Tag: bicycle

November 2025

Stick season has arrived in the DC area. I’m adjusting to riding in 40-degree weather rather well but the winds are a bit of a challenge as always.

Watching

The World Series – On a par with the very best baseball games I’ve ever seen including the fabled 6th game of the 1975 Series that resurrected baseball’s popularity. The 2025 Series was so good that my wife (not a big baseball fan) watched most of it with me.

A House of Dynamite – Kathryn Bigelow’s latest masterpiece about the 19 minutes after a nuclear warhead is launched toward the US. It is told from three perspectives: the military, the White House, and the President. Whoa.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps – The latest Marvel movie. Orders of magnitude better that A House of Dynamite. Not! When the best thing about the movie is the set decoration (early 60s NYC meets The Jetsons), you know you’re in for a long two hours.

Say Nothing – A nine-part miniseries based on the book of the same name (see below). Excellent but disturbing and depressing. I had nightmares after watching this.

The American Revolution – A six-part, twelve-hour miniseries on how the US came to be. Another gem from Ken Burns with collaborators Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt. Your school history lessons will seem utterly incomplete after watching this.

Ryan van Duzer’s Natchez Trace Tour – Ryan rode the Trace in October. It was fun to re-visit the ride I did this spring.

Riding

I rode the Cider Ride with Chris, Michael, and Kevin. The No-estrogen Ride. First time I’ve ridden one of these with just the boys in forever. I knew I was in trouble when they dropped me on the first hill at the half mile mark. Still I slogged my way through 60 miles. This was the longest ride of the month.

I rode 787 miles in 24 days during November. I took the CrossCheck out for a 20-mile ride but otherwise the whole month was on The Mule. Big Nellie spent the month in the shop for much needed maintenance. I dropped The Mule off for work yesterday. This will give me a jump on bike maintenance for next year. Also, my local bike shop’s service area is dead so I get The Mule back by mid-week.

For the year, I’ve clocked 9,479 miles. Just 521, or 16.3 miles per day to get to 10,000. Fingers crossed.

Reading

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe. An account of the dystopia that was Belfast during the Troubles in the 1970s and later. Absolutely riveting. To quote dialog from A House of Dynamite: This is insanity. This is reality.

Mediocre Follow-Up (The No-Name Tour) – My journal (created from posts on this blog) of my 2019 tour from Northern Indiana to San Francisco. I was surprised over and over again at how my memories seemed to get all jumbled with time. And how much I walked to get over mountain after mountain after mountain.

Connecticut Road Trip – We took a four-day mini-vacation to Connecticut where we witnessed our daughter get sworn in to the Connecticut Bar, saw some awesome trolls in Rhode Island, and had dinner with friends we hadn’t seen in over a decade.

Horse Dentists and Wonky Wheels

Yesterday I rode the Great Pumpkin Ride in Fauquier County, Virginia. I have a closet full of the shirts they give out to attendees so I am pretty sure I’ve ridden this event more than a dozen times. The long-sleeved, lightweight shirts are made of technical fabric; they are excellent base layers for cold winter rides.

On Friday night, I stayed up to watch Game 2 of the World Series. I woke up before my alarm at about 4:45. Nothing like riding a 62-mile event when sleep deprived, I always say. After persuading Big Nellie onto my bike rack in the dark, I drove an hour to Warrenton and checked in a little after 7:30. The temperature was a toasty 33 degrees. Ugh.

While waiting around I found myself in conversation with another rider with an interesting English accent. He told me when he came to this country many years ago he worked as a jockey. He raced at east coast venues like Saratoga. After his riding days were over he became a horse dentist. Open wide! He goes from place to place filing down the irregularities on horses’ teeth which allows them to chew their hay better. Who knew? He loves his work. To each his own I suppose.

At 9 we set off, a mass start on a narrow rail trail. I waited a bit to avoid the insanity so I waited for most of the field to get underway. Being a slowpoke and the only recumbent in the field I took care to avoid the impatient lycra-clad roadies who were desperate to set a record on the ride. (I am pretty sure these are the same people who stand as soon as the plane reaches the gate.) Ugh again. In prior years I’ve seen these same folks crash along the course. No two-wheeled karma this year though. I suppose there is hope for the future.

In the past the course took a counter-clockwise route but this year it was reversed. The familiar seems novel when seen from a different perspective. Mostly we rode through farmland, post-harvest and pre-peak foliage. The pallet was dominated by brown leaves and fields of dirt offset by sunny blue skies. (Sorry no pictures. I was busy suffering.)

The first eight miles headed more or less downhill and east into the rising sun. Visibility was difficult. I was cruising down one hill at about 25 miles per hour when out of the sunlight I saw a road rider coming my way. WTF! He must have dropped something but he was unaware that he was backlit and nearly invisible.

The next eight miles were rolling hills through farmland. I noticed that my pedals felt funny on the uphills. Onward. I came to the first rest stop (normally one of the last) at 16.5 miles. I was expecting in a few miles later but grateful as I had a need for a blue room visit. With temperatures soaring into the mid 40s (thankfully it wasn’t windy) I changed into shorts and a vest then joined the long line for relief. The wait was about 15 minutes. Not wanting another 15 minute wait for food, I grabbed a quarter bagel from the crowded food table and set out into a more wooded section of the course.

