Tag: Arkel

Time Off for Good Behavior

I haven’t blogged in nearly four weeks. It was not for lack of trying. It’s been a rather emotional month.

Insurrection, Impeachment, and Inauguration

First, I was in a rage about the attack on the Capitol. I wrote several posts about it only to scrap them. I suppose I should consider the writing therapeutic.

What I can’t get my head around is why over 70 million people twice voted for a scumbag charlatan. What part of bankrupting casinos, stiffing contractors and others who worked for him, and tanking an entire football league didn’t these people understand? And all that was before he ran for president giving speeches that were hate fests. Then add his contempt for the rule of law, people of color, and the Constitution. Hel-lo!

Next there was the impeachment. At least we now know who in Congress deserves to be sent home in two years. What part about inciting a mob that kills a police officer, infects dozens more with a deadly virus, kills and injures many more, and trashes our Capitol building was hard to understand? What part about hunting down the Vice President and the Speaker of the House to kidnap or kill them seemed okay? Oh and lets not forget that the president deservedly got his ass kicked in the election and convinced millions that he was a victim of fraud. Poor Donald.

The inauguration was such a relief. What a change from “American carnage”. Gaga, JLo, and Garth getting upstaged by Amanda Gorman’s magnificent poem. “I’m walking to work.” The best damned fireworks display I’ve ever seen. (Too bad I wasn’t there in person but it was the lack of people on the Mall that allowed the fireworks people to go completely bananas.) I thought the whole day was such a relief. Everyone involved should be given an award. As for the 25,000 National Guard troops and miles of fences and barricades in DC? What an embarrassment. Hats off to the guard not to mention the Metropolitan Police (DC’s police department) who came to the rescue at the Capitol and worked 12-hour shifts for weeks.

For me, the biggest symbol of change was the removal of the white wall that was put up around the White House. It was a national disgrace. At least Mexico paid for it.

Jab Me

I had hopes to get vaccinated soon as the age for getting on the priority list dropped to 65. Yesterday Virginia announced it has a shortage of vaccine. It looks like I won’t get jabbed for many weeks. So much for baseball games and bike tours in the Spring. I’ll be keeping my distance. I have had very few interactions with people outside my immediate family this winter. I stopped doing Zoom get togethers months ago when I found them to be frustrating and annoying. Don’t even think about coming near me without a mask on. Inside or out. And as for my anti-vaxing friend: it was nice knowing you.

Bike Diet

I have continued to ride nearly every day, 600 miles for the month. A few weeks ago I decided to put the CrossCheck on a diet. During event rides in and near DC, people IDed me by the huge Carradice bag hanging from my saddle. It expands to double its normal size, but I had grown tired of the leather straps and metal buckles. They are a pain to open and close. I took it off and replaced it with a lighter Arkel TailRider rack bag. The TailRider uses zippers and a velcro flap so access is much easier. It has a less capacity but if I need to carry more I can slap on a pannier easily because the rack has two tiers of horizontal bars at the top (the upper bar is obscured by the TailRider).

Old and New

I have had a habit of putting old tires from The Mule on the CrossCheck. These are Schwable Marathon Plus tires. They last forever and have taken me on over 10,000 miles of bike tours without a flat. The protection comes at a cost: they are very heavy and don’t roll particularly well. Also, they are stiff and very hard to mount. The rear tire on the CrossCheck must have had over 6.000 miles on it. It’s tread was worn away, I swapped out the Marathon Pluses for a pair of Schwalbe Mondials. They have decent flat protection but weigh half a pound less each. And they go on and off easily.

I am not in the habit of weighing myself but I am pretty sure that I’ve dropped a few pounds since Christmas. I haven’t had a beer in over a month. (I drank one Corona and was cured. Skunk beer.) And we are nearly all out of Christmas goodies. (Mrs. Rootchopper makes shortbread cookies with Hershey Kisses in the middle. Resistance was futile.)

