Here’s the full set of pix from today’s festivities.

My friend Charmaine is a cycling road warrior. I know this because she actually has studded snow tires for her commuting bike. That’s where I draw the line. I can do cold. I can do wet. I can’t do Nordic. 

I love the kid and the lawn mower.

Today’s forecast was for temperatures in the low 40s with a cold north wind. So, naturally, Charmaine sent me an email invite to go to something called Santarchy. on the national mall.  I was going to get the car fixed and go Christmas shopping.  Practical things both. I decided to opt for surreal and took off on my bike to meet her at the carousel on the mall.

DDOT’s Maine Avenue miracle.

On the way I wandered through a neighborhood near my home. I passed a house with an honest-to-god sculpture garden in its front yard. What a great idea. Put sculptures up and you’ll never have to mow the lawn again. Isn’t art wonderful?

After my cultural diversion I headed toward DC. There was a 10 mile per hour headwind the whole way but I was dressed for it and felt reasonably comfortable. Layers and layers, from my head to my toes.  Once in the city, I decided to check out the new Maine Avenue trail.  Basically, it’s an extra-wide sidewalk but it is godsend for the folks who live in far southwest DC and want to cross the great wall of Eisenhower otherwise known as I-395.  Good on you, DDOT..

I stopped at a Starbucks for a hot coffee and a blueberry scone. I like my scones dry so that the coffee has something to work with.  Alas, this scone was moist like cake. Starbucks, scones are Brit food. They aren’t supposed to taste good. They are supposed to dry your mouth out like a dessert wind. They should build character.

Early arrivals

Darth Santa

Santa Cause x 2

Onward I rode to the mall and found Charmaine with no trouble. There were a few Santas milling about.  Nothing too unusual. I started to think this was a waste of time. Six or seven Santas were not worth riding 15 miles on a cold Saturday. I donned a Santa hat that Mrs. Rootchopper had provided me so that I would not look too out of place. Then, they started to arrive. From all directions. Santas. Father Christmases. Mother Christmases. Snowmen. “Kids” in jammies. Star Wars Christmas people. People dressed as Christmas trees.  And presents. One guy was a candy cane with an enormous candy cane handle coming out of the top of his head. Naughty people. Nice people. The one thing they had in common was they were all wearing ear to ear smiles. Laughter abounded. I saw a woman take a swig from a bottle. She insisted it was ginger ale. Yeah, sure.

Snow man and Nutcracker

A wave of reinforcements coming from Metro

A tree person

Three women dressed in PJs were handing out candy.  A shy little kid in a Santa suit wore a Darth Vader.  mask.  Two young ladies from PETA came dressed in skimpy Christmas outfits.  They must have been freezing, I didn’t mind.

Candy cane. Or maybe, industrial accident. Hard to tell which.

Christmas doggies

The crowd soon commandeered the carousel. Somebody blared the fanfare for the start of a horse race on his trumpet (no lie) and the carousel started up.  The riders started chanting “HO”. Not Ho-Ho-Ho. Just HO.  Over and over. Another pack of revelers replaced them and off they went around and around.

We’re jammin’!  They looked soooo warmmmm!

Then one of the Santas ordered the crowed to walk to the holiday outdoor market near the Portrait Gallery.  Hundreds of revelers plodded off across the mall and through Penn Quarter. At one point they stopped at the Navy Memorial and started performing Christmas carols. On to the marketplace where they sang more songs, and brought cheer and chaos to the street scene.  Candy flew threw the air. 

Merri-Go-Santa

That’s Nice on the right. Looks Naughty to me.

Your basic ambulatory Christmas Tree

Darth On the Mall?

Somebody ordered the crowd to the Rockit Bar and they crowd obeyed. They overhelmed the place! So somebody called out the name of the back up bar. (These folks plan for all contingencies!)  At this point, Charmaine and I had begun to crave hot liquids so we took off. Just before leaving I joked with a reveler who was carrying a prop cookie box. “Show me your cookies,”  It wasn’t a prop! She opened the box and gave me one. Thanks.

After a huge mug of Assam tea and some Salt Oatmeal Raisin Cookies at Teaism, we took off for the National Christmas tree. There our outing ended with a thud. The yule log which normally is a raging fire was barely going. And the tree looked like an overgrown shrub. It was asymmetrical and small, overwhelmed by the netting of Christmas lights meant for a properly tall and stout tree. Austerity in DC.  Sad to see.