As I negotiated each hill, that funny feeling in my pedals returned. On hills I use my granny gear, with the chain on the smallest chainring in front. The low gear creates some slack in the chain. The slack is taken up by an idler roughly under my seat.

The ride progressed uneventfully. I managed to avoid two wrong turns along the way. The terrain was rolling. With each climb that funny feeling while pedaling returned. Is my pedal or crank arm coming loose? The more I rode, the worse the feeling became. It became clear that the problem was emanating from the rear of the bike. Was my cassette (the cluster of gears in the back) coming apart? Oddly, the chain wasn’t skipping across the cogs; it was completely disengaging.

The problem worsened. I stopped using my granny gear, opting for my middle chain ring for climbing. After a few miles, the chain problem began to happen in that chainring as well. I’d been riding bikes with gears for over 50 years but nothing like this had ever happened before.

After the rolling wooded area, the course flattened out a bit. An small oncoming SAG (Support and Gear) car came by. The driver could see that I was distressed and asked if I needed help. I waved him off but he did a u-turn and pulled over to make sure I was okay. We agreed that I would continue on to a rest stop in the town of Remington where a bigger SAG vehicle could give me a ride to the finish.

As I continued to ride, I though that maybe the problem was with the rear wheel itself. I made it to a half mile before the rest stop when the back of my bike went totally wonky on the short rise to a railroad crossing. I pulled over and inspected the rear end of the bike. I picked up the back of the bike and the rear wheel dropped off! Somehow the quick release on the wheel had become disengaged. The chain had been keeping the wheel from falling off while I was riding. Dang.

Doing roadside repairs on a long wheel base recumbent is difficult. I managed to get the chain entangled with the right brake pad and to knock the left brake pad cassette out of its holder. I wrestled with the chain, then after a couple of attempts, during which I wrenched my lower back, I seated the rear axle into the frame. Finally, I coaxed the left brake pad back into its proper orientation. I lifted the wheel and gave it a spin. Bob’s your uncle.

Crossing the tracks, I immediately took a wrong turn, adding a half mile to my ride. Eventually, I found the pit stop where the SAG drivers were breaking down the food tables. (No soup for you!) They had heard about the recumbent rider in distress and were ready to help me out. No need, gentlemen. I thanked them and headed out for the next six or seven miles along the rail line, blissfully devoid of hills.

Since we rode downhill out of Warrenton at the start, it was only fair that we’d ride uphill to the finish. I felt very sluggish as I rode. At one point I stopped to see if my rear wheel was properly aligned. No problem. Right as rain. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to ride 62 miles on a quarter bagel and a Clif bar. Ya think?

On the way home I dropped off Big Nellie for some TLC at Bikes at Vienna. Take care of my baby, Tim.

As for riding, I’ll do better next Saturday when The Mule and I take on the Washington Area Bicyclists Association’s 60-mile Cider Ride. Stay tuned and check those quick release levers, y’all.

Big Nellie near the starting line (at the caboose in the background).

December 2024

Riding

Once I hit 10,000 miles on December 14, I tapered my riding. Mostly I was focussed on getting used to the new Catalyst platform pedals on The Mule. They work great. I did develop some left hip pain at the end of the month so I need to tweak my saddle position some more.

I rode 28 days out of 31. My long ride of the month came on the 30th when I rode 47 miles (in shorts!) to Bikes at Vienna and back to drop off some bicycling books. (They have a mini-free library.) I totalled 771 miles with 171 miles indoors on my Tour Easy recumbent. The Mule, and all that pedal testing, kicked in 418 miles.

Maybe my best move of the month came off the bike when I discovered a few new stretches for my upper back. These greatly reduce the discomfort from the pinched nerve in my upper back and allow me to hold my head up instead of hunched over like a mad texter.

Watching

After Sun. Paul Mescal plays a divorced dad on vacation with his 11-year old daughter (Frankie Corso) on the Turkish coast. A coming-of-age character study of the girl; a portrait of clinical depression of the father. Mescal was nominated for best actor.

Walking from Boston to New York City on the Old Post Road – A YouTube video of a man who (nearly) goes the distance. I lived in Boston and Providence and have visited many places along his route. The old New England clapboard houses, stone walls, and graveyards made me realize how I didn’t appreciate my time there. The traffic and scuzzy businesses not so much.

All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain: A one-man tour de force in which Patrick Page takes us through the progression of villains in Shakespeare’s plays. Just incredibly good.

Conclave – Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossellini and a host of others in a suspenseful story about the election of a Pope. Dang them Cardinals are nasty. Excellent.

Reading

Call for the Dead by John Le Carre. Le Carre’s first book and the introduction of George Smiley. My mother was a big Le Carre fan but this is the first time I’ve read one of his books. Le Carre describes secret agent Smiley as “Short, fat, and of a quiet disposition, he appeared to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes, which hung about his squat frame like skin on a shrunken toad.” Hardly James Bond. It seems odd that Smiley is played by Alex Guiness and Gary Oldham in movies.

