Tag: bicycling

Cider Ride 2025

Yesterday I took part in the Washington Area Bicyclists Assocation’s Cider Ride. This annual event is about 13 years old. There are three routes; I rode the longest, 60 miles. This is a relatively flat ride, involving only 2,000 feet of climbing. After riding through residential neighborhoods in Northeast DC, participants hook up with the Anacostia River Trail system. The route has used these trails for 11 years after a couple of unpleasant forays in early December on suburban streets.

This year’s version was held in cool and windy conditions. There was no rain but temperatures didn’t seem to crest 60 degrees until the last third of the ride.

I rode with Chris, Michael, and Kevin. Despite the fact that Michael was riding on a bum knee, he kept pace with Chris and Kevin who seemed comfortable rolling along at 15 miles per hour. I decidedly was not. I woefully lagged behind, bothered by a mystery noise coming from my front wheel when I applied my brakes. The first pit stop came at 13 miles at Proteus Bikes in College Park, Maryland. There, a mechanic found the cause of my aggro, a small burr on the right side of my rim. He filed it down with a sanding stone and all was copacetic thereafter.

With my companions itching to ride on, I snarfed a half a donut and a small metal cup (provided to all participants) of warm cider. The next pit stop was 23 miles away. As someone who gets about 15 miles to the donut, I regarded this as a challenge.

After the first pit stop we headed north into the Beltsville Agricultural Preserve where federal farm scientists work on such farm things. (I am a city boy so you’ll get no insights from me.) On the north-ish edge of the Preserve we turned east onto Powder Mill Road, a two-lane highway with smooth pavement and wide, paved shoulders. A couple of miles later we turned into the grounds of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Refuge where the access road wound through pretty darned amazing foliage.

We turned around and headed back the way we came taking a meander through suburban Edmonston, Maryland. At this point we began to whine about the winds which seemed to be headwinds no matter which way we turned.

Pedaling right back into the Agriculture Research Preserve, we headed straight across the mostly barren landscape on the cleverly named Research Road. Because of the shut down, a gate blocked our way but we gingerly rode in the grass around it. Take that, Congress!

Alas, the rest of Research Road climbs up the biggest hill of the ride. Just before the top we came to a gate that is always closed (to prevent commuters from cutting through the Preserve, I guess). Kevin and I walked through the narrow gap around the gate.

We rejoined the speed twins, Chris and Michael, who were waiting patiently at the top of the hill and rolled down to Pit Stop #2 at Buddy Attick Lake Park in Greenbelt. This pit stop is known for serving apple pie but there was no pie this year. (No loss. I’m not a fan.) There were donuts and cider, and plenty of bees competing for the refreshments. I had an entire donut and a cup of cider, thankfully without getting stung or swallowing any of my flying friends.

After the pit stop we returned toward the Anacostia River trail system, Along the way we passed a MAMIL (middle-aged man in lycra) who had crashed in the bike lane. He was being tended to by tow other riders so we soldiered on. Back on the trail system my youthful riding companions dropped me like a marketing call. Thankfully, they waited and led me into Hyattsville where there was some low speed congestion getting onto the Trolley Trail.

The Trolley Trail took us back to the Anacostia River trail system, around Lake Artemesia (which we rode around on the way north), and south to the final pit stop at Bladensburg Waterfront Park. Michael’s knee was starting to hurt so we made short work of the refreshments and headed south on the east side of the Anacostia.

Now Michael’s knee might have been hurting, but Kevin and I still couldn’t keep up with him and Chris. Our travels took us south on the east side of the Anacostia then back north on the west side. Here we rode around the skeleton of RFK Stadium which is being razed for a new football palace. We took the C Street protected cycletrack (which looks like it was transported from a European city. So nice!) on the gradual climb up the east side of Capitol Hill. After playing with cars for a half mile or so we picked up the 1st Street Northeast Cycletrack and connected with the Metropolitan Branch Trail which led us mercifully to the finish.

We convened for post-ride pizza (thanks Chris and Michael) and liquid refreshment at Metrobar, a repurposed Metro subway car.

I drove home with the expectation that I would fall sound asleep during the deciding game of the World Series. I glad I didn’t.

Thanks to the volunteers and WABA staff who woke up early to check us in and endured bees galore at the rest stops. Thanks to Chris, Michael, and Kevin.

And so ends my event riding season. I am pooped.

Getting ready to head back south at the Patuxent Research Refuge
The view at Buddy Attick Lake Park
Amazingly bee-free shot from Buddy Attick bee farm. Photo by Michael.
Michael’s snack at Bladensburg Waterfront Park. Photo by Michael.
We ate all the pizza! (L to R: Michael, Kevin, me, Chris). Photo by Michael.

January 2025 – Watching and reading and riding in a polar vortex

Watching

The Holdovers – Director Alexander Payne’s second collaboration with Paul Giamatti (the first was Sideways) about those left behind during Christmas break at a New England boarding school. Terrific.

American Primeval – A tail of blood and hate and deliverance from director Peter Berg. Mormons, the U. S. Cavalry, settlers, Shoshones, and Paiutes contest the Utah territory. Incredibly violent. Taylor Hirsch, long left in the dust after playing Tim Riggins in Berg’s Friday Night Lights, makes a stellar protagonist. Great cast, cinematography, and direction. Written by Mark L. Smith who also wrote The Revenant.

