Tag: Bike Friday

Adios April by the Numbers

Despite not bike commuting nearly as often as normal, I managed to bang out a pretty respectable month. I rode 647.5 miles with 12 bike commutes. Little Nellie, my New World Tourist Bike Friday, did the heavy lifting with 9 commutes and 558.5 miles total, including 70, 50.5 and 46 mile mile weekend rides. Big Nellie, my Easy Racers Tour Easy recumbent, took most of the month off with only 29 miles from a single commute. The Mule finally saw some action with 2 commutes worth 60 miles.

For the year I stand at 2162 miles and 55 commutes.

I am expecting to lose a few more bike commutes. A couple next week as a result of my daughter’s two lacrosse games in Potomac. I also have a business trip that will pick off two commutes. And I may lose another day or two fetching my son from college. I plan on riding the remaining days, lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.

 

 

 

Monkey Off My Back

It was in the low 50s. I thought we were done with this. Out came the tights and the vest. And off I went.

I have been riding Little Nellie pretty much constantly for the last several weeks. I know the bike needs a lot of work. It needs a new cassette, chain, two new chainrings, new cables, and housings, and new handlebar tape. An annoying clicking sound happens whenever I pedal with even moderate force. I suspect the bottom bracket needs to be overhauled. So I figured, why not ride it until the parts are completely shot.

I rode to DC avoiding the Mount Vernon Trail except for the last four miles. Once in the city I did a couple of laps around Hains Point, looking for a bald eagle nest that I keep hearing about. Then I rode up into Rock Creek Park. I decided to climb up the Calvert Street hill. Most people don’t ride up this hill. Most people have common sense. Not me.

After the top, I wound my way higher and higher until I came to 34th Street when I turned for home. I made my way back using the Massachusetts Avenue downhill. This would be a really great ride except for the manhole covers. I managed to hit about five of them. Somehow my filling stayed in. I took the L Street cycle track across downtown to the 15 Street cycle track. I’d have taken it all the way to Virginia but it dies so that street vendors can live. We all know that it’s more important for visitors to have stale pretzels and crappy t-shirts than it is to have save cycle routes. I rode through traffic, past an amphibious tour bus and behind a bicycle rickshaw.

Back in Virginia I took empty streets through Arlington and Alexandria until meeting up with the Mount Vernon Trail at the beltway. When I finally arrived home after 46 miles, I looked down at my odometer and saw this:

10,000 Miles for Little Nellie

The monkey jumped off my back.

Lost in Suburbia

Nice day, no?

I fiddled and diddled. Messed around with some crossword puzzles. Then I launched. I intended to ride for a couple of hours but the good weather got the best of me.

I headed south toward Mount Vernon. On the way I got a good look at the Fort Hunt bald eagle nest. The thing is massive. I didn’t have my good camera with me so I didn’t try to take a picture of it. I’ll bet it’s twice the size of the Belle Haven or the Morningside nest.

Little Nellie must have been feeling frisky because we blew right by Mount Vernon and kept going. We hung a left into Fort Belvoir, riding through the base and eventually ending up on Telegraph Road.

The ride was a roller festival. Up and down every mile or two. Every third or fourth hill was a challenge but my legs were fresh. My normal bike commuting week, when I ride all five days, is 150 miles. This week I rode only 109 miles over three days. Fresh legs are good. The weather was splendid, around 70 degrees, light winds and low humidity.

After riding the ups and downs of Old Colchester Road in southern Fairfax County, I reached US 1 just north of the Occoquan River. Southbound traffic was backed up for about a mile. I guessed (correctly as it turns out) that I95 was a parking lot. Traffic was spilling over to all the side streets and soon I was in it.  Near the old Lorton prison complex, I found myself on a narrow road in a long line of cars. I bailed.

A block later a cyclist flagged me down. He was from Pittsburgh. He was riding across country in stages. He was totally, utterly lost. Welcome to Fairfax County! I set him straight. Shortly after sending him on his way, I stopped to check out a roadside historical marker. Did you know that a series of Nike missile sites were arrayed around DC and Baltimore during the Cold War? Did you know that Lorton Virginia had nuclear warheads on its Nikes? This may explain why Lorton’s official motto is Just Nuke It.

I ended up on Ox Road. There were no oxen on Ox Road. Just a herd of unyoked SUVs. I tried the side path for a few miles but it was bumpy and the pristine pavement of the paved shoulder called to me. This may be the only road in all of Northern Virginia with a paved shoulder. So I rode with the big dogs. Other than having SUVs buzz past me at 50 miles per hour for an hour, I was having a great time. Whoosh.

