On the third day of Furloughmas my bicycle gave to me, a ride in Virginia Hunt Country.
I spent my first two days of being unemployed getting caught up on non-biking things. Today I decided to go for a ride. I pulled out my ancient copy of the Washington Area Bicycling Atlas and found a challenging 55-mile ride that I did about 10 years ago. The ride was a big oval running east then south then west then north then east back to the start in the town of Marshall in wine and hunt country.
My recollection from the last time I did this ride is that there is nasty hill at about 30 miles. Much of the ride was on windy two lane country lanes. When I wasn’t gawking at the pretty farms, I was taking in the Blue Ridge Mountains looming in the back ground. I could have taken pictures all day but put my camera away after a shot of the road ahead. You wanna see pretty go ride out yonder.
I chose The Mule, my old Specialized Sequoia, for the ride. After missing my first turn, I got back on course and headed for the country. After riding about 10 miles with a couple of respectable hills included, I rode through the crossroads town of Waterloo. The next ten miles headed west toward the Blue RIdge. I stopped for lunch at a store in Orlean, another crossroads town. I had a bologna sandwich because I haven’t seen a bologna sandwich on a menu in decades. Bologna is regarded as bad food. You don’t want to know what it is made of. It also happens to be pretty awesomely tasty. I also ate a bag of Route 11 tater chips. I washed it all down with an Arnold Palmer. I somehow managed to survive the feast.
View from the hip
Back on the bike, I continued west through the town of Hume. My brain said that the serious climb was only a couple of miles ahead but I recollected the terrain incorrectly. There were hills but none of them were all that steep. After the course turned to the north, my memory was abruptly refreshed. The road rose and rose past the Naked Mountain Winery and rose some more. I was in my granniest gear but the “hill” was winning. I reached the top, stopped, bent over the handlebars and huffed and puffed for 30 seconds or more. Then I got back on the bike, turned the corner, and discovered that there was still more climbing to be done. Fail. If only I had eaten free range salmon on gluten free flaxseed bread and washed it down with acai berry juice. Of course, then I would have puked my guts out, thereby lightening my load and making it up the mountain robustly (but with fierce dragon breath).
I made it to the top and set in for the 39 mile per hour ride down the other side. I’d have gone faster but for the crappy chip seal road surface. After bouncing around and holding on for dear life, I managed to make it to route 17 where the pavement was smooth and the cars were fast. The shoulder was plenty wide (a rarity in Virginia) and I buzzed along to route 50. This was also a smooth highway but with precious little in the way of a shoulder. The cars passing me gave me lots of room though, including a right hand drive Mini.
The last ten miles involved a bit more climbing (they apparently don’t call one of the towns Upperville for nothing) but after the ride up Naked Mountain I couldn’t complain much.
At the finish, I was, well, finished. Pooped. The ride was just long enough to get me to forget about the mess in DC.
I highly recommend this ride if you like to look at immense estates with horseys and cows. And the Blue RIdge. And dozens of vultures gorging on road kill (not me thankfully).
I suppose you could stop at the dozen or so vineyards I rode past. I seriously doubt you’d make it up Naked Mountain with a belly full of wine. Then, again, I am pretty sure you wouldn’t much care.
Mike is a randonneur, a cyclist who rides appalling long distances on cans of Coke. Mike is loquacious. Mike is to talk as a hungry fat man is to chips and queso. Mike also likes airplanes, the bigger the better. And for some reason, Mike is hell bent on cycling me to death.
Mike invited me to join him and some other cyclists of the randoneuring persuasion for a ride out to the Air and Space museum at Dulles airport.
