Tag: bike commuting

The Iceman Cometh

I grew up in Awbunny New Yawk. After 18 years of freezing winters, I moved to Bahston. After 5 years, including the Blizzard of ’78, I moved to Prawvidence where there’s a ubiquitous poster that says “in the rainy season, when it snows like a bitch.” Awbunny usually has a couple of weeks with below zero temperatures. Bahston has howling winds and dormitories located a mile walk from class (go BU!). Prawvidence turns into a glacier for a month every year. 

After 28 years of coping with winter, I gave up and moved to DC. After a month of my first DC winter, I gave away my green Mr. Michelin coat, It was simply too warm for even the coldest days. Every year or two we have a legitimately cold day. Tonight and tomorrow is our time.

This morning I left early for work in the dark. It was raining with temperatures in the mid forties. Properly clothed this was actually pretty comfortable riding. There were patches of ice here and there along the way but nothing I couldn’t ride around or through. The rain stopped by the time I made it to work. 

I spent the day with one eye on my work and one on the weather. I could see the rain leaving on the radar and the cold air approaching. If the rain from this morning didn’t dry up, the ride home could be an icy mess. Freezing temperatures reached the DC western suburbs at 3:30. Time to boogay.

I left the office at 4 and, after nearly getting blown over, turned into a strong wind. The Mule would not be tamed. In a quarter mile, I turned off the streets and picked up my own personal tailwind. As I rode along the Potomac River, I could see that most of the rain had indeed dried. Now the problem was all the dead tree limbs littering the trail. Good thing it was daylight because I would have hit a few of them in the dark for sure. 

South of the Memorial Bridge the trail started to get slippery. The problem wasn’t ice; it was the poo from a thousand geese.  I pedaled through the messes and the masses and watched as they skittered left and right and flew over my head. This weather was fowl indeed. (Sorry.)

All the way home I kept an eye on the temperature read-out on my bike computer. It started at 39. By the time I cleared Old Town Alexandria it was down to 33. Occasional twists in the trail would momentarily send me into the wind. Oof! Brr! Pedal, pedal.

In the few wet spots on the trail under the Wilson Bridge, it looked like black ice was forming. With no one on the trails or roads I could easily ride around these. Take me home tailwind. 

As I rolled into the driveway in the twilight, the temperature read “32”. 

I’m working from home tomorrow. The read out will be in the single digits with howling winds. That;s cold enough to make you tawk funny or drop some ahs.

Shutout

It rained. It sleeted. It snowed. True to its policy, the National Park Service refused to sand, salt or plow the Mount Vernon Trail, leaving all of its bridges an icy mess for the week.

Lovely.

I fell on icy roads last winter and noticed that it was painful, so I decided to forgo orthopedic chaos this week and either drove to work or worked from home. I haven’t looked at my records but this may be my first weeklong shutout since Snowmaggedon.

The week wasn’t a complete loss. Since I had my car at work, I drove up to the fabulous WABA World Headquarters to pick up my prize for winning their membership drive. During the drive, I chose to sign people up for WABA memberships on the Mount Vernon Trail at the 14th Street bridge. It was my good fortune to pick the spot that several hundred bike commuters passed that evening.

My prize was a Chrome bike messenger bag filled with bicycling goodies: socks, a U-lock, a water bottle and cage, a refrigerator magnet, EPO, and a jersey.  (Just kidding about the EPO.) II was really kind of excited about the jersey. I don’t own a single bicycle jersey. The one I won is a large. I suspected that it was probably a little small for me. So I tried it on. Apparently, they acquired this jersey from.the new City Bikes store in Lilliput.  I looked like Will Ferrell in the cowbell sketch. I’m sure I can find some svelte person to give it to.

On Thursday night I drove to the WABA holiday party at the Bier Baron, which is located in the west end of DC, between Dupont Circle and Georgetown. Car traffic was gridlocked so after 15 frustrating minutes I kind of gave up on the party and turned toward Georgetown. Within a block I found free on-street parking. It was sign from God that I should not give up. I parked my car and walked a mile to the venue in the cold.