Michael McIntyre, Showman – A Netflix stand up special. Absolutely hysterical.

Rams – Disease breaks out among sheep herds in Australia. Flocks must be destroyed but one man keeps a ram and three ewes in a back room of his small house in defiance. Interesting tale staring Sam Neill (who is an actual sheep farmer in real life). We had trouble figuring out if it was meant to be a comedy.

Mat Ryder’s Tour of Aotearoa (New Zealand) – Mat’s at it again riding from the northernmost point in New Zealand all the way to the southernmost. Here’s the first five days, but the video series precedes his departure from Wales.

Football – I watched several NFL playoff games in preparation for the Super Bowl, otherwise I would not have a clue beyond Taylor Swift and such.

A nearly nightly binge of coverage of Trump’s first 100 days on MSNBC, CNN, and The Daily Show.

And the month ended with a horrific mid-air crash near National Airport. It brought back memories of a gloomy night, March 3, 1972, when a Mohawk Airlines turboprop flew over my head and, about a mile away, crashed into a house.

Reading

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman. The man who brought you The Thursday Murder Club is at it again with a new series about three unlikely (Osman’s stock in trade) crime solving partners. This is my first book of 2025, having waited three months so that my wife could buy it for me for Christmas. Well worth the wait. Witty. Clever. Loads of interesting characters. Someone is killing social influencers and the blood of Amy (one of the “We”) is found at the site of each murder. Who done it?

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Hadn’t read this since I was a tween. I got lost in the dialect back then. Liked it much more now but found some of the escapades went on ten pages too long. Precursor to reading James.

James by Percival Everett. A re-telling of the story in Huck Finn (mostly) from the perspective of Huck’s companion Jim. a runaway slave. I say “re-telling” because this book’s plot, especially in its second half. diverges from Twain’s narrative. James is worthy of all the praise heaped on it last year when it was published.

A Firing Offense by George Pelicanos. The first book by the much praised DC author. It’s a private eye novel set in DC in the early 1990s. Pelicanos captures the vibe in DC at the time to a t. A pretty impressive first novel. Half way through, I ordered his next two books which continue the boozy adventures of Nick Stefanos.

Nick’s Trip by George Pelicanos. The second Nick Stefano book by Pelicanos. Like the first one Nick takes on a case and solves a second for personal reasons. A literally incredible amount of alcohol is consumed by the characters who mostly remain functional and coherent despite their drinking. Still, this captures the vibe of the time and places (DC, southern Maryland).

Any Road Tour by me. I was between books so I decided to read the journal I created out of the nightly blog posts during my 2018 bike tour from Mount Vernon, Virginia to Portland, Oregon. It could use a little editing and a handful of photos are missing but it’s still not a bad read, if I do say so myself. I found that my memory had mixed up sequences and locations of events. Also, I seemed to think that I had far fewer headwinds than the entries suggest.

Riding

I managed a pretty decent month of riding despite snow and ice and the infamous polar vortex. I clocked 775 miles, riding 29 of 31 days. I rode indoors for 12 days on Big Nellie for the equivalent of 256 miles. Most of the rest was on The Mule at 398 miles. The switch to platform pedals really paid off this month. My feet are secure and I don’t have to find a way to jam them into toe clips. Also, the Catalyst pedals are proving to be well worth the money.

The Mo Mo Tour: Day 18 continued – That’s a Wrap

I went to the rental car place as soon as it opened. They did not have the SUV I reserved. Instead I settled for a white Dodge Charger. I was prepared to drive to WalMart up the hill to buy a bike rack if necessary but the Charger’s back seats folded down giving me room for The Mule and all my stuff. Impressive. (Note: I did have to take off the front wheel and lower my seat.)

The drive to Berea went on a parkway west to London and north to Berea on an interstate. It took about two hours because, despite my sporty car, my brain had been dealing with 3 to 35 miles per hour for over two weeks. Big trucks were zooming past me as I puttered along.

The terrain was very mountainous until I arrived at Berea (the second “e” is long). It was like someone threw a big geological switch; the town was basically flat.

The drive gave me time to think. The original point of this tour was for me to complete the eastern third of the TransAm. I had already bypassed 20 miles of it from Hindman to Hazard. Now I had blown off roughly 110 more in the car.

Most journals I read were all dated five or more years ago They made it sound like the dog problem was no big deal but the eastbound rider I met at the Cookie Lady’s house was still stressed out about his dog experiences in Kentucky over a week later. The hostel contact in Booneville sounded downright scary. The rental agency person in Hazard had all kinds of tales about indifferent dog (and pony!) owners. Owners who don’t neuter their animals so when the puppies get big enough they turn them loose in the woods. A person in Berea told me that Booneville is near an old coal mining area. Since strip mines have taken over, these old coal mining families are screwed and bitter.

(Another thought about doing chemical warfare with loose dogs: I have ridden past a half dozen gun shops, most of which displayed signs advertising AR-15 style semi automatic weapons. Gulp. My wife’s uncle Terry lives in southern West Virginia. When you drive onto his property there is a sign that say’s “You are in range.” Terry’s a pretty funny guy but I’m not entire sure he’s joking. And he isn’t economically distressed like these Kentucky folks. (I’m pretty sure Terry doesn’t have an AR-15 but

So I get to Berea and I have a choice. Do I continue on by bike in a totally stressed out mental state? I took two Advil PMs last night and still didn’t sleep a wink. I am physically and mentally exhausted. The dog problem is supposedly no big deal west of Berea but I really, really, really do not want to deal with them anymore. It was time to call it a tour and head home.