The weather was perfect: 70 degrees, light winds, puffy white clouds on a background of blue, blue sky. Mike and his wife Lisa left their home in Tacoma Park in DC (pretty much at the northernmost corner of the city). They were riding a DaVinci tandem. This particular tandem has an interesting feature: the stoker (rider in the back) pedals completely independently of the captain (the rider doing the steering in the front). Ed and Mary were riding their gray Co-Motion tandem with synchronized pedalling. Lane was riding a single bike, blue and of indeterminant ethnicity and vintage. It had a little plastic spaceman zip tied to one of its seat stays and a little plastic rocket facing aft, zip tied to the rear fender. He’s either a Bill Lee fan or works in the aerospace industry.
Now one thing I should mention about these five folks is that they ride everywhere and NEVER get tired! Mike knows every back road from Charlottes to Canajoharie. They also ride fast even when they aren’t trying.
Since I am not similarly indefatigable and expeditious, I left my house in Mount Vernon VA about 30 minutes before they headed out. I spent the first hour or so dodging runners on the Mount Vernon trail. They were out in great abundance because the weather was perfect for running and their fall marathons are only a few weeks away. After a while I started thinking of them as moving bollards.
At National Airport I hung a left and followed Four Mile Run to Shirlington where I picked up the W&OD trail. I had planned to meet the randos at the intersection of the Custis trail and the W&OD in eastern Arlington County. The randos had stopped for coffee in Arlington. Caffeine is to randos as the blood of virgins is to vampires.
In short order they appeared and stopped to allow Lisa the first of her 453 wardrobe changes. Leg warmers, arm warmers, long fingered gloves, and jacket went on and off throughout the day, more often than not while we were moving.
Once we were underway I could tell we’d be riding fast, because my speedometer had 17, then 18, then 19 displayed. These are numbers that I, the 12-mile-per-hour commuter, makes rare use of. Not that I was having trouble keeping up. The Mule was cruising along and I was not breathing hard at all. It probably didn’t hurt that I was often in the slipstream of a tandem or two.
Up the W&OD we went to Vienna VA where we stopped at Cafe Amore for rando blood. I was disappointed that Dean Martin was not singing “When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, “ when we rolled in. After a wardrobe change, we were back on the bikes. After about five miles of trail, Mike took us off the trail and onto the roads of Reston. The first quarter mile was a bit of a shock, being that we had to climb a rather steep hill, but the remainder of the ride through McMansion heaven was on rolling roads with little traffic. Here I learned that you don’t want to be in front of a tandem on the crest of a hill. They go downhill like Big Nellie with a fairing. Voom.
After a few wrong turns (Mike knows the roads but sometimes doesn’t speak their language), we found ourselves blasting down narrow bike paths between neighborhoods. How Mile knew about these trails of certain death is beyond me. We managed to survive and inexplicably popped out a couple of miles east of the museum where we stopped at a strip mall for food and blood.
I tried a Slim Jim type food-type product. I don’t think it is coincidental that the diameter of said Slim Jim is about the same as the diameter of my carotid artery – at least before I ate it that is.
While we were dining on the sidewalk of strip mall, we heard a roar. We had thought we were too late for the arrival of the enormous new Airbus Stratohippo, a two decker jumbo jet. Alas, by the time we spotted it, it had already flown behind some trees. All we could see was it’s tail fin passing by above the tree tops like a shark fin in the water. I could almost hear the cello from Jaws as it went by.
A few minutes later we were parking our bikes for free next to the museum. It costs $15 to park a car there but the museum is free, so biking is the way to go. Lisa watched the bikes as we took ten minutes (which is how randos say “half an hour”) in the museum. There are planes and spacecraft galore in this place. The big ones are a Concorde SST, a retired space shuttle, and a big, sleek, stealthy, black Blackhawk spy plane. There are scores of others parked and hanging from the rafters willy nilly throughout the place.
Mike and the Blackhawk
After getting our fix of aerospace and aviation stuff, we mounted our bikes for the ride back. The first five miles were another Mikeroads fest. I swear the locals don’t know these roads like Mike does.) If not for the sun casting an easterly shadow in front of me, I would not have had a clue as to what direction we were riding. We eventually rejoined the W&OD and headed for Reston Town Center. There most of us bought gelatto, but Ed went for espresso. He will henceforth be known as Vlad the Imbiber.