In the Woods by Tana French. French’s debut novel is a police procedural about Dublin detectives working to solve the murder of a tween-aged girl. The contemporary crime is complicated by the disappearance of two similarly aged kids 20 years before. An entertaining who-dun-it.

The Likeness by Tana French. The follow-up to In the Woods. It’s a good read but the story is based on an utterly unbelievable premise; an undercover cop assumes the identity of a murder victim (who was using the name of the cop’s previous undercover identity). The victim’s housemates, thinking the victim survived the attack, completely believe the undercover cop is their roommate. Give me a break. Aside from this, it was an entertaining book.

Bike Tripping by Tom Cuthbertson. My friend Beth posted a picture of this book, published in 1972, on her social media. I knew I had a copy, purchased in 1979 during my summer in the Bay Area. I decided to re-read it and found it very interesting from an historical perspective. In my adult lifetime, bicycles, bicycling, and bicycle gear have changed markedly. Today’s bikes are orders of magnitude better than 50 year ago. Components and lights are vastly improved. And, thankfully, bicycle infrastructure is also more widespread and better designed (for the most part).

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. My first Christmas gift book of 2024. A novella about a man who is encounters the evil of the Magdalen laundry in his small Irish town at Christmas time. Wonderful.

On Bicycles: A 200 Year History of Cycling in New York City by Evan Friss. Another Christmas gift. This book tells the story of the wheel from the first short-lived velocipedes in 1819 to the boom in bike infrastructure and the Citibike bikeshare system in the 2010s and 2020s. I wasn’t expecting much (oh how I hate New York City parochialism) but this was a very well written and informative history.

What fools these bicyclists be – 50 States 2024

Saturday was the Washington Area Bicyclists Association’s annual big fundraising event: the 50 States Ride. The ride is a triumph of marketing over sanity. Participants pay $80 to ride 60 hilly miles in the heat and humidity (when it’s not raining), all within the eight wards of the District of Columbia. Did I mention that the streets are open to traffic? We’re havin’ fun now!

This year was the 21st running of the 50 States and my 16th time participating. I’ve been riding WABA events with Chris, Michael, and Kevin for several years now. Remarkably they have not grown tired of my company. A couple of years ago Chris invited Sara with whom he worked. The five of us form the core members of the posse. (Domitille, a sixth recent member, had to miss this year’s ride due to injury. We hope to have her back in the fold for WABA’s Cider Ride in November.) Our posse members invite others to join us. This year Chris invited Isabon, Sara invited Jenna and Richard, Kevin invited Neena. Isabon brought her father, Wolfgang. Monica, who rode the last couple of rides with us, decided to volunteer at a pit stop but sent along Constance and Mac.

The course changes every year. Lately it has gone clockwise around the city. The course is tweaked to show off new bicycle infrastructure, sponsors’ projects, and changes to the cityscape. Having done this ride since 2006, I can attest to the fact that DC today is vastly different than it was 18 years ago.

Funny. It looks flat on this map.

The dozen of us lit out from the start in the Edgewood neighborhood smack dab in the middle of DC. We timed our departure to avoid other groups whom the ride organizers send out at intervals with ride marshals. We don’t mean to be antisocial but when you get over 20 people of different skill levels riding together in the city the congestion can get stressful. There were a few miles where we were bunched up with other groups but by and large we were successful riding as an independent unit. As is often the case, we adopted a couple of course marshals, Micah and Stephen, along the way. At the rest stop around 45 miles into the ride I was greeted by an old friend. John is the father of one of my son’s best friends from high school. He was riding the event for the first time and looked considerably fresher than me.

Two Johns at the Wegman’s pit stop in Northwest.

Michael decided to ride the entire ride on bikeshare bikes. Every so often he’d veer off course to trade in his bike for another. I think he gets some sort of points from the bikeshare folks and avoids rental charges. He managed to obtain electric assist bikes for the hillier sections. We hate Michael.

Chris told me that his GPS file indicated there are 11 significant climbs along the route. I counted 45, a triumph of misery over digital mapping science. The worst climb goes one steep mile from MacArthur Boulevard to Macomb Street in the northwest section of the city. After a brief downhill, this monstrosity is followed by a second, soul-sucking half-mile climb up Cathedral Heights. Six miles later we descended into Rock Creek Park only to climb right back out for a mile. Dang.

Instead of using the digital file, I use the paper cue sheet. Actually, it’s a 18-page booklet containing nearly 270 cues. This virtually ensures that I will make a wrong turn. This year I set a PR, making four wrong turns. (Actually one was semi-intentional as I saw three of our riders obeying the GPS audio instruction and turning a block early and going off route. I followed them in order to lead them back to the course.) Ironically, earlier in the ride after we crossed over the Washington Channel, a course marshal made a wrong turn entering East Potomac Park. I ignored the error and stayed on route. The Mule abides.