So I investigated my options. I can fly for free on Southwest with credit card points so I checked to see where the nearest airport was on Southwest’s route system. It was Louisville, about 160 miles by bike. Not gonna happen. I called U-Haul in Berea. They only had a 15-foot truck which would have cost over $500. Nope. However, the U-Haul guy said to talk to the car rental agency in Berea. Maybe there was something we could work out.

So I went to the car rental agency and talked with Chelsea, a very intelligent and personable person. She said it was indeed possible to do a one-way rental. All she had to do was talk to someone up the corporate food chain. That person freed up her software to allow her access to interstate one-way rentals. So we closed out my rental agreement from Hazard and opened a new one. Recognizing that I had been needlessly charged for the Hazard to Berea rental, she marked down the price of my trip from Berea to home. Chelsea is the best,

So for the cost of having someone pack and ship my bike, I hit the road in a sports car, driving over 500 miles from Kentucky to home. Google Maps has a sense of humor. It routed me through central West Virginia on two-lane mountain roads for about an hour.

Now that I’ve had a day to mull it over, I can’t exactly call this a failure. After all, I did end up riding 840 miles which is more miles than my 2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2015, and 2016 tours.

That said, I have to admit that my last two tours have been a mental challenge for me. I love the riding parts of the tours. I won’t soon forget the fantastic ride to Damascus on this tour, for example. But I can really live without church hostels, campgrounds, Warmshowers homes, hotels, lousy GSCS food, etc. As my toddler son used to say over 25 years ago, “I want to go home. I want to sleep in my own bed.”

My advice to anyone who is planning to do the TransAm is: don’t. It’s glory days are long gone. The dog situation in Kentucky is just one example. Many of the towns in Kansas on the route are virtual ghost towns. The traffic in eastern Oregon is godawful. The legendary bike accommodations in Guffey CO are dreadful.

When the TransAm was designed in the mid-1970s, touring bikes were heavy and had ten-speeds and only rear racks. I can’t imagine how the first riders did the whole 4,000+ miles. (A friend who participated in Bikecentennial, the 1976 event for which the TransAm was established said that she was doing fine until Kentucky. Her knees were trashed when she finally left the Appalachians.

There is a new alternative to the eastern half of the TransAm. The Eastern Express goes from DC to Colorado in a more or less straight line. It was designed specifically to avoid the dogs and hills of Appalachia and the Ozarks. Or design your own route as I did in 2018.

And for a two-week tour, Yorktown to Damascus isn’t bad idea.

There’s the rub and other things

Deep tissue massage

As my tour launch date approaches, I have been increasingly concerned about my various physical problems. The tension in my neck muscles and, more importantly, the limited range of motion in my neck have been making just moving around a literal pain in the neck. I have also become increasingly bent over, an affliction I have been attributing to my lumbar spinal stenosis.

On the recommendation of Casey, a friend from Friday Coffee Club, I booked an appointment with a message therapist for a deep tissue massage. I figured one of three things could happen. Worse case scenario: my neck and back get much worse and I end up at a surgeon’s office. Neutral outcome: as with all the other various kinds of massages I’ve had, the massage feels good but not much changes. Best case scenario: I actually feel considerably better.

(What comes next is an over simplification of the message session. I am an anatomy ignoramus and I know even less about the specifics of message techniques.)

The appointment started with a long interview about my activity and my physical woes, focusing on my neck. I also mentioned my spinal stenosis issue. Just before the hands-on part of the session, the therapist pointed out that I had obvious tightness in my psoas muscles. (The psoas muscles are an important connection between the upper and lower body. They are notoriously difficult to loosen.) I was sitting on the massage table but instead of being upright, my torso was at a 45 degree angle to my thighs. I hadn’t even noticed.

In fact, that’s my default setting; bent over as I watch TV, read, drive, and use my phone. By riding my bike tens of thousands of miles in the last few years, I’ve managed to managed to train my muscles to assume the riding position when I’m off the bike. Once you’re bent over, bent over is the norm. In fact, I can’t straighten up. I’m locked in.

We began with massaging my tight neck muscles. This involved finding knots in my muscles and pressing on them (a technique called pinning) then slowing stretching the muscle, breathing in during the stretch and exhaling on release. The therapist worked on my neck, my shoulders, my head, and my jaw. Back and forth and all around. I’ll admit some of this was pretty painful. With each pressing of a knot, the pain lessened until it was gone and the muscle was freed up.

After that the therapist worked on loosening my pectoral muscles, the ones across my chest. Riding a bike causes these muscles to be tight, pulling my upper body over when I stand. Some of this involved simply pulling on my chest muscles to the outside. The therapist also worked on knots around the edge of my scapula, a bone that sits on the outside of the chest cavity in back.

There was also a last adjustment to my psoas muscle. One leg straight. The other bent and drawn upward, just as I had been doing on my back. She pressed another point somewhere above the hip. Then the other side.

At the end of the session, I stood up. Straight. Without the slightest bit of tension pulling my shoulders forward. My lower back felt completely free of tension as well.