Back on the trail we headed east. I started to lag, no doubt the result of toxic gelatto. The others were riding at 20 miles per hour while Lisa made origami bicycles on the back of the DaVinci. I noticed that several times during the ride, she would sit up, stop pedalling and adjust her hair. The tandem never slowed as Mike compensated with more pedal power. Sheesh.
Every so often, Ed and Mary would let free the reins and the Co-Motion would zoom ahead like one of the cruise missiles at the museum.
The four randos kindly let me catch up east of Vienna. In Falls Church they left the trail for the streets. I stayed on the W&OD and made my way through a charity 3K fun run. Once in to Arlington the two-legged bollards dissipated so that I could enjoy the gradual downhill all the way to US 1 near the river. I doubled back at US 1 and rode through the streets of Alexandria to avoid riding on the Mount Vernon Trail for a few miles. I rejoined the trail south of Old Town and found my butt to be rather sore. The discomfort was soon forgotten when I noticed that I was going 0 miles per hour. Somehow the motion sensor on my bike computer had gone kaput. Argh!
Aside from that little technical glitch, I was pretty darn happy with the day’s events. A good 76-mile ride in good weather with good folks to a good museum is always a good thing. Thanks to Mike for thinking this ride up and to the rest of the randos for humoring me and The Mule.
Today was the day for the Southern Maryland 100 bike ride. The ride begins and ends in Indian Head Maryland. There’s not much there but a navy installation. I’ve done the metric century (100 kilometers) several times before. It’s a lovely place to ride and only about 40 minutes from my house by car.
I rode Big Nellie today. The weather was as good as it could be for bike riding. I took a cue sheet but I didn’t need it. I just followed the green arrows on the road.
This ride is put on by the Oxon Hill Cycling Club. They do a wonderful job of staffing the rest stops with interesting food. The first stop had English muffin sandwiches with ham, eggs and salsa. Also, peanut butter sammiches! The next stop had enthusiastic junior high (or maybe high school) kids cheering us as we rode in. Their special treat was tomato and mayo sammiches. I couldn’t resist. The last rest stop had cherry slushies and veggie sticks (sort of like potato sticks but more better).
The terrain is not very difficult. Oh, there are maybe 10 hills to climb but none of them harder than the Park Terrace hill near my home. Of course, on a recumbent, you get passed by lots of roadies going up. Going down is another story; I hit 37 miles per hour on one downhill and reached the mid-30s on the rest. Too bad I didn’t have my fairing on.
The riders were very respectful of each other. The lycra pacelines announced their passes and gave me plenty of room. This is not the case at Backroads (my only complaint about a ride that I love). People said “Good morning” as they passed or chatted about how nice a day it was.
I needed to get back home to take care of a few things so I didn’t socialize or hang out at the rest areas. The last big hill is called Rose Hill. Even the roadies were flagging on this one. I had stayed out of my granny gear all day, but I dropped into it on Rose Hill. I was surprised at how good my legs felt near the top. I down shifted and passed a bunch of wedgie (that’s recumbent speak for a conventional bike) riders just before the top of the hill. After 33,998 miles, I’m starting to get the hang of this recumbent thing.
I had plenty left in the tank when I got to the finish. I could easily have ridden the century. I am downloading the cue sheet for the 100 mile ride for future use.
When I got back to my car, my rear window had been defaced, or besmirched, or disrespected. My kids attended the Maret School for high school. I have a Maret sticker on my back window, but it was covered with a sign from a Dematha person. In nature, stags crush frogs, but in DC, FROGS RULE.