So we parted ways. Thanks to Charmaine for yet another adventure in DC. My reward for being nice was a 10 mile and hour tailwind all the way home aboard my reindeer of choice, Little Nellie.  HO!

It doesn’t seem possible for the sunrise to be so far down river. In about a week it will start creeping northward. Unfortunately, the cold weather will linger long after the days start to get longer. Have clothes, will bike.

There is a short list of things that will keep me off my bike:

1. Sickness
2. Family conflicts
3. Mechanical problems (rare since I own 3 bikes)
4. Tornado warnings (I’ve actually ridden through several without knowing)
5. Lightning (ditto)
6. Snow
7. Ice

So far this year, I’ve missed commuting for numbers 1, 2, and 6. Today, I encountered 7. 

It was plenty cold when I left home. I had broken out my holey sweater and my booties to keep me comfortable. I was dressed perfectly. No discomfort whatsoever.

The holey sweater has lots of holes but they are hard to see.  It’s at least 10 years old and made of soft wool.

I wasn’t the least bit surprised when I encountered my first wooden bridge on the Mount Vernon Trail. This is a long boardwalk across a section of Dyke Marsh on the Potomac River.  You can clearly see the frost on the boards. This is pretty easy to ride on as long as I lay off my brakes and ride in a straight line.  There are several more wooden bridges that were in the same condition. I took my time and made it across them unscathed.  One bridge had several skid marks and a few gouges from pedals.  It has curves and swales in it. It eats bikes with skinny tires for breakfast.

Little Nellie and the icy boardwalk at Dyke Marsh

About 13 miles into my ride, a bike commuter coming toward me hollered, “Ice!”.  A hundred yards further on I saw what she was talking about. Water had drained from a grassy slope and frozen across about fifty yards of the trail.  Riding over this stuff would be bad news because the trail is tilted a bit toward the river. So I stopped and walked.  Good move. I warned a few bike commuters as they approached. One guy dismounted and said, “New World Tourist?” I said, “Yes” and noticed that he was on one too, except his was shiny red and clean. Little Nellie was jealous.

Bike riders who encountered this icy stretch of trail ride around it on the grass.  This has already started to create quite a mess. Soon mud will be added to the icy mix.  Too bad the Park Service doesn’t sand and salt the trail as it does the Parkway just up the hill to the right. Little Nellie gets no respect, no respect at all. 

Another Bike Friday commuter admires Little Nellie.

Winter. Soon the trail will be covered in ice and snow and I’ll be riding in my basement. So it goes.   

A couple of months ago, a motorist tried to teach some cyclist a lesson about driving on the George Washington Parkway.  It seems this old man has decided that he is the boss of all you cyclists who dare to ride on the Parkway.  According to news reports, this demented fool first tried to intimidate a pack of 5 cyclists by crossing over the center line and veering toward them as the approached from the opposite direction. When that tactic didn’t satisfy him, he did a u-turn and overtook the cyclists, swerved in front of them, and slammed on his brakes. Four of the cyclists escaped serious injury; the fifth was not so fortunate.  He ended up underneath the rear of the car and suffered (among other injuries) a broken hip. He and the others are damned lucky to be alive.

The driver sped away down Collingwood Road, in the direction of my house.  He is an elderly white man driving a gold Cadillac.  There is a $10,000 reward leading to information about him.  I have spent my last three weekend days doing what amounts to a grid search for this car.  I have so far covered over 70 miles of streets in the area near the incident.  I figure that sooner or later I will find this car. The money would be nice but I’m motivated by self preservation. We have to get this lunatic off the roads before he kills someone. 

Here is an account of the incident and a description of the vehicle and driver.  If you are in the Alexandria area of Fairfax County, please keep an eye out for him. 

I had an interesting commute today. I came upon another bike commuter and we played leap frog for about a half mile or so on suburban side street. At one point, she was some 150 feet ahead of me; I was in my usual early morning daze, my head hanging down. I heard her bell go “ding” and I looked up. I saw two deer crossing the road only a few feet in front of her. As they reached the lawn on the right side of the road, I saw them turn. Then I realized they were following 2 other deer. They were running at full tilt and heading straight for me! Thankfully, they stayed on the lawn and blew past me. I had no chance to get a picture. Later, I stopped near National Airport to get a shot of a commuter jet coming in for a landing.

