Tag: bike commute

Frozen Delusions

I didn’t check the thermometer but at 7 a.m. it was 10 degrees at the airport. I think it is safe to assume that I was dealing with single digits when I left home. To add to the festivities I had a nice little headwind. 

You’d think I’d complain about freezing my noo-noos off. You’d think I’d bitch and moan. I won’t do either. It was actually a pretty nice ride in. Granted, I’d much prefer not wearing so much clothing but I was pretty comfortable.

I took a couple of short cuts to avoid ice in Old Town, but otherwise it was a normal ride to Friday Coffee Club. Even my back seemed to be holding up. Until I dismounted at the end, that is. Oil me, Scarecrow. I reached down to take a drink of water and both my bottles were solid ice. 

Inside Swings House of Joe, the joint was jumping. I didn’t really expect many people but there were ten or so. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood. So take that winter!

Brian rolled in. He seemed to be bundled up but he looked like he’d ridden by way of Nome. Then Dave showed up. Ditto. Finally, just before I left Kirstin appeared. Except I didn’t recognize her at first for all the stuff she had on. She looked like a whole bunch of clothing with a smile near the top. As I left I gave her a hug and it was like holding a human-sized Popsicle. Lordy! 

I was expecting my back to be all sore when I got to work but it felt almost normal. 

I was out in the sub-freezing temperatures for about 90 minutes. My finger tips were cold at the start of the ride. I alternated putting my hands in my pockets for a few miles and the discomfort went away. My toes started to get cold for the last mile or two before Swings. The rest of me was toasty.

It was 30 degrees when I left the office. On the way home it dropped down to 26. Again I was pleasantly surprised that I was comfortable the entire way.

Now that I have mastered winter bike commuting for another year, we can begin springtime. 

Riding in the cold makes me delusional.

 

The Snowman and the Mule

My back bothered me all day yesterday.Nevertheless, I decided to give bike commuting a try this morning. Dressing wasn’t a whole lot of fun but I got out the door bundled up for the 22 degree start. Once I got on the Mule I was fine.

I was a little concerned about ice on the Mount Vernon Trail so I walked the first icy patch on the Dyke Marsh bridge. I could have ridden it as it turns out. Just before re-mounting I spotted a little snow man perched on one of the posts on the boardwalk.

Image

Whenever I have to deal with extreme cold or rain or wind, I approach the ride with a sense of dread. Far more often than not the ride ends up being just as much fun as on a nice day. Today was no different. Once I was back underway, I fell into my usual morning bike commute trance.

I modified my route to avoid some icy spots. It wasn’t until I reached the 14th Street Bridge 12 miles from home that I encountered one that looked troublesome. I rode it without trouble, but just seeing the ice made me tense up. Just south of the Memorial Bridge I came upon about 50 yards of serious ice. I tried riding past it on the grass but my wheels sunk in. Dismounting was pretty painful.

There was quite a bit of ice on the TR Bridge boardwalk. I rode the entire thing trying not to tense up as I did.

I used a head pad on my back during the day. This seemed to loosen things up.

After work I went to the new Heavy Seas Ale House to have a drink with fellow bike blogger Tinlizzie. The beer was good and the conversation even better. She pointed out Bike Arlington’s Tim Kelley and I introduced myself. Later, I met Suzie, who works with TInLizzie. Suzie wants to start bike commuting from Alexandria to Rosslyn. Allow me to be of service!

We talked a lot about what bike she should buy. What route to take. What things to avoid (aggressive gearing). What she would need (lock, method of carrying stuff). I neglected to mention the Circle of Death. (Everything in its proper place.)

After two pints of beer on an empty stomach, I began the long journey home. As soon as I left the garage I was hit by a powerful wind. Dang. And I was in the middle of a traffic jam. Dang again. And the wind was swirling. Dang dang dang.

Once I cleared the high rises and made it to the Mount Vernon Trail the wind straightened out and gave me a nice, steady tailwind. Most of the ice from the morning was gone. I was a little wobbly for the first 7 or 8 miles but I steadied for the second half of the commute. And my back felt fine the entire way home. Go figure

My only regret about riding home was that I had my back to a meteor in the night sky.

15 Miles In

!5 miles in.

If I’m lucky I average 12 miles per hour. Each ride in takes 75 minutes.

There is no music. There is no news. There is no “Traffic and weather together on the eights.”

Just my bike and me and a ribbon of pavement from home to the office.

LIke this:

I breath. I shiver. I sweat. My legs spin. Pedal, pedal.

I turn. I huff and puff up a hill. I turn again. And again. And again.

I look for deer in the woods along the road.

I hear a dog bark.