]I had intended to go for a monster ride today, drive out into the country, take Big Nellie off her leash and let her rip. I stupidly didn’t get my butt in gear until 10 so the opportunity for a century an hour drive away was lost. Instead I went into my basement looking for a cue sheet for the Southern Maryland Century, which starts in Indian Head MD, only 20 minutes from my house. During my search I found a cue sheet for a metric century (64 miles) in eastern Prince Georges County MD 30 minutes from my house.
So I took off Big Nellie’s fairing (a windshield made of Lexan) and plopped my long wheel base recumbent on my bike rack. And off I drove.
When I pulled into the park where the ride began, I saw a couple hundred cars parked. What are the odds that I would randomly pick this cue sheet on the day of this year’s ride? I felt a bit like a gate crasher. Riders on fast bikes were finishing as I was getting my bike ready, so it was unlikely that my ride would overlap with anyone’s in today’s event.
As I went to put Big Nellie’s fairing back on, the Lexan around one of the mounting holes snapped off. I have literally had this fairing duct taped for a couple of years so this wasn’t really a surprise. It has taken an incredible beating for ten years and nearly 30,000 miles. So we rode naked. (Good thing, too, because halfway through the ride the mounting hardware broke!)
Kaput
The fairing helps a lot when riding in windy conditions. It adds a couple of miles per hour on descents. And it weighs down the front wheel, balancing the weight distribution of the bike. Riding without it, however, makes the bike feel completely different. The front end feels lighter. The bike climbs a little better because it is lighter. On a warm day, the breeze across my body feels great. The biggest benefit was entirely unexpected: I could see the road. The fairing had been scratched so badly that I could no longer see through it. I have been compensating by braking a lot and leaning to the side to get a better view of the road surface ahead of me. No more.
The ride does a big figure eight along the Patuxent River, which separates PG County from Calvert County. I doubt the terrain gets more than 200 feet above sea level. Never the less there is quite a bit of climbing because the rest areas are the banks of the river. Every rest is rewarded with honest work.
The first twenty miles were a blast. My legs were fresh and I was trucking. I had fun waving to the event riders coming my way. I did quite a bit of hill hopping, screaming down one hill and using my momentum to blast up the next. I knew I’d pay for my early speed later in the ride but I didn’t care. I was zipping along at over 20 miles per hour, something I never get to do during the workweek.
The first rest stop was deserted so I took a quick look at the river. A park employee commented on my bike. We chatted and she told me about kayak and canoe rentals. The river looked inviting but I had riding to do.
I kept trucking, perhaps a bit slower than before. I chalked it up to bigger hills and headwinds. About a mile before the next rest stop, a car pulled along side me and the driver asked me if I was okay. Weird. Then it dawned on me that he was the sag wagon, looking for stragglers from the event. At the next rest stop, the volunteers were loading all the food and drinks into cars. I parked a discrete distance away. One of the volunteers came over and offered me some food and drink. Don’t mind if I do.
The ride up from the river was considerably harder than before. I was slightly over half way. No problemo. It was, however, getting hotter and the humidity was rising too. Pedal, pedal.
A guy on a fast looking road bike blew by me on a hill. He stopped at the top. I later found out that he was waiting for a friend. The two of them volunteered at a rest stop and were getting some miles in after their good works. We talked a bit at the next rest stop. His friend gave me some pretzels and I took some pictures of them with their camera. They loaded their bikes on two cars and I rode off. Uphill. Ugh.
The route diverted into Charles County for a few miles. I saw a vulture in the middle of the road. Do I look that bad? No, he was busy with some road kill.
The last few miles back to the start were flat or downhill. I finished strong but was plenty pooped. 64 miles. Naked. Big Nellie didn’t blush once.
I love my Ortlieb panniers. They are simple to use and take a ton of abuse. I loathe my Ortlieb handlebar bag. Like the panniers, it has one compartment and it is waterproof. Unlike the panniers, it is a beast to open and close, even when you are not in motion. If you can’t get to your stuff inside the bag, it’s useless. It’s a bag in serious need of a redesign.