The clockwise course seemed somehow hillier than in prior years. I struggled for most of the ride even though The Mule had a new, lower climbing gear thanks to Beth at Bikes at Vienna. It may have just been the heat (mid-80s) and humidity at work or perhaps the fact that I’m old, decrepit, and grumpy.

By 58 miles I had had enough. We could have gone straight to the finish but the course meandered through the campus of The Catholic University, along the super nice cycletrack on Irving Avenue Northwest, and past the bizarre looking McMillan Sand Filtration site which is being developed into a mixed used community by one of the event sponsors. After McMillan we had a tedious one-mile ride in heavy traffic to loop back to the finish.

After the ride, the posse hung out at the after party which, owing to our slow riding pace, was all but over. Still we ate some sammies and hydrated our weary bodies. (I went all Stanley Kowalski and had a Stella.) I guess the ride was a success because several posse members expressed an interest in doing the (considerably easier) 60-mile Cider Ride in November. Well done, y’all.

Most of the posse after the ride. Clockwise from left: Richard, Chris, Me, Sara, Michael, Constance, Mac, Jenna, Micah, Kevin, Neena.

Many thanks to all the volunteers and WABA staff for all their hard work on this event. Special thanks to Mike and Lisa who convert their home in Tacoma into a very welcoming pit stop every year. And to Patti Heck who stood at the corner of Alaska Avenue and Geranium Street Northwest to take photos (links above) of riders as she has done for many years now.

Tour Options for 2024

It’s starting to warm up and my thoughts are turning to a spring/summer bike tour. I have pared my ideas down to two tours, all originating from home and involving parts of the Atlantic Coast, Trans America, and Great Rivers South routes designed by the Adventure Cycling Association.

Pre-tour Jitters

I have some trepidation about this tour. Of course, pre-tour worry and anxiety is nothing new. It is tempting to let these feelings snowball, what Buddhists call papañca. There is some usefulness to anticipating problems, of course, but, left unchecked, this sort of mental proliferation can ruin your tour. About 50 miles into my 760-mile DC-to-Indiana tour, I was making myself miserable with pointless worrying. I stopped and gave myself a mental dressing down: “You’re on vacation. Relax. If bad things happen, you’ll figure them out.” It worked.

My list of worries is short. For a start, I am not a kid anymore. I was a youngster when I rode across the US alone in 2018 at the age of 62. I’m now 68 and don’t I know it. I have nagging physical issues with my lumbar and cervical spine. Also, I have the usual age-related reduction in muscle strength. The only cure for these things is to walk when I need to and to shorten my riding days to the extent practicable.

A second concern is dogs. The route I am taking is notorious for aggressive dogs. In the past I brought a small can of pepper spray. I never once used it gave me peace of mind. It occurs to me that on a windy day or on a downhill I am likely to spray myself. Yeah, let’s do 25 miles per hour downhill on a bumpy road with a snarling junk yard dog at my heels and get a load of pepper spray in my face. Nope. I am going to find a small horn of some sort and hope for the best.

Weather is always a concern. Since I am heading south, I am sure to encounter much more heat and humidity than last year. I’ll need to stay hydrated and take breaks. Depending on which route I take I’ll could be dealing with serious headwinds.

The topography is a bit intimidating. Like last summer, I’ll be crossing the Appalachian Mountains for a good chunk of the tour. In my mind’s eye this means steep climbs straight up one mountain after the next. That’s not how it works, of course, and I never seem to remember that those climbs are followed by descents.

Now, let’s consider the options.

Option 1: Finish the Trans Am

I have about left over 1,000 miles of the TransAmerica route unfinished: from Ashland, Virginia (just north of Richmond) to Ash Grove, Missouri (just east of the Kansas border). I’d ride south about 110 miles to Ashland then bang a right on the TransAm. And follow it over 1,400 miles to Ash Grove.

The eastern third of the TransAm Route

A big advantage of this part of the route is the lodging situation. There are something like 21 inexpensive places to stay including campgrounds, town parks, fire houses, hostels, churches, and such. Another advantage is the fact that I will encounter bike tourists along the way thanks to the popularity of the TransAm.

After Ash Grove it makes sense to me, at least, to ride south to Bentonville, Arkansas. This would take about two days and add 110 miles. There’s all kinds of flights to DC from this city thanks to the fact that it is the home of Wal-Mart.

Beyond Bentonville is the possibility of picking off Oklahoma. Tulsa is three days and 130 miles west. Add another 150 miles on old Route 66 and I’d be in Oklahoma City, another city with several flights to DC. All told, DC to Oklahoma City would make for a tour of about 2,000 miles. Tulsa and Oklahoma City have the added benefit of being on Southwest Airlines’ network, meaning I’d probably fly home for free.

Continuing on to Oklahoma City

Option 2: Laissez Les Bon Tons Roulez

This town is identical to the tour above until Marion, Kentucky just south of Cave-in-Rock. At Marion, I would pick up Adventure Cycling’s Great Rivers South Route, taking that to the start of the Natchez Trace near Nashville. With the exception of a detour to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to take in a bit of music history, I’d ride to Natchez, Mississippi. After that, it’s a few days of riding to New Orleans. The total mileage is about 2,100. Theoretically, I could take a train home from New Orleans but it would take at least 26 hours.