I stop. I wait for traffic at a cross street.

The coast is clear. I go.

Repeat.

I swoosh down a steep hill. My face is cold. Tears well in my eyes. I am flying blind. Neil Young was wrong. Flying on the ground is right.

I cruise through an S curve, first right then left.

I survive the Parkway crossing. Cars rush by. Hurry, hurry. Can’t wait to get stuck in the Old Town traffic bottleneck.

On to the Mount Vernon Trail. The Dyke Marsh boardwalk. Sun rising over the PG County hills to my right. Red wing blackbirds making a racket. Mama and Papa goose waddle next to the culvert under the Parkway. Soon there will be babies. Fuzzy green goslings.

The serpentine trail guides me. Cars rushing to my left. Trees stilling to my right.

The Hoppy Guy runs with his improbable gait.

Past the Belle Haven bald eagle nest. No one home. Geese on the river. Ugly National Harbor scars the far river bank. Ugly Porto Vecchio scars the near one.

Down into Jones Point Park beneath the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. Masses of concrete swooping somehow overhead. Making concrete attractive isn’t easy.

Around Fords Landing and down Union Street in Old Town. I ride past the coffee zombies at Starbucks. Beans! Beans!

Back on the trail past the construction site at the old Sheet Metal Association building. No longer covered in ugly army green metal. A brick façade is going on today. A forklift next to the trail raises a stack of dry wall panels high. Please don’t drop them on me.

Around the powerless power plant. Another boardwalk. And another. A mallard waddles across the trail and splashes into the beaver pond where the trail used to be. The umpire in my mind calls, “Safe!”

Snow is falling. Big puffy flakes attack my glasses. One, then another goes into my eye. Cold tears.

Even light snow muffles the sounds of the airport and the cars rushing by. Pedal, pedal.

The forecast has scared away most of the bike commuters. I am alone but not lonely. Along the river now. The city to my right is obscured by a fog of a billion swirling flakes.

Black ice ahead. Tense up. I ride across without touching the brakes or turning the wheel. No problem, thank god. Falling would suck.

Across one more boardwalk this one covered in the white dust.

Up the hill to Rosslyn. Like football, it builds character. Not really. They just tell you that so you won’t complain.

Down the sidewalk dodging the smartphone walkers. Tweet. Bing!

Into the garage. Around the cars waiting to be parked. Wave at the attendant.

15 miles in.

One Step Back

I woke up with very little stiffness. I hopped on The Mule and headed for Friday Coffee Club. When I dismounted outside Swings House of Caffeine, my back was really stiff. Ow.

I straightened up after a few seconds. Inside Swings, the joint was jumpin’, I got to tell my tale of back woe several times. Sympathy is good medicine. @ultrarunnergirl urged me to try Bikram yoga. She says it saved her back. Lawyer Mike told us about visiting a senator with a client while he (Mike) had a ruptured disc. (“Help my client for god’s sake so I can get the hell out of here!!!)

Jacques held Hugo, who is now an inquisitive toddler, as he talked with @bobbieshaftoe looking very stylish in her waterproof Gore jacket. Good thing she was properly attired. With no warning, Hugo let rip an impressive sneeze. He nailed her. She laughed it off because she is Ubermom. I’m sure she’s encountered worse with her kids. I sure have with mine.

I enjoyed riding part way to my office along side Jacques and Hugo. Hugo’s not nearly as talkative as his dad. This probably has something to do with the fact that he is just now learning to talk. He got a rise out of a school bus parked on the side of the street. “SkooBus” was my son’s first word. (He said it over and over and over again. Good thing he was impossibly cute.)

The ride to work was uneventful but the dismount in the garage hurt quite a bit. I gingerly made it to the locker room and eventually to my office. 

A co-worker had spilled something on his shirt and needed an emergency replacement. Fortunately, he’s about the same size as me and I, like all experienced bike commuters and boy scouts, keep a spare change of clothes in a filing cabinet in my office. Yet another reason why employees should be encouraged to ride to work. 

The ride home was a bit of a slog despite the warm (50!) temperature. Between staying up until midnight to watch the Olympics and fighting back pain for days on end, I was pooped. I could barely maintain an 11 mile per hour pace. I made it home in one piece but the dismount at home was bad news. Owie. Once I went inside, I looked at myself in the mirror. I was listing to starboard. My spasm was back. 

It’s going to be 70 degrees outside tomorrow. Normally I’d go for a long ride but I think I will do the smart thing and take it easy. There will be plenty more nice days soon.

 

Back Out, Day 14

This is getting old.