Inside there were a flabbergasting number of WABA people, so many that it was impossible to get a drink. I followed Alex and Chris to the basement bar. We hung out with other thirsty refugees including Dave, Brian, Chris B, and Lolly. The beer was pretty good except for a habanero laced pint that fearless Lolly ordered. It was muy picante. I sipped it and my mouth burned for 20 minutes. I can’t comprehend how anyone could ingest more than an ounce or two of the stuff.

After a while Chris B and I went back upstairs to mingle. I said hello to Megan and Colin along the way. We hung out with Katie (I’m pretty sure there’s a Kate Bicycle Cult in this town)  and her sister Liz. The hour was getting late-ish so I bid my farewells and braved the frigid temps to walk back to my car. Beer is good antifreeze. It felt great to walk with my jacket open. Take that winter!

Two Decades of Riding to Work

Last week I rode my 163rd bike commute of the year, surpassing my previous high total of 162 commutes in 2012. This all got me to thinking: just how long have I been at this bike commuting thing and how many times have I done it. As it turns out, back in my 20s I was an avid distance runner. I started keeping a diary of my runs. I am pretty sure these diaries date back to the early 1980s. The first few years are filled with scribbles about running, how many miles I put on each pair of running shoes (It matters. Old shoes are nasty bad for your legs.), where and how fast I ran. One year I actually knocked out 3,000 miles of running. Looking back on that I am stunned at what kind of shape I was in.

About 30 years ago I moved to DC from Rhode Island. Rhode Island is a runner’s paradise. DC is a sweatbox. Needless to say, my running suffered. Then in 1985, I was playing volleyball after work on a business trip in Austin Texas. I went up for a spike and when I came down my left knee popped. That was pretty much all she wrote for my running days. Oh, I kept at it for a few more years but all I succeeded in doing was wrecking my right knee as I compensated for my left.

I started running when the short autumn days made riding a bike without a light after my grad school classes too dangerous. Looking back, I was bike commuting often to the economics department in Providence. I didn’t think of it that way. I was just getting around the most efficient way I could without a car. So I didn’t keep track. When I moved to DC, I worked in an office without showers so no bike commuting for me. That all changed when they put in a fitness center at work. I loved the treadmills and the stairmasters and the weights. And in 1990 I rode my bike to work a whopping 6 times. Whoa, Nellie. I even rode my trusty 1978 Raleigh Grand Prix. (It literally fell apart on the Custis Trail at the top of a hill near Rosslyn Virginia.)  For whatever reason, I didn’t commute at all in 1991, but in 1992, as a new dad, I rode my bike to work 6 more times! What a stud!

In 1992, I rode to work 32 times, apparently a few times on my new Sequoia. In 1993, I dropped back to 27 commutes, most likely because of back surgery in the fall and dozens of rides pulling my boy and his toys in our Burley trailer. I rebounded in 1994 to 38 and backslid to 18 in 1995 when my daughter was born. 1996 and 1997 were fallow bike commuting years, with only 4 commutes each year.

Then I started climbing the ladder. 55 in 1998 and  62 1/2 (apparently a one-way commute was in there) in 1999.Then came a seven-year run of over 100 commutes per year peaking at 146 commutes in 2002. Along the way I learned that my bike was the best choice for getting to work during dark times like the 911 attacks and the DC sniper shootings.

I back slid in 2007 to 57 commutes and started to climb the ladder again: 66 in 2008 then 86 in 2009. I haven’t been below 100 since. In 2010 my commutes popped back up to 146, then 134 1/2 in 2011.