North of Burke Virginia (I have been to Burke ten times in 30 years. I live seven miles away. You figure it out.) I stopped at a Burke eatery called Tiger Mart. I dined on a fine Snickers bar and some cheese crackers. The guy behind me in line bought a quart of oil. He must have been thirsty.

The roadway narrowed. I entered Fairfax City which has a road network designed for peak traffic, in 1956. At one point we were down to two narrow lanes, a curving descent and a recommended speed of 20 miles per hour. I went 23. Take that Fairfax City.

North of the charms of Ffx City, I entered cycling hell. In a half mile, I had to negotiate six interstate on/off ramps. Thank God the drivers were kind to me. There are no accommodations for cyclists along this stretch of road. I believe the traffic engineers who designed this mess  should be required to ride a bike through it  in the rain at night without lights.

Having survived the I66 hellhole, I cruised down Maple Avenue into Vienna. Ooh, more traffic. What fun.

I stopped twice to buy some real food but long lines turned me off so I hopped on Little Nellie and headed for home on the W&OD trail. The W&OD is predominantly downhill and refreshingly free of motor vehicles. Zoom.

I took a right on the Mount Vernon Trail near the airport and headed into the wind for the last ten miles. Happily, the trail was not congested with weekend wanderers. I arrived home after 69 miles. The Snickers and crackers had worn off.

Off to Chevy’s for some Dos Equis and a burrito.

 

Today was [Trumpet fanfare!!!] my 50th bike commute of the year. I knew it was supposed to rain this morning so I watched the radar on TV very closely and set out for work when there was a clear gap in the storms. About 1/4 of a mile into the ride, I saw a flash and heard a boom. It then occurred to me that the guy at the TV station  who lines up the doppler radar echos with a map needs to find a new job.

I wore shorts and a shirt under a rain jacket. It worked okay. There was a whole lot of standing water along my route so my feet got soaked.

I lucked out in that there wasn’t any more lightning and thunder. Just rain. Lots and lots or rain.

The upside to this nasty weather was that the Mount Vernon Trail was empty. No tourists. No people with dogs on 15 foot leashes. No five year olds careening all over the place on training wheels. No Lancelots blowing by me without warning inches from my left elbow. Just me, Little Nellie, and a few bazillion gallons of cold rain.

As I rounded the bend at Gravelly Point, the rain was joined by a gale force crosswind. I had to lean into the wind to avoid being blown into the Potomac River, where white caps were dancing.

The westerly wind came in handy when I turned onto the 14th Street bridge. It blew me across the Potomac. As I reached the Tidal Basin, I could see that the cherry blossoms had succumbed to the storm. Thousands of little blossom petals littered the sidewalk and street. I’m sad to see them go, placed along the trail by eastern redbuds’ purple blossoms.  And soon we’ll soon be dealing with the 17-year cicadas. Eek!

I walked into Swings for Friday Coffee Club and the six cyclists who were there laughed at me. I probably looked like a wet rag. We stood around a couple of tables, drinking coffee and letting the morning’s rain run off our clothes onto the floor. Normally, on Friday mornings I take my coffee with a heaping spoonful of estrogen. Not today. For the first time ever, it was all guys. Was it something we said?

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The ride to Rosslyn across the narrow path on the TR Bridge featured a first: not one stop for DC-bound cyclists.  I did have to slow to squeeze by a runner but she gave me plenty of room.

When I arrived at work, I was greeted with this:Image

The bike parking had been taken over by movers. I pushed some of their moving stuff out of the way and tied Little Nellie to the hitching post. Then it was off to the fitness center where I used an abundance of towels to dry off my stuff.

By the end of the day, my office reeked of wet wool. It’s amazing what an odor just two wet wool socks can put out.

The ride home was dry and warm. The MVT was clear sailing all the way home. My pair of geese is back where they belong in Dyke Marsh but there were no gosslings. Yet.

March Right Outta Here

March is over. FINALLY!

It wasn’t a very productive month for cycling, mostly for family-related reasons. Also, I wimped out when I thought that the Mount Vernon Trail would be too slippery for safe riding.

I rode 434 miles, 312 on Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent. The remaining 122 were on Little Nellie, my Bike Friday New World Tourist. I have yet to ride The Mule this year.  The Mule is tanned, rested and ready.

I only did 15 rides this month. Ten were commutes (8 on Big Nellie and 2 on Little Nellie). The remaining rides ranged from a short 2 ½ mile trip to the hardware store and a 56 ½ mile to the bagel store (in Bethesda).  We could really use a decent bagel store in Mount Vernon. Of course, even with a bagel store, we wouldn’t have a railroad trestle above an urban canyon to hang out on while we ate, but you can’t have everything.