I wake up in the morning and feel fine. Then within minutes my back starts to stiffen up. My lower back just below my left kidney feels like someone hit it with a baseball bat. I also have what feels like a hip pointer and soreness outside my knee on my left side. This hip and leg problem is probably iliotibial band (ITB) syndrome, a tightness in the tissue that runs from above the hip (and just below the soreness in my back) down the outside of the leg where it re-attaches to bone below the knee. It’s probably caused by my having to compensate for the awkward posture that the stiffness brings. ITB is an old acquaintance. I wish I could de-friend it but it keeps coming back.

I have noticed that a little movement seems to loosen things up so I walked  2 1/2 miles today. I had a pronounced limp but I got where I set out to go. (I bought a couple of Powerball tickets because nothing says “Who cares about back problems?” quite like $400 million.) My ITB wasn’t thrilled but at least my little excursion got me out of the house. When I arrived back home I was just as stiff as when I left.

Then I went into the basement and rode Big Nellie very gently for an hour. Usually, this loosens my back but, if anything, it made it stiffer. Even the recumbent gods are messing with me.

It’s pretty damned frustrating. I watch all these Olympic athletes schussing and skating and such and all I can think is “F%^K YEEEWWWWW”. 

I’m not bitter.

Things could be worse, of course. I could have cancer, which reminds me that I find out about my skin biopsy on Wednesday. Or maybe, I could have senile dementia.

Where was I?  

Oh yes. I was wallowing in self pity. 

The only upside to this last two weeks is the fact that it’s been pretty lousy bike commuting weather. And since last week’s snow storm the Mount Vernon Trail has been impassible, making bike commuting impossible. This will change by Wednesday or Thursday when temperatures will rise into the 50s and, maybe, 60s. 

Then this back thing will really be getting old.

Marmot to the Rescue

Four hours of sleep and a stuffy head do not a happy bike commuter make. The ride to work was drudgery made worse by the headwind, cold-ish temps (30s), and incessant need to blow my nose and cough up all kinds of gunk. We’re having fun now.

On the plus side, the Mount Vernon Trail  was all but empty so The Mule and I could enjoy my misery in solitude.

The weather reports called for snow this evening. At 4 pm I checked the radar. It was raining along my entire commute route. Just to the west, like the jagged index finger of a wicked witch, there ran a long, thin red band (ice), followed by a sea of blue (snow). I finished up a few odds and ends and started packing.

I was on the road by 430. There was some slushy stuff mixed in with the rain. Not too bad. As long as that red streak stayed to the west I was in good shape.

It rained and rained. Yet I was completely comfy. I wore my Marmot Precip rain suit. This is outerwear originally designed for the military and it really works as advertised. You won’t win any cycling fashion shows wearing it and it makes you about as aerodynamic as a flabby moose (floose?) but you’ll stay warm and dry. And so I was.

I plodded along ignoring my speedometer. I usually commute at 11-13 miles per hour but I was definitely off the low end of that range. Along the way I saw some cyclists and runners without rain gear. They looked unhappy. I was all smiles. I was so happy I didn’t even think about being sick and groggy.

Considering the craptastic weather and my cold, I’d say the first bike commute of the year was a rousing success.

There is an inch of snow outside as I write this at 10 pm. To celebrate my first bike commute, I will eat some quiche and work from home tomorrow. Regrets to Mary and Rhoda but the only Friday Coffee Club I’m doing this week will be in my kitchen.

Kona, anyone?

The Streak Is Over

Today was the first day since June that I drove to work. I needed to pick up my son at 2 at his friend’s house northwest of Baltimore. The experience of driving to work was almost surreal. The novelty of it was kind of fun. Of course, it helped that the traffic was unusually light so there were no I HATE THIS moments like I would experience on a normal car commute.

I arrived at my desk 40 minutes earlier than normal. Eek. This won’t do.

Back to the bike next week.

Happy Thanksgiving.

The Weatherman Loses

The weatherman was in full panic mode last night. Send, lawyers, guns, and money mode. I planned on driving to work for the first time since June. When I woke up at 5:30, I could see I had been duped. The temperature was 38. The ground was dry. I packed up all my cares and woes, including my anvil of a laptop, and headed out on The Mule.

I was dressed perfectly. It might as well have been a morning in June. Except for an occasional sprinkle my waterproof gear went untested.

I started to worry a bit at lunchtime. The temperature had dropped. Would their be icing on the trail at night?

I left work at 5:15 into a steady rain. I avoided all the metal grates on Lynn Street and carefully made my way to the Mount Vernon Trail. It looked slick so I took my time. It soon became apparent that ice would not be a problem. Rain drops on my glasses were. Humongous puddles were. But no ice. And lucky for me, no wind either. I cruised home seeing only a handful of other people on the trail. The rain and the quiet made for a very calm, meditative ride.