I ordered an Acorn handlebar bag a couple of weeks ago. It’s a pretty interesting design. Unlike the Ortlieb’s red denier nylon (which is admittedly pretty sharp looking), the Acorn bag is made out of heavy canvas. It has four compartments. The front two compartments are covered by a big flap. The main compartment under the flap is intended to stay closed while you ride. It has a zipper that runs the width of the bag. In front of that and still under the flap, is a smaller pocket that looks perfect for snacks. On the back, there are two small compartments, just the right size for a phone and a camera. They open very easily which means I can finally get at my camera.
I had to move my bell and my bike computer around a bit, but I think this Acorn bag is going to work out just fine.
Acorn Bag on Little Nellie: Front ViewAcorn Bag on Little Nellie – Rear View
I have two mounts for the Ortlieb bag, one for Little Nellie and one for The Mule. The Mule’s bag mount has a reinforcing cable on it. Once you take off the cable, odds are you won’t get it back on. So I put the Acorn on Little Nellie.
Little Nellie and I went for a ride to tweak the new set up. It was 80-ish degrees and muggy. T-shirt weather. We cruised over to the Mount Vernon Trail. I could hear all kinds of big birds cawing above the tree tops, but I couldn’t see them. I peeked at the Morningside bald eagle nest; there was no eagle action. About a half mile later ,I came upon a big snapping turtle just to the right of the middle of the trail. I stopped to check it out. Soon I had company as we waved other trail users around the beast that was about the size of a Frisbee. I have seen snapping turtles laying eggs on the side of the trail in the past, so we assumed she had just done the same here. (The turtles brace their front arms on the edge of the trail and flail away in the dirt with their legs, digging a hole to deposit the eggs into.) We could see a couple of patches where the dirt on the side of the trail had been freshly disturbed.
Yertle before the move
Momma turtle was not wearing track shoes this day, so one of the cyclists who stopped gingerly picked up her up and placed her on the side of the trail. She was not amused, but he was quick and gentle. (Do not try this at home. If you don’t know what you are doing, you could lose a finger. These suckers bite.)
Digression No. 1: when our kids were little, we used to take them to the Virginia Living Museum down in Newport News. (If you have kids, I guarantee that they will like this place.) There is a small river that runs along the back of the building. We were walking on the boardwalk along the back and watching a momma duck swimming a hundred feet away with her ducklings all lined up behind her. Suddenly, one duckling disappeared under the water. It popped back up. Then, as if yanked from below, he went back under, fanny first. I do believe he became a turtle snack.
I stood around to see what the turtle would do. She was pretty pissed off at being moved, but ten seconds later she calmed down. Calm turtles not being really exciting, Little Nellie and I left.
The rest of the ride was pleasant and unremarkable. I rode up to Crystal City then back along Army Navy Drive where I lived when I first moved to DC. I had read that some new bike lane-age had been put it at the intersection with Joyce Street. It looked like, um, paint. Some bike geeks get worked up about these things. I ain’t one of them.
Digression No. 2: What I did notice was that the street was riddled with embedded wires so that cars can trip the light and reduce waiting time. One day when I lived up the street, I convinced the future Mrs. Rootchopper to buy a bike. I’d ride to the bike shop and she’d walk and take Metro. I came down the hill aboard my Raleigh Grand Prix on Army Navy Drive toward Joyce Street. The road was wet from a recent rain. I hit my brakes just as I rolled onto one of the embedded wires. To embed the wires a thin cut is made in the asphalt. Later a sealant is applied. Unbeknownst to me, the sealant is like ice when it is wet. I went down really hard and slid into the intersection. People jumped out of their cars to tend to me. My left side was bruised pretty badly from my thigh up to my armpit. I turned around and headed for home. The future Mrs. Rootchopper was walking down the hill. Suffice it to say, I was not exactly the poster boy for the joys of cycling. She eventually bought a bike, but hated cycling. It’s slow. It’s buggy. You have to eat while doing it so you can’t lose weight. Basically, she found it useless. She quilts instead.