After the session I went to the drugstore. I parked over a block away and walked to and from the store without a cane. No problem at all. No pain. No tightness in my lower back.

I’ll be damned if the massage didn’t work.

The therapist told me I’d be sore for a few days. Day two was the worst. My neck and lower back were aching after a 50-mile ride. Today is day three and my neck feels fine. My back soreness went away. The range of motion in my neck is still a bit limited but the pain is all but gone. More importantly, I know that the stretching I had been doing will be much more effective if I pin the tight muscle down when I stretch it. As for my lower back, the onset of discomfort seems to be taking significantly longer, a very welcome development.

I’m going to go back for another session after my tour. In the meantime, I’ve added pinning to my neck stretches. Also, I have two stretches for my pectoral muscles that are pretty easy to do. The scapula stretching requires a tennis ball and a sock (to keep the ball from falling as I work with it). I haven’t tried that but I have a massage gizmo that can do the same thing. So far all the stretches for the psoas muscles seem to require the body of a contortionist. (Lunge, raise your arm, lean back. Fall over.)

Other news

I decided to change my rear tire. I removed the Schwable Marathon with about 6,000 miles and replaced it with an comparably old Schwalbe Marathon Plus. The latter last several thousand more miles and are extremely resistant to punctures. I will notice more rolling resistance but that’s the price you pay for not having to deal with flats every 1,000 miles. (Knock wood.) The beefier tire should serve me well on the rough roads of eastern Kentucky.

When changing the tire, I used a new tire lever that I recently picked up at Bikes at Vienna. The tire and rim combinations make for difficult installation, frequently resulting in loss of skin on my thumbs. Although the copy in the link says this lever is designed for narrow tires, it worked fine on my 700×35 Marathon Plus tire. My thumbs are grateful.

Going longer

In the last nine days, I’ve done 323 miles with rides of 42, 50, 52, and 53 miles and a day off. The 52-miler was yesterday. I could have easily gone farther. Every year I get to late April and think, I’ve lost it. Every May, I find it.

I haven’t picked a launch date yet.

Tour Prep Continued – Dogs

With the start of my tour about three weeks away, I continue to stress out about the aggressive dog situation in Kentucky and Missouri. Last night I watched some YouTube videos about dealing with dogs while riding. Many of them suggest slowing down. (My reaction: AYFKM!) Often the dog will sense victory and back off. They say that you cannot outrun a dog. (This is poppycock. I’ve outrun several.) If the dog doesn’t disengage, dismount, keeping your bike between you and the dog. (This is insanity. I was out for a ride in my home town when a hyper-aggressive dog made a run for me. The dog blocked my way so I dismounted. It was a standoff for the better part of 30 minutes. Needless to say, I was terrified.) My friend Charmaine often stops and just calmly talks to the dog. It works for her somehow. A third idea is to throw small objects like roadside rocks or gravel at the dog. No need to hit the animal. Or even better you can fake like your throwing something. The dog will disengage. (This makes sense to me.)

Letter carriers use Halt or some other pepper spray product. I had a small can of Halt on a mount attached to the handlebars of Big Nellie on three bike tours in the mid 2000s. I never used it but it provided peace of mind. Halt is preferred to other products because it comes out as a stream not a mist, meaning it’s less likely to end up getting blow into your eyes. Amazingly, I found the can the other day and it still works. I can’t seem to find the mount though.

I was once attacked by a huge, aggressive dog in Belle Haven Park on the Mount Vernon Trail near my home. I was riding Big Nellie and didn’t have pepper spray. Seeing the dog’s teeth at eye level was pretty scary. I ended up going off the trail and crashing. The dog declared victory and went back to its master. I called the police. They came in minutes.

A few weeks ago, I bought a small air horn. It’s intended use is to alert bears to your presence while hiking. Yesterday I was discussing dogs with Beth at Bikes at Vienna. They don’t sell Halt but she showed me a similar, considerably larger horn that the shops sells. She also told me about a customer who rode a recumbent trike across the country and used a dog whistle of some sort. This is makes all kinds of sense to me. Since you can put it on a lanyard and hang it around your neck, it means you can have easy access without letting go of the handlebars. (My friend Reba uses a referee’s whistle instead of a bike bell.) I am riding to a local CVS to get one today.

Other options include spraying the dog with water from your water bottle or spraying the dog with bug repellent (the stuff tastes nasty). This comes out as a mist and can backfire.

As a last resort you can yell at the dog. My 2019 and 2023 biking buddy Mark simply yelled “GO HOME!” and, according to Corey his wingman, the dog would stop chasing him. Others online suggest “GET OFF THE COUCH!”.

So I plan on a multi-tiered approach. Sound first. Rock throwing second. Pepper spray third.

If you have any additional suggestions, let me know in the comments.

Crashes

My blogging buddy Brittany asked me a question about crashing on a recumbent versus a standard bike. It got me to thinking.

When I crashed on Big Nellie, my recumbent, I was rolling and turning toward a slight downhill to my left. I hit a root heave, a bump perpendicular to my line of travel. The impact of wheel on root caused my fork to break. The handlebars just sort of disengaged and the wheel turned all the way around to the left. The bike and me crashed to the right side.

Crashing on a recumbent is usually much less painful than on a standard bike, primarily because you have a much shorter distance to fall. When people crash on a standard bike, their instinct is to stick their arm out to brace themselves. This often results in a broken collarbone.

