Pumpkin Ride in Warrenton, Virginia and the Cider Ride in DC and suburban Maryland.
It happens every autumn. Seemingly sensible people pay good money to ride 62 miles all over Washington, DC for the right to say, “I rode 50 states in a day.” The 50 States Ride is the Washington Area Bicyclists Association’s biggest fundraising ride. Participants ride through all eight wards of the city, up and down hills, through alleys, on side paths, over bridges, and past stadia (active and derelict) following a route that takes them on the streets named for all 50 states plus the District of Columbia (Columbia Road to be specific). The event takes place on open streets, meaning riders share the roads with everyday DC area drivers. Eek.
This year was the 20th anniversary, not to mention my personal 15th anniversary, of the event. Every year the route is tweaked, partly to make things interesting for returning riders but also to guide riders through interesting new sites like new multipurpose developments and new bike infrastructure. The organizers at WABA threw participants a curve ball this year by changing the direction of travel from counterclockwise to clockwise. Once familiar streets were now backwards. Bring it on.
Although the ride is 62 miles long, if feels like it is much longer. DC is surprisingly hilly. And, like any big city, has scores of stops signs and traffic lights. You have to slog your way up the hills, but the downhills are interrupted by traffic lights and such. This makes the route feel much longer. It also means that it takes about 50 percent longer than a 62-mile ride in the country.
I arrived at the start (and finish) at the Kraken indoor sports facility at 7 a.m. Kraken is pretty much in the middle of the city. I met up with my posse, a rag tag group of people, many of whom were new to me. Posse regulars Michael B., Kevin W., and Chris M. returned for the fifth or sixth time. Sara, a 2022 50 States rookie, came as well. Domitille, who joined the five of us on the 2023 Cider Ride last November, surprised me by joining the gang. I invited Monica who normally volunteers to sell merchandise at WABA events. Monica is a veteran of many DC Bike Party events. These are anarchic rides at night through the center of the city. Monica make a good anarchist. Rounding out the group were Jacob and Bryan, and Lili and Nina.
The twelve of us launched at 7:45 following the course through Northeast DC. The clockwise routing meant that we rode on Michigan, South Dakota, and Montana Avenues before they became mid-day traffic sewers. We continued south through Ivy City and Trinidad to the Capitol Hill and Hill East neighborhoods knocking off West Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Kentucky is rapid succession.
Next we cruised along the west side of the Anacostia River and passed RFK Stadium, former home of the Washington [Old-Racist-Name] Football team. After a pit stop, we picked off Oklahoma Avenue, crossed the Anacostia River and, using trails, side streets, an alley, and a pedestrian bridge, we made our way to Minnesota Avenue in Southeast DC. Minnesota is another trafficy mess but the new route kept us on it for only a tenth of a mile.
Winding our way through streets in Anacostia, we came to the first hill of the day, the climb up Texas Avenue to, eventually, Alabama Avenue. We stayed on Alabama for three miles, the second half of which was a screaming downhill. I blew right past the left turn on 18th Street, thereby continuing my tradition of messing up at least once during the ride.
After I did a u-turn, I headed down 18th Street to Mississippi Avenue. Mississippi would be a great one-mile, flat romp but for the enormous speed humps every two hundred yards. At Wheeler Road, we climbed up a steep hill back to Alabama. After some side streets, we turned onto Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard, the main drag of Anacostia. MLK goes through the Saint Elizabeth psychiatric hospital complex (once home to John Hinkley, Jr.) then downhill toward the elevation of the Anacostia River. I bombed down this hill, barely touching my brakes. The bumpy asphalt made for a scary fun descent. The rest of the posse probably thought I was crazy. Who am I to disagree?
We crossed back over the Anacostia on the 11th Street Bridge and followed a path on the river back along the Navy Yard complex until we reached a pit stop across the street from Nationals Park. This was the half way point. The posse was still in one piece although a few of us were pretty worn out from the big climb to Alabama. I let the rookies know that the next eight miles were relatively flat. (Yeah, suuuurrre.)
With temperatures rising into the seventies, layers were removed for the second half.
We left the stop and rode past Nats Park, Audi Field, and Fort McNair on a series of protected bike lanes. M Street turned into Maine Avenue, past the District Wharf neighborhood. After a short rise to L’Enfant Promenade we used a side path along I-395 to cross Washington Channel to reach Ohio Drive in East Potomac Park.
The 3.5 mile ride down to Hains Point was a nice break from car traffic, but soon we were back in the thick of things riding up 15th Street to Independence Avenue, heading east. A zig and a zag had us riding on Virginia Avenue for a few blocks. More zigging and zagging put us onto Washington Avenue at the base of Capitol Hill.