DC to Nola

I once had a business trip to Louisiana in April and could not believe how humid it was. Add ten or 15 degrees and you get pure misery. It probably would make more sense to just fly to Nashville, do the ride to New Orleans, and fly home. That would be about 900 miles and would take me about a month.

A Shorts Story

A few days ago a cold, snowy week gave way to temperatures above 40 degrees. I decided to brave the snowy trails and bike lanes and ride to DC to drop off some books at a used book shop. What normally would have taken 90 minutes each way took 115 because there were so many places where snow and ice made my route unrideable. Having made it about ten miles riding and walking, I decided to take a chance on some snow and slush on the trail that connects the Crystal City neighborhood of Arlington to the Mount Vernon Trail. I made it about 100 yards before encountering more snow and ice. I decided to hell with it and rode over it. Bad idea. I went down on my side, fortunately landing in a pile of powder on the side of the trail. This is why I don’t like winter riding. Had I landed on a hard surface I’d have been in a world of hurt. I picked myself up and continued on my way, making sure to avoid another crash. I made it back home without any further calamities.

Today is January 26. I rode The Tank to Friday Coffee Club, leaving just before dawn. The temperature was around 60F. I wore shorts. Yeah baby! It is amazing how much nicer bike riding is in shorts as opposed to long pants. On the way I encountered dense fog and somewhat cooler temperatures along the Potomac River.

The Washington Monument from Gravelly Point Park across from DC

Our band of merry bike riders enjoyed their coffee outdoors today. A week ago it snowed and, for all I know, nobody went to Coffee Club.

After a couple of hours of discussing our various medical woes and discussing other pressing issues of the day, I rode back toward home. The fog had lifted and the sun was burning off the rest of the clouds. The ride downriver was as good as it gets for January.

Today was a good day to put in some extra miles so I stopped at an Ace Hardware store in Old Town Alexandria. After a quick transaction, I was back on the bike riding further south to pick up some milk at the local grocery store. (So far, the only downer to the morning had been the near sour milk I had poured over my Wheat Chex before leaving home.)

Once at home I read the paper and grabbed some lunch before heading back out on the bike to buy some tax software at an office supply store. I dropped the software off at home and headed back out again to drop off my lawn mower blade to be sharpened at the neighborhood hardware store. While there I picked up 15 pounds of bird seed which fit nicely in my two large Ortlieb panniers.

Once back at the ranch I gave The Tank a look over to see how the salt and sand and brine was treating its chain. The chain had rust spots along the side plates so it was past due for some new lube. I took the bike onto the back patio operating theater and successfully made things right.

While I was working on the bike, the air conditioner kicked on. The inside temperature and humidity felt like June. It was a muggy 80F degrees outside when I finished my chores. Dang.

December 2023

Riding

This was a month to back off a bit. I managed to ride 749 miles or about 24 miles per day, less than half of my daily mileage on my summer tour. The cold weather makes riding my normal 30 miles feel like an ordeal. My outdoor rides ranged from 30 to 32 miles. I rode 110 miles on Big Nellie indoors. Most of the outdoor miles were on The Tank, my Surly CrossCheck. I did ride The Mule a couple of days but Little Nellie took the month off.

I reached 11,000 miles for the year on December 9.

Riding The Tank has been a struggle this year. It seems slow and heavy and hard on my legs. Once I reached 28,000 miles on its odometer on December 22, I put it away for a few days. In addition to my dissatisfaction with the ride quality of this bike, I had been experiencing a marked increase in back pain accompanied by worrisome neck, shoulder, and arm aches. A two-mile stroll (with cane) through Georgetown last week left me with even more pain. And, despite doing all kinds of physical therapy exercises for months, my back was stooped like never before. I seemed destined to return to the dreaded medical merry-go-round.

On a whim, I compared the saddle height on The Tank to that on The Mule, my touring bike that fits like a glove. The Tank’s saddle was more than a half inch higher. I must have raised the saddle earlier in the year. Why? I have no idea.

Anyway, I lowered the seat by a half inch or so and went for a spin. Bingo. Suddenly the bike fit me nearly perfectly. My mechanics were much better; my speed jumped by ten percent or so with less effort. The handlebars were still a little higher than on The Mule so I paid a visit to my local bike store where I bought some thin, 2.5-millimeter, spacers. I used them to drop my bars 5 millimeters. Dang. Locked and loaded. I finished the year with three 30-mile rides. My back feels much better and my neck, shoulder, and arm pain are nearly gone. Thank god I didn’t go to the doctor. It would have been a total waste of time.

Watching

Minari – A Korean family buys a farm in Arkansas. Nominated for all sorts of awards. Korean cast was outstanding including a little boy played by Alan Kim. They overshadowed a stellar performance by Will Patton as a religious nut who is the family’s farmhand.