Whenever I tour, I find myself drawn to beautiful old houses. This is the Tower House in Mount Vernon. It once stood alone with a commanding view of the Potomac River. Now it is surrounded by new megahouses, none of which can hold a candle to it. About 20 years ago, Tower House was in disrepair but recent owners have done a terrific job of fixing it up. The wrap around porch and the spectacular tower are two features that will go on my dream house. (I am planning on building it once my Powerball investment pays off.

Little Nellie stands in front of the house. For some reason, this reminded me of the Wyeth painting Christina’s World. Neither Nellie nor I are much for grassy hills though.

We’ve lived in the Mount Vernon section of Fairfax County for over 20 years.  Over a decade ago a homeowner started to build something big behind his little Cape Cod house on Collingwood Road, about 1/2 mile from ours.  That something turned out to be a much larger house.  When he was done, he tore down the Cape Cod.  The big house is actually pretty distinctive looking.  This time of year, however, it’s VERY distinctive looking.  The homeowner has turned his house and yard into a genuine Christmas lighting extravaganza. This can make for traffic problems, especially when idiots pull over and let their kids walk along the narrow road in the dark.  A few years ago he added a low wattage radio station so that people who park in front of his house can listen to Christmas tunes as they check out the lights.

This actually started out as a modest lighting display but he has added to it every year. Sometimes the lights go out then come on sequentially, sometimes he has flashing white lights distributed among the steady colored lights. And every year is different.  If you are in the area, take a meander down Collingwood Road to check this out. /It’s about 4 1/2 miles south of Old Town Alexandria on the Mount Vernon Trail and GW Parkway.

It’s been a little chilly here in DC this week. What’s a bike commuter to do? Dress wisely. I suppose you could look fashionably in the process but who the heck is going to see you?  With this minimal get up, I was completely comfortable with temperatures in the high 30s and low 40s.  Here’s what I wore.

A Bell helmet for safety.  On top of the helmet is a Light and Motion Stella light. Stella is light weight and her battery lasts long enough that I can set her on full power for my 90-minute round trip.  On the back of the helmet, I have a Planet Bike red blinky light.  It works just fine as long as I keep fresh AA batteries in it.  Under my helmet I wear an oversized skull cap. The cap is made of wicking material so I don’t get sweaty. This keeps the air from the helmet vents from freezing my head off and keeps my body heat from going up the chimney.  It also covers most of my ears.  A dial on the back of the helmet snugs things up so my helmet doesn’t flop around.

On my upper body I have a green t-shirt made of similar wicking material.  Over that I have a plain cotton short-sleeve t-shirt. The gray jacket is made for hiking.  It’s the Precip model by Marmot and it is nearly waterproof.  It has huge zipper vents that allow my body heat to escape.  I also route the cable from the head light under my jacket, through a vent and into a side pocket where it connects with a battery pack.  It has a hood that I use when it gets down in the 20s or when it rains.

Not shown are my massive full-finger gloves. These extend half way up my forearms and cinch tight to the jacket sleeves. They have four fingers instead of five; the ring finger and pinkie share a finger compartment.  Very warm and also water resistant.  To top it off. the gloves have reflective material on them which comes in handy when signalling turns.

My legs are covered with long black tights over briefs. Both are made of wicking material.  Finally my feet are covered in Smartwool socks and my normal biking shoes. Each sock is wrapped with a reflective strap for more visibility.  My toes were a little cold when I got to work so I think I am going to slip a plastic bag (courtesy of the Washington Posts delivery man) over each foot tomorrow.

My bike has an additional head and tail light.  My Orlieb handlebar bag and rear panniers have big reflective white diamond on them. My Zimbale saddle bag has a reflective patch on it as well.  If you can’t see me, you are blind.

I have some more stuff that I wear when it gets colder but I am hoping not to use them for a few more weeks. 
 

I haven’t seen a sunrise in a while but the shift to standard time and the shortening of the day gave me a nice surprise this morning. The sun is rising farther downriver giving me a slightly different angle on the proceedings from my usual perch on the boardwalk in Dyke Marsh. The next time I see a sunrise will be Wednesday when it will be about 20 degrees cooler. I can’t say that I am looking forward to the cold.