The big highlight of the month was the Vasa ride on Saint Patrick’s Day. (Did you know that Saint Patrick drove all the snakes out of Stockholm?) I did most of that ride with Lisa, who has become a regular ride partner these days.

Big Nellie reached a milestone late in the month, hitting 32,000 miles on the odometer. Little Nellie will probably never catch her two siblings who are slugging it out to reach 33,000 miles this year.  I expect to hit 10,000 miles on Little Nellie later this spring so that’s not half bad.

My mileage for the year is 1515, or 505 miles per month. April will be another month of intermittent commuting. I have a bunch of lacrosse games to attend and a school musical. (My daughter is a busy second-semester senior in high school.)

The highlight of April will almost certainly come this week when the cherry blossoms finally bloom. And there is no better way to see them than on a bike.

Two for Tuesday

I had an 8:30 meeting so I had to get on the road a few minutes early. It was raining, but warm. I hopped on Little Nellie and headed out into a blasting headwind, then turned north. For the rest of the ride that blast pushed me through rain and puddles all the way to DC. I was momentarilly chilled in Old Town. That sensation fell away once I got back on the Mount Vernon Trail.

The MVT was empty today. Riding in 55-60 rainy weather is really not bad as long as you have the right clothes on. I felt superb, realizing that the wind was doing most of the work.

My office had a strategy meeting in a conference room on the 24th floor of an office building near the Key Bridge in Rosslyn. We could see the planes flying toward National Airport. They look so close to the building from the ground but they are far above it as they pass. As the meeting plodded along I could see the back edge of the storm coming toward us. Then there was a cloud burst and the windows were covered with a sheet of water. I was glad I was indoors.

The meeting ended at 4:30 and an urgent family matter sent me home right afterward. Lucky for me, the wind had changed direction. Now, without the rain, I had a second tailwind. I saw Chris from Friday Coffee Club as he made his way toward Rosslyn on the MVT. Judging from the determined look on his face, he was working hard riding into that wind.

Little Nellie, panniers and all, just trucked the whole way home.  I didn’t mind the wet shorts I was wearing. Or the fact that, even with a tailwind, I can’t maintain any decent speed these days. I will blame it on the fact that I forgot my asthma medicine this morning, not my age and disturbingly wide waist line.

 I am not complaining. Even the rain can’t take the joy out of a two-tailwind commute.

Oh Yeah, That Winter Thing

The weatherman has gone to Defcon 1. We are supposed to get 3-8 inches of snow near DC tomorrow. It will rapidly melt, but not before creating a 2- or 3-day headache.

Little Nellie got the call this morning. I found a eye glass mirror in my son’s car last week so I tried that out. I also used sunglasses (actually a clip on my regular glasses). So I was on a vision quest. The sunglasses helped a lot with the sun at a  low angle shining straight in my face. This is the time of year when drivers can be temporarily blinded. Mostly they just keep driving and then when the hit something they say, “I didn’t see it!”  with astonishment. Be prepared to take evasive action.

I’ve tried the mirror out before. I really don’t like it. I have to twist my neck to see what’s behind me. Big Nellie has a mirror that sticks out of the end of the handlebars. (I can’t use one of these on my other two bikes because they have bar end shifters.)  I can glance at it and get a good view. I always know exactly where to look. And it’s big. My little eyeglass mirror is annoying. Two bikes passed me on the Mount Vernon Trail this morning. I never saw them coming.  I think I will try zip tying the mirror to my helmet. Maybe that will be better. It would suck if I ran into something while pre-occupied with this stupid mirror.

The ride in was another slog into a headwind. My legs seemed to struggle the whole way. It could be payback for the 6 ½ mile walk I did on Sunday.  There were no eagles or herons or Nancy Duleys to break up the monotony of the ride. I say this with a bit of irony – my bike commute along the Mount Vernon Trail is about as good as it gets. I am spoiled by the river and the monuments and the planes taking off and landing and the quaint homes of Old Town and on and on.. I long for a commute through a run down slum with industrial blight thrown in here and there.

Well, as luck would have it, nobody erected a slum with industrial blight during the day so I rode home. The wind was from the east, off the river so it was a two-headwind day. I tried not to take this seriously, but Little Nellie was pissed.

The weather was fine for the entire ride. No sprinkles. No snowgflakes. Reasonably comfortable temperatures. Tonight we may get thundersnow.  Cool.