In those early years I refused to ride in the cold. Instead I’d prop a bike on an indoor trainer and watch movies. Two hours on a wind trainer can kill you. Many of the low numbers reflect the hectic schedule of a bike commuter in a two-wager earner, two-kid family. It kind of blows me away how busy our daily lives were. For a few years, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge construction fiasco made it possible for me to commute and pick the kids up at school. We couldn’t drive to my kids’ school and get to and from work. Traffic was awful. So I improvised. Mrs. Rootchopper drove the kids to school. I left early and drove to a point just outside the beltway, pulled my bike off the back of the car, rode to and from work, and fetched the kids in the evening. No more construction delays for me. (Yes, there were several days when my 10 mile evening ride to the car was fast and furious. But I was never late for the kids. Go ahead VDOT, make my day!

So what does it all add up to? In the last ten years, I’ve ridden my bike to work 1,117 times. Since 1990, I’ve done 1,937 commutes.  Through back surgery, raising two kids, six eye surgeries, and lord knows how many other debacles and disasters, I have soldiered on. Of course, when it comes to snow and ice, I am a wimp. We all have our shortcomings.

My early commutes were often over 40 miles because I rode way out of my way on the way home to get some extra exercise. My shortest commutes these days are 6 or 7 miles between car dealerships and my office. So for the sake of simplicity, I’ll assume that my average commute distance has been 30 miles. Doing the math, that’s 58,110 miles.

Dang.

Sometime in 2014 I’ll hit 2,000 commutes. When that happens, I’ll give some thought to retiring. Biking to work is starting to get old.

 

 

October by the Numbers

Thanks to the government shutdown, I did much less bike commuting than usual in October. I rode to work only 11 times for a total of 338 miles. I rode The Mule on one commute and Little and Big Nellie on five commutes each. I did 581 miles of non-commute riding, mostly meanders that involved a stop for coffee. In the process, I finished the Coffeeneuring Challenge. (I am  looking forward to this winter’s Eggnoggneuring event.) My longest ride was a 64 mile ride on Big Nellie. So for those of you who are additively challenged, I rode 919 miles during the month.

The biggest difference this month was that I rode Little Nellie, my Bike Friday New World Tourist, 266 miles, more than I have in several months. She came out of the bullpen when The Mule came down with an acute case of broken seat post binder bolt blues. Big Nellie carried me 443 miles. Before its seat post bolt snapped under the weight of its engine, The Mule took me 210 miles. And  I finally replaced the saddle on The Mule. It had a broken adjuster bolt and was sagging  like an ass hammock. I am sending it out for repair, which means that sometime in December I should have four Brooks leather saddles (three Flyers and a B67) for two bikes.  One can never have too many leather saddles.

I have ridden 6,296 miles so far this year, including 148 bike commutes.

I took today off. My bikes are tired.

Post Traumatic Weekend Syndrome

As many of my readers know, I did two hilly metric centuries this weekend. Since my accounts and a few pictures are long and I am still pooped, I will blog about them in the days to come. For today I present what it’s like to commute on two legs of lead: not exactly expeditious! 

I left home a few minutes early to be sure to arrive at work in time for an 8:30 commitment. About a mile from home I rode up a short steep hill on my way to the Mount Vernon Trail.  Dang! My legs were dead meat. Undaunted, I continued on flat Alexandria Avenue. I spotted some kids waiting for a school bus. Their heads were dropping as they drowsily ignored each other and mourned the end of the weekend. On my recumbent I have a nice view of the sky. Just before I passed the kids, a big bald eagle came soaring right over the tops of the trees toward us. Not one of them saw it. Then, another bald eagle came right behind the first. The kids missed that one too. Kind of hard to get inspired for the start of the week if you don’t look up now and then, no?

The ride into work featured a nice cold headwind. Lovely. The Hoppy Runner seemed not to mind as he had the wind at his back. Nancy “Two Sheds” Duley waved hello and yelled “Enjoy the wind!”  as she cruised by on her way south.

As I cleared the 14th Street bridge a passing rider commented on my weekend riding.  How the heck he knew I rode both rides is beyond me.

The rest of the ride north was uneventful except for the hill up to Rosslyn. It seemed much steeper today. A block from work I admired a black Maserati as it waited at a traffic light in front of me. If I owned a Maserati I don’t think I’d drive it in rush hour traffic.