Top Gun – Maverick. Another movie we skipped a few years ago. I’m not a big Tom Cruise fan but he’s far better in this than in the earlier movie. The plot is predictable but the editing and sound and visuals make for a fine action movie.

Interstellar. A Christopher Nolan film I missed when it was released nine years ago. Matthew McConaughey at his best. The rest of the cast, other than McKenzie Foy as his daughter and Michael Caine as an aging scientist, left me a bit flat. The story is filled with sci fi bafflegab and impossibilities but it was still very entertaining.

Yogi Berra – It Ain’t Over. A documentary about Yankee catcher Yogi Berra. One of the most highly decorated athletes of the century. He was short and funny looking. And he was famously a malaprop machine. History treated him like a clown, but he was anything but. He earned more professional championship rings than any athlete in the 20th century, including Bill Russell. (Russ has nine NBA championships, two NCAA championships, and a gold medal. Don’t at me.) And virtually everyone who appears on screen says he was a phenomenally decent human being.

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. This movie took tons of awards including the Academy Award for Best Performance with a Butt Plug. Also, people with hot dog fingers, a sword fight with dildos, an all powerful everything bagel, and sentient rocks. How many hallucinogens did the filmmakers take when writing and directing this thing?

Air. The story of how Nike, a running shoe company, signed Michael Jordan. It’s funny. Interesting. Great cast. Matt Damon is the new Tom Hanks. Viola Davis rocks. Jason Bateman is terrific. Ben Affleck is quite good as the head of Nike. And he directed.

Nyad. A very entertaining movie about a self absorbed jerk who swims from Cuba to Key West at the tender age of 64. As good as Annette Benning was as Diana Nyad, Jodie Foster was even better as her coach and friend. I am not a big fan of either actress but I’d be shocked if they don’t both get nominated for Academy Awards.

Big Adam Bikes – This is an Instagram daily journal of a young man who rode the TransAm this year. It’s funny and brings back a lot of memories. Adam Bigelow doesn’t leave out the tedium, the bad weather, and the dogs. And the headwinds – forget about that nonsense about getting tailies going west to east. You get a pretty good idea of what it’s like to ride from the Oregon coast to Yorktown.

The Crown – We watched the final six episodes over the course of three nights. How odd that of all the characters in the story, Camilla Parker-Bowles came across best. In the end, the Queen is humanized although I have to say of the four women who played Elizabeth over 68 episodes, I found Imelda Staunton the least appealing. (There’s a new actress who plays the not yet queen as a young woman. She looks remarkably like a young Claire Foy.)

Death on the Nile – I’m not a big Agatha Christie fan and this movie did nothing to change my mind. An impressive cast but not one memorable performance. Dull. If you’re going to watch a Kenneth Branagh film there are many others worth your time.

The Big Dig – This nine-hour podcast covers the biggest urban traffic project in US history. The Big Dig involved burying the Central Artery, an elevated highway built in the late 1940s. The highway design predated the interstate highway system. It was characterized by narrow lanes and more miles of on and off ramps than roadway miles. To get on the thing you had to drive like a maniac which may explain why Boston drivers are such Massholes. The Central Artery was a daily nightmare for drivers and it ruined the city, separating the North End and South Boston from the rest of the city. The Big Dig also included building a new tunnel to Logan Airport, a much needed addition. In the first episode I learned how an inner loop highway that cut through Cambridge, Jamaica Plain, and Roxbury was on the drawing boards. A grassroots effort stopped the project, but not before acres of Roxbury were levelled. (I drove a cab in Boston in the mid-seventies and always wondered why there were so many empty lots in Roxbury. Now I know why.) The same sort of thing happened in DC where I-66 would have cut the city in half if not for local opposition. The Big Dig took over 20 years to design and build and cost billions more than planned. Although the podcast doesn’t mention it, the Big Dig was not unlike another big dig, the Panama Canal, in terms of its complexity, cost, political intrigue, and length of time to completion.

Reading

The Path between the Seas. David McCullough’s award-winning account of the building of the Panama Canal. As with many of his tomes, the amount of information in this one boggles the mind. Not only was the canal an engineering feat that rivalled Project Apollo, the effort also included the early use of electricity for industrial purposes and pathbreaking epidemiological work. It cost over $300 million and tens of thousands of lives, mostly those of unskilled black workers from the West Indies.

A Truck Full of Money by Tracy Kidder. This is the story of Paul English, a working class kid in Boston who eventually made $120 million (hence the title) from the online travel company he founded called Kayak.com. The book oddly dovetails with two other Kidder books: Mountains beyond Mountains and Rough Sleepers and seems like a fitting companion to Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine.

Mornings on Horseback. After reading about Theodore Roosevelt’s involvement with the Panama Canal in the book above, I decided to read this biographical book, again by David McCullough, about TR’s upbringing. (The book ends well before he becomes president.) A chapter of the book deals with his three years of on and off adventures in North Dakota and eastern Montana. I rode through this area on my 2018 bike trip and was curious about his times there.