I also took the CrossCheck to a bike shop and for a new chain and cassette. I was lucky they had the parts. I was even luckier that they could do the work while I waited. Thanks Conte’s of Old Town Alexandria

My last few rides on the CrossCheck have been fantastic. I can tell just by gliding that the new tires are a vast improvement. Going up hills is also much less of a chore. I can’t wait to get it out on the road for a long ride in the country.

Hurry Spring!!!!

Riding nowhere – October

Another month, another 913 miles of riding around in circles. Except for a single one-way 57-mile ride on the Washington and Old Dominion Trail that is. It’s inane to be doing this but it’s that kind of year, isn’t it.

After putting 676 miles on my Cross Check (which passed the 18,000-mile mark) and another 51 miles on Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent, I switched rather cautiously to Little Nellie, my folding travel bike with little wheels. Little Nellie has been known to beat my lower back to a pulp so I have been avoiding riding it. I was considering selling it until, on a whim, I tweaked the saddle height and found a sweet spot. I can now ride it pain free. So it’s been my ride of choice for final 186 miles of the month.

So far this year I’ve ridden 8,655 miles. Getting to 10,000 is going to require some determination and a whole lot of help from the weatherman.

I also bought some new bike junk. I have a set of rechargeable blinky lights that are reasonably useful. They are be-seen lights, meaning they improve my visibility to others. The headlight will keep me from rear ending a parked car but I will use one of my more powerful Light and Motion headlights for nighttime navigation.

I also picked up a wind vest. It is bright yellow and has a big dorky reflective arrow on the back. The arrow points to the left. (The manufacturer makes a version for left side driving countries too.)

I also bought an Arkel Tailrider bag. This probably will replace my Carradice LongFlap , a huge saddlebag. The LongFlap uses leather straps that are a pain to open and close and it weighs a ton. The Tailrider is lighter and has zippers. I will give up some carrying capacity but I rarely maxed out the LongFlap. The rack on my CrossCheck has two levels which means I can use the Tailrider on the top of the rack and still attach panniers if I need to.

On to November. Brrr.

Paul to the Rescue Again

I took a day off yesterday after a  hilly 57-mile ride on Thursday and a 109-mile ride on Friday, both in hot and humid conditions. What I should have done was gone for a short, easy ride, but I mowed the lawn in oppressively swampy weather and took a chill pill for the rest of the day. As a result of this semi-off day, my legs felt tight and sore. Walking down stairs was a little difficult, not unlike the day after running a marathon. (Been there, done that, had to walk downstairs backwards back in the day.)

My plan for today was to go for a nice easy spin on Big Nellie and see where the bent gods took me. As I made my way into Old Town Alexandria, my legs loosened up considerably. I decided to hit a few bike shops to see if they could fix a problem with one of my pedals. On my recumbent I wear sandals and use PowerGrips. These are straps that go across the pedal diagonally. Normally I use toe clips (I am not a fan of clipless pedals) but nerve problems in my left foot led me to try PowerGrips in search of relief. They work reasonably well except that the strap on my right pedal is at a steep angle, and rubs against my toes. The one on my left pedal fits properly, only touching the outside of my pinkie toe. The reason for the discrepancy is that the pedals attached to a metal plate. The left plate looks like an old bottle opener, flat with a bend at the end. The right plate as a second bend in the middle causing it to extend out too far from the pedal.

I stopped at Wheel Nuts in north Old Town but they were closed. Seven miles down. I decided to try the Velocity bicycle co-op in Del Ray a few miles away. They had all kinds of junk parts (just what I thought I needed) but no plates for PowerGrips.

Twenty years ago, The Mule, my Specialized Sequoia, had a recurring problem: it’s headset (the part that the handlebars attach to) kept coming loose. NOBODY could fix it. After giving many mechanics a crack at the problem, I took the bike to Papillion Bicycles on Columbia Pike in Arlington. Bailey, the owner, couldn’t figure it out but he said try Paul at City Bikes. I called Paul and before I could finish my description of the problem he knew what was wrong. And he did. It needed a ten-cent washer that he happened to have among his two bazillion bike parts.