Very Nearly Unhappy Hour

Whenever I go for a ride, I always check that my tires have air and that they are spinning freely. This morning and evening were no different.  It looked like there was rain in the area so I rode Little Nellie to work.  The rain stopped within five minutes. The ride was pleasant and uneventful.

The work day ended with my officemates and I going to a bar around the corner for happy hour. I had a couple of pints of (Shiner Bock and Fat Tire Ale).  I didn’t get on the road until 5:40 or so. 

I made it about halfway home before it got dark and I had to turn on my headlight. It has been a couple of weeks since I rode this long in the dark. The trail was swarming with ninjas. I managed to miss six of them before reaching Old Town.

The Mount Vernon Trail hits Pendelton Street at a T. To my left were a line of parked school buses with their headlights on.  I rode just past the stop sign (first mistake) to get a look to my left around the buses. Then I looked straight. There were two cyclists with headlights turning from the street on my right onto the trail. They were passing directly in front of me. I veered to my right to avoid them. Then looked left again to make sure the coast was clear. Then I hit something. It was a flexipost (a sort of flimsy bollar) that had recently been place in the middle of the street. I stopped immediately and righted the post. Since I was in the middle of the street, I quickly re-mounted my bike and continued on my way. Everything seemed to work fine.

And it did. I got through Old Town in one piece and even managed to avoid my seventh ninja of the night once I was back on the trail. 

Once at home, I opened my shed. I lifted the front end of the bike off the ground to hang it up. The wheel made an odd rattle. I looked down and saw that the quick release on my front wheel was not closed. The flexipost collision had pried it open.  I don’t want to think what would have happened if the front wheel had come off while I was riding. This would be hard to do since the tire is too fat to clear the break pads, but surely a pothole or a good yank on the handlebars could have brought an unpleasant result.

So I am adding checking my quick releases to my pre-ride check list.

 

 

Great Caesar’s Heron

The ride in was pretty darn nice. The roads were still somewhat wet out so Little Nellie got the call again. Temps were in the 40s so I gave the holey sweater and my Marmot Precip jacket a rest.  After yesterday’s soggy ride home, it was apparent that the waterproofing on my Precip jacket and pants is history. Time to look for a sale at REI for replacements. I have beat the crap out of these two pieces of clothing for the last 3 years. Good stuff.

I read in the Post that February and March are bald eagle breeding season around these parts. I have only once seen a pair of bald eagles this winter so I am not expecting a lot of eaglet action when spring arrives. There was no bald eagle at the Belle Haven nest today. In fact other that a stupifying number of geese there wasn’t much in the way of big-ish waterfowl at all. That is until I came upon a big, scruffy looking great blue heron on the river bank right next to the wooden bridge that takes the Mount Vernon Trail under the TR bridge. (Question: why is it so important that the Key and Memorial Bridges look classy but the TR Bridge looks like a rusty piece of crap? Show Teddy some love please.) This bird was impressive so I decided to stop and  walk back with my camera. He was on to me. I must have had birdparazzi written all over my face. He started to walk into the underbrush away from me. He got to the edge of the river and took off about 2 feet above the water. By this point he was too far to get a decent picture but the sight of him in flight made my day.  Herons combine awkward and graceful in a way that few other animals do.

Work was less than intense today. I left a few minutes early. I could have ridden the whole way home without any lights but in the interest of making sure I could be seen I turned them all on as usual. No problem with ninjas tonight. Just hoards of runners. Patriots Day is less than two months away!

During the day friend of the blog, Nancy Duley told me that a police officer was shot in Old Town Alexandria today, about 5 blocks from my commute route. The last I heard he was in critical condition. The assailant was chased and crashed his car on Fort Hunt Road about three miles from my house. He was taken into custody. My bike commute takes me through Old Town Alexandria twice each day.

Another friend of the blog, Kate C., is a police officer in DC. She will be riding her bike from Richmond to DC as part of the Police Unity Tour. This event raises money for the memorial to fallen law enforcement personnel. You can read more about it on her blog. Or you can skip straight to her fundraising page.

As for the ride home, it was a piece of cake. I left work a little early so I was in daylight all the way home. I turned on my lights just to been seen. The Mount Vernon Trail was filled with runners in their shorts. Some of them were moving pretty fast. Patriots Day is less than 2 months away!

 

I could never be a police officer. Just the thought of doing a night time traffic stop gives me the willies. Friend of the blog, Kate C., however, is a police officer in DC. In a few weeks, she will be riding from Richmond to DC as part of the Policy Unity tour. It raises monet for a memorial to fallen law enforcement personnel.