On a recumbent you’re usually on the ground before you can react. Sometimes recumbent riders react by putting their foot down. This is a bad idea. The downside to such recumbent crashes is something called leg suck. If one of your feet comes off the pedal, and you’re moving fast, your foot will be drawn (or sucked) under the bike. This can result in a rather abrupt broken leg. I’ve had my foot slip of the pedal at speed. It hit the ground with such force that it was very hard to avoid leg suck. I had to lift my foot straight up until the bike slowed. It was scary.

Sometimes you can tell you’re about to crash. On a standard bike you want to take the impact on the outside of your upper arm and roll when you hit the ground. Bicycle racers practice this. Me, not so much.

On a recumbent, you want to ride the crash out. Just keep your feet on the pedals and your hands on the handlebars and, Just before contact with the ground, stick your butt cheek out to absorb the force of the crash. I’ve done this a few times and it works amazingly well. When the fork broke this summer, however, I was on the ground so fast I couldn’t react.

I have had a fork break once before. I had taken my trusty old 1978 Raleigh Grand Prix out for a ride in Arlington VA. This bike had survived innumerable crashes and road salt from six New England winters. I rode it down a hill to the Potomac River, then, a while later, rode back up the hill. At the top, something felt odd about the steering so I stopped. Then I heard a CLANG! My right fork blade just fell off onto the pavement! I am very fortunate this didn’t happen going down that hill.

An odd feeling is typical of steel tubing. It gets squishy before it fails. A friend was riding a tour on the Natchez Trace when his bike felt funny. He stopped and noticed that his top tube had broken, metal fatigue caused by a crash. Eek. Unlike steel, aluminum tubing just snaps without warning. It can ruin your whole day.

Frame and fork breaks are pretty rare, thankfully. A more common cause of a crash is low tire pressure. I was riding home from work one day and started to turn onto a bike trail. In an instant, I found myself on the ground and in a world of hurt. My front tire had gone flat and, as I turned, my rim made contact with the pavement and I went down. Hard. Flat back tires are not so traumatic. Usually your back wheel starts to fishtail. This happened to me on the Mount Vernon Trail while riding Big Nellie. The back end started to wobble so I just started to glide and went straight off the trail onto a grassy area. I didn’t even tip over. Just a nice controlled stop. We all should be so lucky when we crash.

Check your tires before you ride. Every time.

Strange Digression: Long ago I interned at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regional office in San Francisco. I took an articulated bus home to my place in Berkeley one night. I sat in the rear of the bus, beyond the center hinge. We were on the old Oakland-Bay Bridge when the back end of the bus started to swing violently from side to side. My mind flashed to Def Con One: EARTHQUAKE!

Seeing as how the bay was waaaay dooown theeere, the other passengers, who, unlike me, almost certainly knew what an earthquake felt like, freaked out and yelled at the driver to slow down. The next day at the office I mentioned this episode to the staff, one of whom was an expert on tires. He said that the cause of the swaying was probably underinflated rear tires.

Happy camper on a bike

For the last six days I’ve been taking a declining dose of the steroid prednisone to calm the irritated nerves in my back and legs. Prednisone pills taste gross but they are very powerful. My pain became tolerable after a day. Although I didn’t notice, they improved my mood and, my wife and daughter report, even made me chatty. As I said, it’s powerful.

Until I took prednisone, I couldn’t tell where in my lower back my nerve problems were coming from. Now I can feel tension above my left butt cheek. Hello, you little bugger. I’m coming after you.

The best part of this pill party is that I am riding my bike like it was the summer of 2018. I have nearly zero discomfort, I am accelerating like a boss, and can cruise 20 percent faster with practically no effort. In five days, I’ve ridden 159 miles. Each day I stop long before I get tired. I could easily have ridden 50 miles today but decided to err on the side of caution and quit after 36. The Mule abides.

My leg ache comes and goes and the hot spot outside my left hip is still there, but otherwise my body is so much happier. I go up hills without a care. My back, arms, and shoulder feel relaxed as I pedal.

All of this makes me wonder if my hip and knee problems have been a side effect of stenosis, rather than in addition to stenosis. If I’ve been in low level pain for months, it’s no wonder my riding has suffered. Not the mileage, but the enjoyment. Riding across Kansas this year was work; riding across North Dakota and eastern Montana last year was play.

While I have the pain at bay, I have been blending yoga with my physical therapy. Up until now I had been doing PT in a very regimented fashion. This many repeats. Hold for this many seconds, etc. The idea was to build strength in particular muscles, mostly in support of my hip and knee.

Now I am letting my body dictate what to do. I am flowing from one position to the next, concentrating on keeping my motions fluid.  The regimented aspect has been one of the reasons I hate yoga classes. (And don’t get me started on yoga teachers who physically move you into the “proper” position. Must not kill!)

Instead I’ll hold a position for as many seconds as seems helpful then go right into another one without stopping. If a posture causes something to ache, I stop and move on to another posture.