Paul is now the head mechanic at Bicycle Space in DC, so I decided to let him have a go at the pedal problem. Several miles later, Dr. Paul examined the patieDSCN2387nt. “You don’t need a new part. It looks like you bent this one in an accident.” Paul is also psychic. I did indeed crash the bike a year ago and came down on the right side!

He took the right pedal off, walked into a back room with a hammer in his hand and  began the operation. I was a little troubled by the hammer and the fact that he did not sterilize his hands before surgery. After a minute, he came back out, hammer in hand, took a look at the left pedal, and went back to the OR. A few whacks later  he came out and the pedal was exactly right. Dang,

 

With a smile on my face, I headed for home. Not wanting to go back the way I came, I decided to ride back via Anacostia. I picked rode east to 11th Street Northeast and took a right. I rode over the Anacostia River on the wicked awesome new 11th Street Bridge (such a clever name, no?). In Anacostia, 11th Street becomes Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard. The MLK (very L.A. sounding, don’t you think) is an interesting ride. There are signs of gentrification with new restaurants, cafes, condos and such. And there are the depressing signs of DC’s poorest neighborhoods with housing projects, job training places, and people handing out on the street corners. Along the way, I glanced at an electric sign outside a church. 104 degrees!!!

After the first hill, the MLK descends to cross busy South Capitol Street. Here the road surface becomes a washboard. At 25 miles per hour, it’s downright hairy. (DC needs to up its game with some serious roadwork on the MLK.) Once you get up a good head of steam, you are greeted by a red light at the bottom of the next hill. Argh!

From a dead stop, I climbed the next hill, slowly. At Blue Plains Drive I banged a right and headed down a steep hill, breaking the speed limit in front of the DC Police Academy in the process. I am a brazen scofflaw.

After a couple of left turns, I was on the Oxon Cove Trail. Park maintenance has gone by the wayside this year. Tufts of grass four or five inches tall protrude from all the cracks in the pavement. Grass on either side of the trail is two feet tall.

The trail and the park were completely empty. As I rode next to the cove, I spotted the remnants of an large bird of prey, either an eagle or a hawk. There were some big feathers and some bones but not much else; it had been picked clean.

The trail enters the grounds of Oxon Hill Farm DSCN2389where it turns away from the water and climbs, gradually at first, but steeper and steeper all the way to the top. I think this is the toughest hill in the area. On the way up I saw what looked like the hoof and lower leg from a young deer. Yikes!  A little further on, I spotted a beautiful feather, from a hawk or eagle. I stopped and put it in the flag slot on my Arkel seat back bag.

 

The steepest part of the hill remained so I yelled “Get ’em up, Scout” and started to ride. (I didn’t actually say that, but I am pissed that Johnny Depp has screwed with Tonto. Tarzan is Johnny Weissmuller. Avery Brooks is Hawk. Jay Silverheels is Tonto. That’s it. Don’t mess with my childhood icons. Okay, the new Star Trek actors are infinitely better than the old ones, but that’s an anomaly.)

After the monster climb, I got to ride down the crazy fun downhill toward National Harbor, then up the corkscrew hill to the bike path bridge over the beltway. (This corkscrew design is brilliant.)

Next I rode over the Woodrow Wilson Bridge (a good place to watch the fireworks in Old Town next Saturday night, by the way) and onto the Mount Vernon Trail. Then, for reasons that escape me, I rode up another nasty hill on Westgrove Boulevard. After a stop for a Gary’s Lunchbox sammich at Sherwood Hall Gourmet, I rode home.

What started as an easy spin evolved into a 37-mile hill fest. So much for my plan. At least, I got my pedal fixed. Thanks to Paul and Bicycle Space. It was worth the effort.