The ride home featured a welcome tailwind. I could tell I was still a little out of it when I passed a jogger pushing one of those fancy baby carriages. I could see a bike approaching from ahead of us. Normally, I’d just accelerate but today when I called on my legs to push they said, “Not today”. Thankfully, the approaching rider was alert and I managed to veer out of his way. My apologies if you read this.

I have a short climb to get up to Washington Street at the beltway. My legs were convinced we were on Alpe D’Huez. At the top, I started to turn left to cross an intersection. I saw a runner coming from that direction. My eyes fixated on him. Instead of stopping, I glided a bit. Just as the runner reached the curb cut on my side of the intersection, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something big. I hit my brakes and stopped just before hitting a light pole. My legs aren’t the only things that are tired.

I managed to get home from there in one piece. As I crossed the Dyke Marsh boardwalk, I huge Great Blue Heron flew from right to left in front of me, coming to a soft landing in the water to my left.

Even tired and sore, my bike commute is still pretty damned nice.

Tomorrow, part one of Let’s Ride Two.

Radar Love

Bike tourists love maps. They pour over them before their trips and imagine lovely country roads with barns and cows and Mail Pouch tobacco signs. They don’t give much thought to steep hills and dogs while doing this because it’s all about imaging the perfect tour. On my 2003 tour from Indiana to DC, I carried an absurd number of maps, most of which I mailed home after a few days.

Bike commuters are radar junkies. Today, the forecast was for afternoon storms. If you’re going to slog through puddles and mud, you ought to be riding a mule. So, The Mule got the call. The morning ride was enjoyable with a nice tailwind and warm temperatures.

At noon, I checked the radar. I kept checking it throughout the afternoon. I was stuck in a meeting in my boss’s office but he has a nice few to the north and west. The skies looked pretty ominous. From 3:30 on I kept refreshing the radar on my computer. I wasn’t getting a whole lot of work done, so I packed up my bags at 4:30, a little earlier than usual, and headed out. My last radar check showed that the heavy rain was a couple miles west and north.

I didn’t factor in the delay in posting the radar. I hit the street with a reflective vest and my head and tail lights shining. The rain had just begun. I managed to catch a red light and the rain intensified while I waited. By the time I turned onto the Mount Vernon Trail for the ride to the southeast, it was pouring. The raindrops were big and long. They caught the light of my headlight and looked like silvery fish. I was riding through bait.

Within a mile I was completely soaked. Once you’re wet, you’re wet. You might as well keep riding, that way you’ll at least stay warm.

It was raining so hard that I was actually getting a drink from the water pouring down my face as a I rode. It was a nice bonus, but the nicer bonus was the strong tailwind pushing me down the trail. In fact the only downside to riding in the downpour was the stinging in my eyes. It’s a good idea to wear a cycling cap in rainstorms to keep the water out of your eyes. My cap was back home. One of these days I’ll get around to buying few more.

Riding blind in a down pour isn’t all that dangerous when you know the path ahead. I’ve ridden the Mount Vernon Trail a couple thousand times at least so I wasn’t about to veer off the pavement.

Under the 14th Street bridge, their are three huge downspouts that carry the rain from the roadway above straight down onto the trail. (Proving once again that trail users get no respect.) There was so much water gushing down that the flow of water looked like waterfalls.

As usual, there were several people under the bridge waiting out the storm. Judging from the radar they were in for a long wait.

About 100 yards south of the bridge, the rainfall slowed. The farther south I went, the lighter the rain. In fact, it didn’t pick up again until I was about 1/2 mile from home.

I pulled in to my yard soaked to the bone. My saddle and pants and shoes were all making squishing sounds. Rather than feeling miserable I was chuffed. Sometime after your tenth birthday, you lose track of the fact that playing in the rain is a lot of fun.

No rain tomorrow. My liquid refreshment will be a jumbo coffee at Swings near the White House.

Above the Fold Today, Beneath the Parrot Tomorrow

Well, it has certainly been an interesting day. It actually all started a month or so ago.