A typical sequence might be (PT exercises in italics):

  • Step over a horizontal pole for 25 repetitions (A warm up that helps me getting on and off the bike.)
  • Stretch hamstrings
  • Stretch quads
  • Stretch iliotibial bands
  • Runner’s calf muscle stretches
  • Shoulder scrunches
  • Add standing yoga positions
    • Rishi’s posture
    • Chest expansions
    • Deep breathing
    • Toe touches
    • Side bends
    • Trunk rotations at the waist
    • Neck rotations
    • Squats
    • Dancers posture
  • Lay on the floor and do
    • Open book shoulder exercises 
    • Pull knees to chest, first one leg, then the other, then both
    • Ankle over knee and pull legs toward torso
    • Sway back and forth with bent knees at the hip
    • Hurdlers stretches
    • Groin stretches
    • Neck pushes
    • Toe touches
    • Back bridges
    • Side planks with torso on ground
    • Side planks with legs on ground
    • Bird dog
    • Cat/cow pose
    • Planks
    • Cobra pose
    • Locust pose
    • Twist torso while lunging
    • Lunges
    • Child’s pose
    • Shoulder stand
    • Plough
  • Sit ups (or crunches)
  • Set of super six exercises on a foam roller

That’s over 30 different exercises. And I left a few out. I have all of  them written down but I tend to do whatever seems to make sense in the moment. If I’m doing a pose while lying on my back, I might pop into a shoulder stand, for example. Then I’ll gradually fall into a plough (legs extended over head while on my back) and roll out of the plough and do a back bridge.

I’m trying my best to be gentle and not strain. Some of the positions are a little beyond my ability right now but I’ll get there.

Hopefully, I can get this routine established quickly. I have only three more days of prednisone pills, and then the effects will wear off.  And they can wear off rather suddenly if my prior experience with oral steroids is an indication. Taking them for long periods of time results in side effects like osteoporosis, cataracts, and growing a second head. (Okay, I made that last one up.)

Cheers.

 

 

 

 

Emilia and the Red Caboose

Yetserday, I rode the Great Pumpkin Ride in Fauquier County, Virginia with my friend Emilia. This was our fourth ride together. Our first ride together was the 2014 50 States Ride. She had a rough time. We did it again in 2017 and this time I had a rough time and she, despite missing several climbing gears, flew up the hills. She weighs about half what I do so it was reasonable to assume would bury my sorry old ass on a sod farm in the hilly Virginia Piedmont.

Lucky for me, the last ride she did was the New York City Century back in early September. Unlike me she skipped breakfast. So on an empty stomach and with legs that hadn’t spun a pedal in seven weeks, she insisted on riding the long, 67-mile route yesterday. She’s pretty tough.

We lined up next to the red caboose at the start/finish line. Soon we were off down a rail trail then onto country roads where we were treated to rolling hills, 60 degrees, calm winds, cloudy skies, and the occasional sprinkle as we cruised through the rolling terrain at between 12 and 13 miles per hour. The foliage was close to peak and every so often we oohed and aahed at natures show. The lifestock in the fields seemed utterly (pun intended) uninterested in our passing. I explained that during my ride across the northern plains last year, I could get cattle and horses to stampede. Their Virginia cousins were having nothing of it.

The police warned us not to ride side by side so Emilia followed close behind me for most of the ride. She rides a bit closer to the edge of the road than I prefer so there was little chance that we’d overlap wheels.

Emilia’s native language is Spanish. I take advantage by quizzing her about useful phrases that I typically forget. Mostly we just rode and listened to the voices inside our heads. It’s nice to have a riding partner who appreciates that.

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Just trees and hills and fresh air

 

Thanks to her layoff, we rode at exactly the same pace for nearly the entire ride. She’s a vegetarian and needed no prodding when we came to the first rest stop 19 miles into the ride. There she gorged herself on a thin slice of cinnamon bread and half of a banana. I noticed she had barely touched her water bottle. I thought “no bueno” but she was perfectly happy with her food and water intake.

 

We rode another 22 hilly miles before finding the next rest stop.  She was laboring a bit at this point so she gorged herself with a thin slice of pumpkin pie and a wee bag of potato chips. Then off we went.

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Emilia after pumpkin pie

The next thirteen miles were a bit hillier. I noticed at mile 50 she was laboring up a hill. Her thigh muscles were cramping. Her water bottle remained nearly untouched. No bueno. We slowed a bit and forged ahead. At an intersection with a busy highway she had trouble unclipping from her pedals and wobbled into the cross road. Fortunately no cars were coming but she knew that the little incident could have been bad news. I could see on her face that the layoff since early September was taking its toll. She was pretty tired.

The route to the final rest stop is out-and-back for about 2 1/2 miles. We saw riders returning from the rest stop turning toward the finish. Emilia did not have a cue sheet in front of her and got rather animated about following them. I briefly considered skipping the rest stop. That would have risked seeing her bonk all the way to the finish so I explained we needed to get some food in her and forged ahead to the rest stop at the Old Bust Head brewery.

Once there, she had pie, three small cheese quesadillas, a small portion of tater tots, a cup of pumpkin soup, and two cups of Gatorade. Smiles.

“Ok, John, I’m ready.”

Crisis averted. As we rode I counted down the next few miles.

12!

11!

Only tell me the single digits.

How do you say nine in Spanish?

Nieve!

Ocho!

She fell back on a hill, caught up, then fell back again.

Are we at seven?

No. Cinco!

You’re kidding.

No.

Big smile.

A few more hills and we found ourselves on the rail trail back into town. It always seems longer that it actually is. Emilia started looking for the caboose.