I rode back home and made sure to check on Yertle. She was nowhere to be found.
The weather forecast for today was pretty darn awesome: 60s, sunny, breezy, low humidity. I had a choice: go for a bike ride or lie in an hammock all day. It was a tough decision, but since I don’t have a hammock, I decided to go for a bike ride.
I wanted to ride the full Vasa ride. This is a metric century (100 kilometers), mostly in eastern Montgomery County and Northwest DC. This is upscale suburban territory. I looked high and low for my cue sheet for that ride and came up empty. During my search I found the cue sheet to a Populaire ride that was held in January. (Populaires are rides that randonneurs do to entice otherwise sane people into their cult of long distance bike riding.)
This particular Populaire was also a metric century but it started five miles further from my house. I decided to go for it; I could always turn around if I was feeling overwhelmed. (Yeah, like I have that much common sense!) The Populaire goes into western Montgomery County which has more wooded areas and much more farmland. It’s also pretty darned hilly.
Which bike should I take? Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent, is super comfortable which is perfect for long rides. The only problem is that it is not very good on hills. Come to think of it neither am I. Big Nellie got the call.
Off we went, taking hilly Fort Hunt Road to Alexandria to get acclimated to the art of spinning up a hill. (Recumbent riders have to spin like maniacs to climb hills. They can’t get out of the saddle like riders of conventional bikes nor can they use their arms to muscle their bike.) Once in Alexandria, I took the Mount Vernon Trail all the way to the 14th Street Bridge. It was well before 9 am and a little chilly so traffic on the MVT was mercifully light.
We crossed into DC on the 14th Street Bridge. Winds were blowing hard from the northwest raising white caps on the Potomac River below. Normally, this would irritate me since we were heading directly into the wind for 50+ miles, but today I took it in stride. We came upon a police barricade along Ohio Drive. It was part of the preparations for Rolling Thunder, the Memorial Day descent of a bazillion motorcycles on DC. It was early so the police didn’t protest when we rode around their sawhorses.
As we passed the Watergate, some geese were milling about at the rivers edge. They had a nice brood of goslings so I stopped to take a picture. Then onward to the Capital Crescent Trail. In a tree between the trail and the river, I spotted several cormorants. They look like Seuss birds. We left the CCT and encountered a group of 20 cyclists blocking the bridge to cross the C&O Canal. They spotted me coming and parted with hellos. They must have known we were bound for glory.
We continued through the Palisades neighborhood of DC on MacArthur Boulevard. I stopped at a Safeway for a big bottle of water. I had packed two Ziploc bags with peanut M&Ms. (I got the idea of eating nuts on a bike ride from my friend Florencia. She once did the 50 States ride on a brutally hot day, eating nothing but almonds. Everyone around her was suffering as she did the ride with little apparent distress. Could it be the almonds or the fact that she is a fitness goddess? Since I am not a fitness god, I decided it was the almonds. So I decided to use peanuts. The chocolate was a bonus.)
We rumbled along and left the flats of MacArthur for Persimmon Tree Road, which begins with a bumpy uphill section. I decided to ditch my pride and dropped into my granny gear, so named because even my grannies (both of whom died in1965) could pedal it. We rode past Congressional Country Club and through Potomac Village. The modest hills combined with the headwind were making for an honest day’s work.
West of Potomac Village, the climbing gets serious. River Road is a series of half mile downhills followed by half mile uphills. The uphills won. After eight miles of this foolishness, we left River Road for farm roads of western Montgomery County. Sugarland Road had a concrete center with all kinds of potholes. The transitions to the asphault edge of the road were nasty and would have caused me to crash so we stayed on the concrete.