I saw a notice online that a Washington Post reporter was looking to talk to people who commuted by bike on the Mount Vernon Trail. I sent my contact information and, within a few days, found myself talking to Pat Sullivan, a reporter for the paper of record in these parts.

Pat and I talked about my commute, what I liked about it and didn’t. I gave her the URL of this blog and that was that. A couple of weeks went by and there was no article. Just as I thought the article had been round filed, I received an email from Pat asking if she could talk to me again.

Pat had written an article about bike commuting in general and her editor wanted a more personal angle. So I found myself on the phone with her again. Since the previous call, Pat had gone to school on the trail. She knew the milestones, the pinch points and other characteristics and nuances of the trail from one end to the other.  This

conversation was much more focused on the good and the bad of my commute. How the headlights from the cars on the adjacent George Washington Memorial Parkway can blind winter commuters, how ninjas pose a hazard to themselves and other trail users, and how the Rosslyn Circle of Death is my bête noire (by which I do not mean a Bryan Ferry record). Part of the discussion involved the automatic counters that are positioned at intervals along the trail. (I had always thought that these were inactive as they emit no light or sound and have no obvious power source.)

A few more weeks went by. I went out of town this weekend to deliver my son’s stuff to his college apartment in upstate New York. I arrived home last night after ten, tired from eight plus hours of driving in busy Labor Day traffic and wired from way too much caffeine. Not being able to sleep I surfed the net for an hour and there it was., just posted on the Washington Post website, an article about the traffic and traffic counters on the Mount Vernon Trail. I clicked on the link and the first two words of the article were my name!  Eek!!

When I opened the paper in the morning there it was, a huge article with pictures and an infographic. Sheesh!! And there was my name above the fold!!

I rode my bike to work very cautiously. Wouldn’t it be a scream if I crashed the day of the article? Nothing bad happened. The Three Step Runner was cruising down Park Terrace drive. Traffic was suspiciously light on the GWMP.  Small waves on the river were lapping the riverbank. Just another day on the MVT.

My Office Door This Morning
My Office Door This Morning

I arrived at work to find the article posted on my office door with my name circled. I checked my Facebook page and Twitter feed. There were many kind words said. My sarcastic (I hope) daughter Lily had the comment of the day: “What a loser. He should just buy a car.” Have a nice 12-hour bus ride home for Thanksgiving, Lil.

The ride home tonight was a blast. Big Nellie, a tailwind, and fresh legs made for a brisk pace. What a terrific day.

Then it occurred to me. Tomorrow, I am yesterday’s news. My name will be at the bottom of some parrot’s cage, with bird poop on it.

Fame is fleeting.

August by the Numbers

I have to say that I am a little surprised by my riding in August. I missed five days because of a car trip to Indiana. With the 26 other days of the month, I kept my stable of bikes pretty busy. I rode to work 18 out of 18 days (not counting one day of telecommuting). My parking space at work has grown some cobwebs this summer. (I haven’t used it since mid-June.) I had a false start with one commute when the chain on Big Nellie broke 6 miles from home. 

All but one of my 18 commutes were aboard The Mule. Big Nellie had the other one. Big Nellie spent most of the month in dry dock, because its manufacturer twice screwed up sending a replacement fork. First, they sent the fork to the wrong bike shop. (I am told by Tim at Bikes at Vienna that this isn’t the first time they have confused his shop with this particular other one. ) Then the sent a second fork to the right shop, but it was the wrong size. If not for Tim’s intervention, they’d be unaware that their inventory is messed up.

I did some casual rides, two of which were metric centuries (around 62 miles). One was aboard Little Nellie, the second was the Hoppy 100.

I rode 563 miles just getting to and from work. I did another 218 miles on the weekends. That’s a total of 781 miles for the month, and 4,444 for the year.  I ridden to work 119 times.