On the Street by Bill Cunningham. Cunningham was a fashion photographer of sorts for the New York Times and other publications. He chronicled the art of fashion, mostly as it appeared on the streets of New York and Paris over four decades from the 1970s to the 2000s. I often have wondered who wears those weird outfits you see in fashion magazines. The answer is New Yorkers and Parisians. Cunningham traveled the city on his beat up three-speed bicycle. His photos of people walking to work in Manhattan after a big snow storm brought back oh so many miserable winter days in Boston. The book made me all the more appreciative of amateur photographers Joe Flood and Mary Gersema, two friends of mine who have an fine eye for life in DC.

The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose. This whodunit is the follow up to Prose’s The Maid. Molly the maid solves another murder in the hotel where she works. Molly’s a bid of an odd duck but she’s a good egg and has an eye and an ear for detail. After two months of nonfiction, this novel was a fun read to end the year on.

Top Ten for 2023

Once again it’s time to take stock in stuff that happened over the last 12 months. Here we go in no particular order.

  1. The Boy Comes Home – After four years, our son came home from Thailand for a visit. We rode bikes and went to baseball games and hung out. During his travels, he also managed to see West Virginia, Indiana, Chicago, Montana, New York City, and Romania. Go figure. It seems impossible that he is 32 and living on the other side of the world. If you ever want to learn to scuba dive in Thailand, he’s your man.
  2. Cold, Rain, Hills, Smoke, Mud – Bike Tour 2023 – I’ve never ridden in Maine but I’ve been to Oklahoma. Okay, I’ve never ridden in Oklahoma either, but the line worked for Hoyt Axton. After the southern half of the Adventure Cycling Atlantic Coast Route by riding from DC to Key West in 2017, I decided to finish the route by riding from DC to Bar Harbor, Maine. Rather than re-trace my steps down the coast, I made a big loop from DC to Bar Harbor to Lake Ontario to Niagara Falls to Erie, PA to Pittsburgh to DC. The first month was cold and wet and brutally hilly. I managed to avoid the smoke from Canadian wildfires until Erie, PA where I rode in Code Purple air with an N95 mask on. No problem. I rode in a foreign country for the first time, riding along the Niagara River in stormy Ontario. The final push on the C&O, which was supposed to be the easy part, featured slogging through miles and miles of thick mud and a brutal hike over a mountain to bypass the closed Paw Paw tunnel.
  3. Bike Events – I rode five bike events this year. The Washington Area Bicyclists Association changed the name of its May ride from the Spring Fling to the Bike How You Like Ride. I rode the Spring Fling a few years ago and it was brutal. I swore I wouldn’t do it again. Fool that I am, I learned the morning of the ride that the BHYLR was the same course. Oof. Somehow it was easier this time. In September, I rode the 50 States Ride for the 15th time with a splendid posse. The route took us all over DC clockwise for the first time but we still had to contend with a brutal climb through the Palisades to Cathedral Heights. In October, I rode the Great Pumpkin Ride in the Virginia Piedmont for the umpteenth time. This time I brought my own snacks and rode it solo nonstop. The weather was perfect and avoiding long lines at the pit stops cut my time by nearly two hours. In November, I rode the Cider Ride with most of my 50 States posse. On this year’s ride one member of the posse rode all 60 miles on little more than water, a slice of apple pie, and a stalk of celery. Incroyable! Later that month I rode the Bike for Your Life event. The point of the ride was to raise awareness of the problem of traffic violence in our area. We passed four ghost bikes (indicating where a driver killed a cyclist) before ending at the ghost bike of a five-year old girl.
  4. Big Nellie Hits 50,000 Miles – It’s been over 20 years but persistence paid off as Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent, finally broke the 50,000 mile barrier. (This does not count the hundreds of miles ridden on the bike indoors during the winter months.)
  5. Little Nellie and The Tank Re-born – I had all but stopped riding Little Nellie, my Bike Friday New World Tourist, because of the intense lower back pain I experienced after even short rides. I decided to swap out the drop handlebars for more upright H bars. It made a world of difference and I ended up riding the bike over 2,000 miles this year. In late December I was ready to get rid of The Tank, my Surly CrossCheck. Riding it gave me weeks of intense nerve pain in my back, arms, shoulders, and neck. Then I made seemingly minor adjustments to the seat and handlebar height. The bike now goes considerably faster with less effort and my nerve problems have all but disappeared. With a few twists of an allen key and some headset spacers, I saved a bike and avoided the medical merry-go-round for the winter.
  6. 50th High School Reunion – I attended my 50th high school reunion. My high school classmates are so old! During the trip, I visited with family and did a bike ride with my brother Jim on the new rail trail that runs from the Hudson River to the village of Voorheesville west of Albany. I also managed to check out the Walkway over the Hudson in Poughkeepsie, the home of Franklin Roosevelt in Hyde Park, the graves of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in Hyde Park and of Chester A. Arthur near Albany, and my parents’ and my brother Mike’s graves. I also found the weathered tombstone of my great grandfather Sylvester.
  7. King Lear at Shakespeare Theater – My wife, daughter, and I saw a mind blowing performance of Patrick Page as King Lear, He stole the show when we saw him as Iago in Othello many years ago but his Lear was next level stuff. From the second he stepped onto the stage we were gobsmacked. It helped that we were in the second row.
  8. The Mule Gets Some TLC – I took The Mule into the bike doctor for a physical and found out that, among many other things, the rims had multiple cracks in them. The new rims were right as rain after my summer bike tour. Later in the year, after years of frustration over rear brake rubbing issues, I finally forked over the big bucks and had an expensive brake installed. It works great.
  9. Crowded House – My favorite band from the Antipodes was supposed to play DC in September 2022 but the drummer injured his back. I can relate. The concert was rescheduled for March and was worth the wait. Liam Finn, a band member, opened the night with a frenetic solo performance. The main event was terrific, marred only by two drunken idiots who sat in the row behind us and talked loudly through most of the songs.
  10. Museum of African American History – I finally got to see this amazing new Smithsonian museum. We spent hours in the place and only saw half the exhibits, mostly about slavery, Jim Crow, and civil rights. I need to go back to see the rest, most of which is likely to be more upbeat.
  11. And one more for Nigel Tufnel: In January I became a lifetime member of the Adventure Cycling Association. Without ACA maps and advice, I’d never have done so much touring or had so much fun. I should have done this years ago (and saved 20 years worth of annual membership fees) but I didn’t think I’d ever do this much touring.