We road past Poolesville Maryland toward Boyds. The scenery became more wooded and hillier still. I started having doubts about that hammock. Somewhere along the line I missed a turn. I ended up on Clopper Road, a road that I have heard of but that was not on my cue sheet. After checking the map on my phone, we were back on course, after climbing a half mile hill. (At least the pavement was smooth.) I had heard that Peach Tree Road was a hilly bitch, but I found it to be anticlimactic in that regard. It did deliver some of the nicest country riding I’ve done in years. My northwest passage ended up at a diner where I stopped for lunch. The burger and fries were no match for my appetite.
Peach Tree Road – Not Too Shabby
The course doubled back from this point and I found that the headwind was now a tailwind, albeit one with the occasional swirl that made high speed descents a little unpredictable The big advantage of Big Nellie’s long wheel base is the fact that it tracks like it’s on rails on fast descents. I liken riding downhill on this bike to street luge.
We luged our asses off. When we weren’t luging the tailwind pushed us along a long flat section of Peach Tree, which we stayed on for many more miles on the return trip. I even saw some peach orchards, a nice bonus.
Poolesville with its ugly little residential developments was a bit of a shock after so much bucolic loveliness. I didn’t stay to check the real estate listings. We bombed along through farmer’s fields and past a wild life sanctuary or four. My return route put me back on River Road a few miles to the west of where I had left it earlier. We banged a wicked looey and headed for Potomac Village. I was dreading the long hills, but Big Nellie used the tailwind to full advantage. I rode my brakes on most of the descents, one of which had us going 40 miles per hour (at least that was what the speedometer said before I didn’t dare take my eyes off the road).
We stopped at Glen Echo Park to celebrate the finish of the Populaire with another baggie of M&Ms. Nom. Nom.
20+ miles to go. Even with a tailwind this was work. The trails along the river were packed with people enjoying the weather. We weaved our way at low-ish speeds, frustrated that we were wasting a tailwind. Near the cormorant tree, a police helicopter came roaring past over the river, He was about level with the tree tops and banking into a turn to follow the river. Of course, it was possible that Broderick Crawford was riding shotgun, but I digress.
We plodded along, stuck behind one runner or cluster of slow riders after another. Back on Ohio Drive we rolled along amid the thousands of motorcycles parked all over the place. Suddenly, I was hit by a cloud; a car on the side of the road must have been the bongmobile.
The ride across the river on the 14th Street Bridge was a bit of a balancing act. The winds were stronger than ever pushing us to the left as I checked out the even bigger white caps below.
Normally, this kind of wind makes for a fast ride down the MVT to home but this was a Pleasant Valley Sunday and the trail was just a mess of people. I managed not to hit a single one, but the effort cost me the benefits of a tailwind. Not to be cheated, a young woman in full racing kit blew past me without warning as I was passing two pedestrians. I yelled at her, my only outburst of the day. (Digression no. 1: I refrained from cussing out the driver of a black Mercedes who laid on his horn as he came upon me on MacArthur Boulevard. Instead, I jumped onto the side path as we came to a stop sign. You, Mr. Asshat, can stop for the sign. I am now exempt.) (Digression no. 2: It’s a beautiful spring day and you are driving a $100,000 automobile. Can’t you just appreciate it for what it is without pissing other people off?)
South of Old Town I spotted three people under a tree fixing a flat. It was John (@dirteng) from Friday Coffee Club. We’ve done 2 centuries together, both involving John’s other past time, enjoying craft beers. John was repairing his friend Alex’s flat while John’s wife Kate looked on. Alex’s tire was a super tight fit, not unlike the tires on Little Nellie, my Bike Friday. John tried and tried. Then I had a go using the tricks I have been forced to adopt in order to change Little Nellie’s tires. Usually, it takes me 15 minutes to get the last bit of tire bead over the rim, but this time it only took few minutes. (John loosen it up.)