And there it was after 67 hilly miles.

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Emilia, her steed, and the caboose

Tired but todo sonrisas.

We hope to ride again next Saturday at the shorter and flatter Cider Ride in DC. There will be no caboose but the donuts and cider and pie will make up for it.

Connecting and Extending the Mount Vernon Trail

The Mount Vernon Trail, a facility of the National Park Service, is well known to cyclists, runners, and walkers in the DC area. It extends from Theodore Roosevelt Island in the north to George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate in the south. Beyond Mount Vernon, there are trails of a sort but they come and go for three miles along the two-lane Mount Vernon Memorial Highway to US 1 where new trails continue south down through Fort Belvoir. (The mega re-design of US 1 to the north of Fort Belvoir will include separated bike lanes. ) The Fairfax County Department of Transportation is planning to connect the existing trail segments along the MVMH to provide a continuous trail that connects Mount Vernon to US 1.

Last night I attended the first public meeting about this project. It was run by Chris Wells, the Fairfax County Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator with significant additional remarks by Dan Storck, the Mount Vernon District Supervisor.

Beyond its local significance the Mount Vernon Trail is part of other much longer trail systems, including the Adventure Cycling Association’s Atlantic Coast Route, the East Coast Greenway, and the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail.

The project is an admirable one, but it has significant shortcomings.

The Mount Vernon Trail itself stops at the southern end of a parking lot. To continue south cyclists have two options. They can walk the sidewalk in front of the entrance to Mount Vernon or ride (illegally) on the George Washington Memorial Highway for a few hundred yards. Neither of these shortcomings is addressed in this project.

The GW Parkway ends at Mount Vernon. To continue south, travelers use the MVMH. At this point a new-ish side path exists for about 1/2 mile to a traffic light at Old Mount Vernon Road. After the light, there is an old, narrow asphalt path that is in lousy shape with tree roots and debris. After a few hundred yards that path ends and path users need to cross the MVMH to get to another similarly decrepit path along the MVMH. This path has the added feature of a series of abrupt ups and downs. This path segment ends after about 1/4 mile at Southwood Drive. Local residents report that these three parts of the trail are virtually impossible to ride on a bike and in such poor condition that even running is problematic. Unfortunately, improvements to or realignment of these side paths are not included in the project scope.

The first of the proposed new segments would begin on the opposite side of the MVMH from this last bit of path. It would continue only a few hundred yards to another existing side path that extends from Peartree Landing (a neighborhood street) to the entrance to Grist Mill Park, which contains soccer fields, a large playground, and the area’s free mulch collection. This existing segment is wider and newer than the others describe above. Nevertheless, the local residents I talked with said this segment also has problems with tree roots.

Beyond Grist Mill Park a new trail segment is planned that will cross the southern end of Old Mill Road until it reconnects with a little used, existing frontage road. After the frontage road, the new trail will begin again and cross Dogue Creek on a new steel and concrete bridge.

After Washington’s Grist Mill, the new trail segments will end. Those wishing to continue south on a trail will have to re-cross the MVMH to connect with a new existing trail that continues a couple of hundred yards to US 1.

The project plans include wayfaring signs, as well as improved crosswalks and bus stops.

The project team’s consultants were in attendance. Maps of the project were on easels for review. There were about 40 – 50 people in attendance. Considering the fact that this was a preliminary meeting, this was an impressive turnout. Attendees included people who live along the project corridor and others, like me, who use the corridor for cycling.

Concerns raised included:

  • The design of the Dogue Creek bridge. It will be steel and concrete which will hopefully lessen the crashes that are endemic to the Mount Vernon Trail’s wooden bridges.
  • Crossing the MVMH is dangerous now. Recently, a 15-year old runner was hit by two cars as she crossed the road. (She lived but is in for a long recovery.) Attendees asked for traffic signals of some sort and consideration of sight lines when positioning cross walks.
  • Local residents say that traffic has increased significantly since the military base re-alignment moved thousands of personnel to Fort Belvoir. The residents say that the 45 miles-per-hour speed limit is too high considering the highway traverses a residential area. This is clearly one of those places were Virginia DOT prioritizes moving commuters over residential users.
  • Local residents also decried the condition of the decrepit existing trail segments.
  • The crossing at Old Mill Road is a potential problem. Local residents cut through a neighborhood and a wooded perimeter area to access the park now to avoid this intersection.
  • Drainage is a problem now for one resident whose home abuts a new trail segment.
  • The trail right of way could be 20 to 30+ feet depending on the type of drainage used at the highway’s edge. One resident noted that his driveway is only 40 feet long.
  • Residents clearly would prefer to limit the trail to one side of the highway.
  • Trees will have to be removed to accommodate the new trail assuming it stays in its current alignment.

The next step is for the project team to do a detailed analysis of the corridor and produce a preliminary design for public comment. That process will take six to nine months.

As readers of this blog know, I do not much enjoy doing bike advocacy work, but I have to say that this meeting was actually fun. There was concern without anxiety on the parts of the attendees. I think they had plenty of time to have their say. Chris Wells and Dan Storck did a great job of listening and making thoughtful observations. Project team members and Dan Storck were taking notes. With projects like these the old saying “The devil’s in the details” holds.