D and 2nd Streets took us gradually over the hill, and with a few more turns and a side walk we were on Delaware Avenue on the north side of the Capitol. After riding down the hill, we were to take a right on Louisiana then a quick left (after 0 miles on the cue sheet) onto North Capitol. (We actually missed the right turn and only a day later did I realize that the slip lane we used to turn onto Louisiana was actually North Capitol Street. Many other riders went up Louisiana to E Street, missing North Capitol entirely. The confusion is really the product of the fact that the DC street grid includes two grids, one at 45 degrees to the other. Oy!) In any case, we diffidently tagged Louisiana then quickly turned back onto North Capitol.
For the next four miles we rambled through downtown bagging New Jersey, Indiana, New York, Vermont, and Rhode Island Avenues, stopping at a pit stop along the way.
The route became a bit more rolling as it crossed up and past the Adams Morgan and Kalorama neighborhoods using New Hampshire and Florida Avenues, California Street, Wyoming Avenue, and Columbia Road before riding briefly past several embassies on Massachusetts Avenue.
Having disposed of several states in a couple of miles, we now crossed Rock Creek Park on the Q Street bridge into and through Georgetown, exiting to the west on Reservoir Road. Reservoir took us to MacArthur Boulevard which was mercifully flat, the calm before the storm.
With a right onto Arizona Avenue, we began the big hurt: up steep Garfield Street for a lung-burning quarter mile. Garfield topped out at University Terrace which continued up for another quarter mile. (This climb was part of my first two 50 States Rides back in 2006 and 2007 except this time the pavement was new and smooth.) University connected with still more uphill on Loughboro Road which became Nebraska Avenue.
I had been trying to ride just ahead of the posse most of the day in the hope of spreading us out a bit. For a good deal of the ride, however, our group was joined by other riders making my good intentions futile. When we reached Garfield, I decided to shift into my granny gear, find a comfortable rhythm, and climb as if on my own. Once I had the rhythm I stuck with it and I made it up in good shape.
After a bit more climbing we turned onto Macomb Street. At the top of one last bit of uphill, I stopped to wait with Monica for the posse to reassemble.
No rest for the weary was the order of the hour as we dipped and climbed over Cathedral Heights on New Mexico and Idaho Avenues coming to a pit stop at the new City Ridge development. This new neighborhood epitomizes something that I love about this ride: every year, the ride showcases new features of this dynamic city.
At the pit stop I learned that an hour earlier Annette had texted us that she had a flat. I had no idea that we had lost her. We lingered at the stop for 20 minutes or so as Lili and Nina arrived looking tired but determined.
They elected to rest a bit more as the remaining posse members headed out for the last 15 miles. The route took us briefly on busy Wisconsin Avenue before winding through side streets around Fort Reno to Connecticut Avenue. After Connecticut, we rode through Chevy Chase DC using Nevada and Utah Avenues.
Next was the dip into the urban canyon of Rock Creek Park, riding on Oregon Avenue along the way. After a mile of riding the flats on the park floor we turned to climb out of the park using windy, shaded Sherrill Drive.
After a merciful red light, we took a left on 16th Street and a right onto Alaska Avenue, appropriately the northernmost state street on the route. Turning off Alaska onto Geranium Street, we passed Patti Heck, an amateur photographer who takes pictures of every rider who passes by.
The downhill on Geranium took us into Takoma DC where we stopped at the last pit stop at the home of Mile and Lisa on 8th Street. Snacks! Mile helped Rosanne with a problematic shifter cable. Eight iles left babee!
As we were about to roll out, Lili and Nina arrived giving us confidence that they would finish the trek in our wake.
We headed south and eventually east across the Petworth area, conquering North Dakota, Missouri, Colorado, Georgia, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, and Illinois. The posse could smell the finish line.
At this point, Michael, who knows the city far better than I, was leading. (Okay, he also had the GPS file of the route pointing the way, but still.) I would surely have taken us off course at least twice. We finally reached the 50th State: Hawaii. (Well played WABA.)
After that, it was downhill and past Catholic University and back through Eckington to the finish at Kraken.
We assembled inside for food and drink and conversation. Normally, at least one person says, “Never again” but not this time. There was even talk of re-uniting for the Cider Ride in November.
What fools these bicyclists be.
Many thanks to the good folks at WABA, especially Jordan Mittelman. Jordan was the lead staff person who designed the clockwise route and had to deal with an unprecedented, one-week weather delay. Thanks also to the volunteers who staffed the start, the pits stops, and the finish as well as the course marshals who did their best to keep us safe throughout the ride.
I have no idea what these symbols meanLogo from back of shirt
A Few Spokes Shy of a Wheel 