 

Big Nellie Returns, Not

A few weeks ago during a bike ride, I went to open my water bottle valve with my teeth as I have done hundreds of times before. This time, a veneer crown popped off one of my teeth. Yesterday, after two weeks and over $800, the dentist installed a new crown and my tooth looks fabulous. Frankly, I don’t give a damn about its appearance, I’ll settle for structural integrity.

After visiting with my dentist, I drove out to Bikes at Vienna to pick up Big Nellie. The gears work. The brakes work. The new Panaracer Pasella tire with Tourguard feels like buttah. On the way home, I dropped the car off for an oil change and rode Big Nellie the last mile and a half. Sweet.

When I spotted our silver Accord in my driveway, my brain said, “Lily’s home.” And I immediately realized how life has suddenly changed. Lily, my daughter, is now a freshman in college, far away in Indianapolis (a city with some pretty awesome new bike infrastructure, by the way.) Not having her around brings a mixture of feelings. There is a sense of loss and a sense of excitement. I miss her but I know she’s going to have a great experience in college. Go get ‘em, Lily!

I was all psyched to ride Big Nellie to work this morning when I discovered that her new rear tire was flat. Yeesh! Rather than mess with a tire change first thing in the morning, I hopped on The Mule and headed for work. It was muggy and foggy and just kind of gross out. I passed the Hoppy Runner and Nancy “Two Sheds” Duley. Nancy was riding with a headlight on, which I find depressing; summer is almost over.

The ride home was typical for DC in late summer: an erratic tailwind combined with muggy conditions. The ride was made significantly easier than the ride in, because I wasn’t carrying my anvil of a laptop in my panniers.

Once home, I took the wheel off Big Nellie and examined the tube and tire. I couldn’t see anything wrong with the tire but the tube was losing air pretty fast. It turns out the valve stem was broken. Stuff happens. While I was working on the bike, I toed in the brake pads on the rear wheel.

Big Nellie is rested and ready. Tomorrow we ride to Friday Coffee Club at sunrise.

Hoppy Hoping

It was a splendid early October morning for today’s bike commute on The Mule.  Too bad it’s August. Oh well. I broke out a long sleeve t-shirt (that my daughter bought me in Alaska ironically) and hit the road. I was in the zone the whole way to work. I said hello to the Hoppy Runner and Nancy “Lumberjack Jersey” Duley along the way but I don’t recall anything else. You know the David Byrne feeling you get when you drive somewhere for the umpteenth time, you arrive at your destination, and think to yourself “How did I get here?”

During the day, John Roche,  BikeDC’s Godfather of Craft Beer, announced the details of this year’s Hoppy 100 ride. Last year’s ride was pretty epic, 100 miles, three beer establishments, a ferry ride across the Potomac, a torrential downpour, and a ride home in the dark. What more could you ask for. (And one of the beers was even called Derecho!)

This year’s ride will be a little more urban in focus and only 73 miles. In order not to tie a car up for the day, I’ll have to ride to the start in DC. This should push my mileage for the day up to 100 miles.

There seem to be quite a few folks interested in this year’s escapade, including my personal riding buddy and returning Hopster Lisa. Also, joining us should be Alex Baca who I’ve done two rides with.

My choice of steed is up in the air. I hope to pick up Big Nellie from Bikes at Vienna on Saturday. We’d been waiting for a fork from Big Nellie’s home base in California, but they sent it to the wrong bike shop. Tim of BatV  is hopeful that I’ll be back in the foam seat (just doesn’t have the same ring as “back in the saddle” does it?) again on Saturday. All that said, if it rains on Sunday, I’ll probably ride The Mule cause The Mule’s a good mudder.

Well, the ride home was so nice that words fail me. I had lots of company. There were so many bikes streaming across the 14th Street bridge I did a double take. Of course, most of them blew by me within the next mile. People coming toward me were talking and smiling. If I had regular pants on, I would have sworn that my fly was down.

The last few miles were a bit of a slog. I rode up the Park Terrace hill without my usual verve, which is saying something because I normally climb like a crippled gnu.

Time to shut it down again for the night. Gotta get up early for Friday Coffee Club.