As for me, I was encouraged to see that Chris has picked up where Adam Lind (currently cavorting in Santiago, Chile) left off as Bike/Ped coordinator. This was my first interaction with Dan Storck. My district supervisor is an avid cyclist. Obviously, he has to take into consideration all users and constituents but it is a great relief to know that he speaks my language.

As for me, I doubt I will use the new trail. I don’t use any of the existing trails segments. I am comfortable in the road, but I understand that others, most importantly the people in the adjacent neighborhoods, are not. I also doubt bicycle tourists, experienced recreational riders, and commuters will want to meander back and forth across the highway. However, the project clearly addresses many existing shortcomings for walkers and runners and less experienced cyclists.

Finally, I did get a chance to talk to Dan Storck about his annual Tour of Mount Vernon bike ride. When I first heard about it, I thought is was a dinky neighborhood ride. Wrong. It’s the real deal at 36 miles and he’s very excited that it’s catching on after only a couple of years. I didn’t ride it last year because I was already committed to WABA’s 4th Annual Cider Ride. Hopefully, this year WABA and Supervisor Storck can coordinate dates so I can do both.

 

 

 

 

Winter Weather Wimp Gets Back into a Routine

I really am a wimp. It’s below freezing outside but there’s no ice on the roads so it’s safe to go riding. But I walk out the door and the blast of cold air pushes me down the stairs in to the basement where Big Nellie and Lincoln in the Bardo await.

I know I am a weenie because my bike commuting friends are out there slogging away to and from work. Although she doesn’t exactly slog, Mary the Coffeenuer is braving the cold and – for the most part – enjoying it. Her latest blog post pretty much is a call to arms, or pedals. So I resolve to get out of the basement as long as there is no ice on the ground. (It’s supposed to snow tomorrow night so this might be a pretty short lived resolution.)

An update on my recovery: I feel fine. I have my energy back. Mrs. Rootchopper says that my left calf looks bigger than my right. This is consistent with a deep vein thrombosis or big blood clot in my left calf. I have used a tape measure and I can’t find a difference. I also don’t feel any difference between the left and right calf.

I have ordered a mirror for my Cross Check just to decrease my chances of being run over by big metal things. And I have purchased a RoadID which is like a medic alert bracelet. It has my name and address, my wife’s contact numbers, my blood type and Xarelto, the blood thinning medication I am on. This is especially important in case I crash and hit my head and am knock out or concussed. Blows to the head can lead to runaway bleeding in the skull which can be fatal within a day or two. I want to make sure that EMTs and ER doctors know about my medication from the get go even if I can’t speak for myself.

Well, that was depressing.

My CT scan for tomorrow has been postponed because my insurance is flinching at having another one so soon after the last one. This is pretty routine.

Later this week I have a dental appointment. Hopefully I won’t need any crowns or fillings because I’d have to stop taking Xarelto for a couple of days and I really can’t do that right now.

I am getting back to the daily routine I was in before all this craziness took over my life.

  • Meditation for 20 -30 minutes – This is a hold over from self treatment of depression. I’m into my fourth year of sitting on a daily basis. Oddly, it’s also the last vestige of a friendship gone sour. Go figure.
  • Reading the newspaper over breakfast – I have been doing crosswords since college. Breakfast doesn’t seem right without a puzzle.
  • Reading – I am an obsessive reader. I can’t imagine living without books all around me. I am working down the pile of books I got for Christmas and as gifts for nearly dying. (I can’t die now, God.. I have four more books on my nightstand.) I should be coming up for air about May 1.
  • Riding – I am still searching for a good substitute for the best bike commute on the planet. And I have to get myself into some sort of decent riding shape because I fully intend to ride to Pacific waters this spring and summer.
  • Learning guitar – I am the least musical person on the planet. And I have small hands. So this is an uphill battle. Still, twiddling away at finger picking is strangely relaxing. And it’s a lot easier to learn these days because there are a bazillion instructional videos online.
  • Listening to music – This is something that has fallen by the wayside with all the bike riding that I’ve been doing over the years. I was browsing YouTube recently when I saw the name Brandi Carlile. I’ve heard her name many, many times over the years and never took the time to listen to her. Doh. She’s been making interesting music for 12 years and six (soon to be seven albums). So I am wearing out two of her CDs and I am about to buy all the others. This will tide me over until the next Neil Finn CD comes out later this year.
  • And doing at least one adult thing –  Today’s was driving my daughter’s car so its battery wouldn’t die. And doing a load of laundry. Hey, that’s two.

In addition to these daily activities I have a few other things I want to keep doing.

  • Socialize – I am trying to do at least one social thing a week so I don’t turn into a hermit. The weekend before last was brunch with folks from grad school. This past weekend was the wedding of the daughter of a former work colleague. It was at a mosque which made it especially unusual (for me at least) and interesting. This Thursday I am going to a #bikedc happy hour. I am not supposed to drink alcohol while on my medication but I think one drink in a two-week span won’t kill me. Then again, who the hell knows!
  • Advocacy – As a total introvert, I make a lousy advocate. Still, I hope to attend a meeting with National Park Service staff regarding the Mount Vernon Trail on Saturday.
  • Sportz – I don’t watch much sports but the NFL playoffs include the Patriots. I lived in Boston and Providence for 11 years during which time the Patriots were consistently mediocre. Their recent run of excellence has been fun to watch. I only watch during the playoffs. I don’t have time for the other 16 games.