If It Only Had a Name

Anybody who knows me knows that I am an incredibly incompetent consumer. I buy stuff and hold onto it long after its useful life is over. Getting me to the point of buying stuff take Herculean effort.

Today I finally pulled the trigger on a new bike purchase. I drove to Bicycle Space in Adams Morgan and bought a Surly Cross Check. Unlike my other three bikes, the Cross Check is not a touring bike. It is a little lighter, a little more nimble, and a lot more responsive than The Mule or Big Nellie, which are bouth designed for touring. Little Nellie is plenty responsive but her little wheels don’t care much for maintaining a head of steam. The Cross Check does both.

I have lost track of how many people I know own Cross Checks. They all seem to like them a lot, except for Katie Lee who LOVES her Cross Check. (She doesn’t do things half way.)  Every time I see her she shows off her baby called Arrow. She’s like a rolling advert for the damned bike.

I started my bike shopping venture with the idea of buying a new touring bike for my May tour. I was fixated on a Surly Disc Trucker, a long, heavy touring bike with disc brakes. I tried one in a size that is too small and liked it. I wanted to try a bigger frame, but the shop didn’t have one.

Last week, after test riding the Cross Check at Bicycle Space, I learned that Jesse, a Friday Coffee Clubber, was selling his Surly Long Haul Trucker. It’s very similar to the Disc Trucker but with conventional rim brakes.

I test rode Jesse’s bike. It had wide tires and slightly smaller wheels than I am used to. It rode like a bus. A very, very nice bus. I was very tempted to take it off his hands, but I decided to try the Disc Trucker too.

I test rode the Disc Trucker today at Bicycle Space. It wasn’t so bus-like with its 700 wheels. And the brakes are really impressive. Neither the Disc Trucker nor the LHT like to be ridden out of the saddle though. This is not a deal killer for touring but for everyday use it’s a bit off putting. I also had trouble decided whether a new Disc Trucker was worth several hundred dollars more than Jesse’s bike.

So I test rode the Cross Check again. LIKE!

So I bought it. Workin20206603516_08be95011d_zg with Rachel, one of my favorite people in @bikedc, I picked out a lightweight rear rack, a pump, some tubes, a bike computer, a multitool, and a wireless bike computer. (It’s all in her hands on the left.) Tonight I am going to buy a saddle bag from a store in Massachusets to carry my stuff.

When I brought the Cross Check home I had to take it for a spin. I couldn’t go too far from home without stuff to change a flat (which will go in the saddle bag I a20049882689_ac186c0b92_zm buying). It was a fun 5 mile romp around the neighborhood. It’s going to take some tweaking to get the bike and my body to play nice together but I can’t wait to get it out on the road. This is the bike I want to take out on the weekends or on event rides without a lot of crap on it weighing me down. It’s going to get a lot of us.

Many thanks to Rachel for spending so much time with me getting this done. Bicycle Space has a huge inventory of bikes and a gorgeous new store (actually two but I’ve only been to one) which makes it a great place to shop. It also has a large complement of very helpful, knowledgeable, and personable employees which for some reason in bike shop world is unusual.

Oh, and one other thing. Bicycle Space gives a discount on bikes and accessories to WABA members. The discounts I received today paid for my membership for many years to come.

I keep calling the bike “it” because it does not yet have a name. I have five names in mind so far. I won’t tell them. Feel free to offer suggestions of your own in the comments.

Traveling Light

I saw this bike in Rosslyn today as I was going to lunch. Whoever is riding this machine has travelling light down to a science. Handlebar bag and seat bag and that’s IT! Note the absence of a water bottle is made up for by the canteen strapped to the front of the handlebar bag. I would venture to guess that I carry more stuff to and from work than this cyclists carries wherever he may be going.

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