A man was walking his dog in the rain next to the stone bridge a couple of miles from home. He yelled out, “Biking in the rain is hardcore!” I responded, “Yeah!” Loquacious, aren’t I?

The fallen leaves must have been clogging up the storm drains. I slalomed big, deep puddles the rest of the way home. I pulled into home with a smile on my face. Panic? Moi? Surely you jest.

Final score: Rootchopper 1, Weatherman 0.

Return from Kawledge

I spent the long weekend plus a day visiting my daughter who is a freshman at Butler University in Indianapolis. She seems to be a pretty happy camper, especially for a first semester freshman. She took us on a walk through the gardens and the canal next to campus. They were beautiful. The canal reminded me of the Erie Canal near Rochester that I rode during my 2004 tour.

We attended a football game and a basketball game. The football team scored 72 points (they won by 60).. The visiting basketball team scored 58 (they lost by 31).  It’s not everyday you see a football team outscore a basketball team. The basketball game was held in Hinckle Fieldhouse where the movie Hoosiers was filmed. It’s a beautiful old building with surprisingly good sight lines. Our seats many rows up on the corner of the court were angled in.

We also ate way too much food and saw two movies (Thor II and About Time), both of which were okay.

On the 9+ hour drive each way we saw scores of dead deer on the highways. It was one gory carcass after another.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I got about three hours of sleep last night. The ride to work into a cold 20-mile-per-hour wind  was a crude reminder of last March when the wind seemed to be in my face constantly. At the end of my less than stellar day at the office I was feeling lousy. I dreaded the ride home but the robust tailwind was just what I needed. I managed to avoid six ninjas along the trail. When I got south of Old Town I put it on autopilot, following the white circle formed by my headlight. I was in such a daze that I momentarily couldn’t figure out where I was on the trail. As it turned out I was a good half mile farther south than I thought.

All of which is to say, I need to get to bed. Once this is posted, I am popping a couple of Nyquil and riding to the land of Nod.

The Mule Votes

5:30 in big red numbers. It was taunting me. My body still thinks its Daylight Savings Time. Leave me alone. 5:31. Dammit.

Suffice it to say, I left early. The Mule and I went a half mile to the middle school down the street. I parked right in front of the door to the polls. My delegate, a democrat, was standing there in a Republican cloth coat that would make Pat Nixon proud. After he finished school he rode his bike across the country. Based on his comments on an interview I gave to the Alexandria Patch online newspaper, he doesn’t quite get cycling as a means of transportation. I will endeavor to edjumacate him over the next few years.  He got my vote because he was running against someone who strikes me as a raving religious lunatic.

The line was 3 people long. I was third. Like George Halas.

I voted and collected my sticker. Do they put a gold star on my ballot or a pony sticker?

Vote by bike!

I was off to greet the rising sun. On Park Terrace a big silver SUV pulled along side me. I heard a familiar voice. It was Reba, normally a bike commuter (and Friday Coffee Club regular).  She had rolled down her passenger side window so we could have a rolling chat. More motorists should chat with cyclists. It would defuse the war on cars. After a few minutes, Reba drove away to mingle with the not-so-chatty cars on the George Washington Memorial Highway.

When I got to the highway the sun was peeking over the horizon. It stopped me in my tracks on the Dyke Marsh boardwalk.

Dyke Marsh Sunrise 11/5/2013

A mile or so further along I looked over at the tree with the Belle Haven nest. Two bald eagles was taking in the sunrise. It’s been quite a long while since I’ve seen two in that tree.

I reached down to get a drink of water. No bottle. Oops. Thirst ensued.

I buzzed along the Mount Vernon Trail seeing my regulars much farther to the north than usual, because of my early departure. Nancy “Two Sheds” Duley was startled to see me and gave me her patented wave. (Inside occupational humor.)

The rest of the ride was blissfully devoid of nasty, cold headwinds. A block from my office a Mercedes ran a red light to take a right through the crosswalk that was occupied by about 20 pedestrians, The Mule and I. (It’s legal to ride on the sidewalks in Rosslyn. I checked.)

After a day of magnificent bureaucracy, I headed out. There was still a good 15 minutes of daylight. The trees along the trail are hanging on to their fall foliage for yet another day. It’s been a good show. I tried not to think of the depressing gray and wind and cold that will become the norm for the next three months.

Then it was dark, And the business at hand was following the big white spot in the trail ahead of me. Yes, my master. It’s like riding through a virtual tunnel. Then suddenly, my house appears. Home, warm and dry.