Having done my good deed for the day, I rode on. South of Old Town, we rode past a little kid with an ear-to-ear smile riding his new bike with training wheels. You’re doing great kid. (He probably hasn’t crashed yet. That will wipe that smile off his face. Life is like a bike ride, kid.)
For my last hurrah, I left the MVT and climbed the short steep hill on Park Terrace Drive. It put hair on my chest. Okay, the hair was already there, but it did manage to put a hurt in my knees.
I made it home with over an hour of daylight to spare. To celebrate our 107 mile adventure, I took out the trash, fed the birds, and watered my tomato plants.
I am a sucker for a gimmick. Last year’s gimmicks included the Hoppy 100, a 100-mile bike ride that hit three microbreweries en route. Leave it to John, the father of the Hoppy 100, and a micro brew lover with a cycling habit, to come up with another gimmick that I couldn’t pass up.
John learned that a bicycle organization in Baltimore was staging a ride from Baltimore’s Washington Monument to DC’s Washington Monument. They call it the Monument to Monument ride. They should call it the Monument to Monument to Monument ride because you have to ride back to Baltimore. John asked for the directions and reversed them, so that we in DC could partake without traveling to Baltimore.
The Mule and the Monument – Start
Using the power of Twitter and his blog, John organized the DC start. John, Tim, Justin, Alex, Kevin and I met at the DC monument around 8 am. It was a lovely day for a bike ride, assuming it was February. Sadly, it was Cinco de Mayo, a date that does not go hand in hand with the words “wind chill”. Undaunted, we headed out for points north, into a biting headwind.
I chose to ride The Mule for only the second time in months. This turned out to be a mistake of sorts. I was comfortable riding but could not find a riding rhythm for the life of me. I’ve ridden with John, Alex and Kevin before and had over 2000 miles in my legs since the start of 2013. It wasn’t that they weren’t riding fast or that I was undertrained.
I was lagging behind everyone from the get go. We headed up the Metropolitan Brach Trail, then zig zagged through Northeast DC and Mount Rainier before jumping on the Anacostia River Trail system. I have always found this particular trail system to be confusing. I lost contact with the group and then got off track completely. At this point, I figured that even if I couldn’t find the group, I could still get a fun ride in.
Somehow I righted my wrongs and found the group hanging alongside the trail near Lake Artemesia somewhere near Greenbelt. We chatted for a few minutes and then set off again. By this point, I had another problem. My allergies were going berserk. I couldn’t stop coughing up mucus, my eyes were watery, my nose was running, and increasingly my windpipe seemed inflamed and sore.
On to Baltimore! The group dropped me again near the Agriculture Department farm near Greenbelt. We started seeing riders from Baltimore passing our way on the opposite side of the road. We would see dozens more as the day progressed. Out of the blue, Rod appeared and joined us on our northward trek. I became his project du jour. Each uphill was as struggle. He advised me to go easy on the uphills and bomb down the downhills. My only problem was that I was having trouble going easy on the flats!
We took a shortcut and joined the group at the top of a hill. From this point on, we were more or less together. At some point, Mike showed up. Mike is a randonneur. He has more energy than most thermonuclear reactors. In MikeWorld, hills do not seem to exist. Conversation has no end. He smiles so much that I’d swear he gets paid by the tooth. He brought the group energy. His constant chatter kept my mind off my struggles. And he had the good sense to laugh at my jokes. He found it particularly amusing when, as we spotted Baltimore in the distance, I called it Shangri La.
Before we set eyes on Baltimore we pedaled our way up Brock Bridge Road and Race Road. These roads are excellent for cycling and had surprisingly little car traffic. There are also horse stables and prisons. Let me tell you, if you want to have a kick ass time on a bike you need to get your own self to Laurel Maryland.
Mike took us off route onto the BWI airport bike trail. We stopped with a view of one of the runways. High on a hill. With the wind in our faces. And Baltimore nowhere in sight. I started to wonder if we’d ever get there. Then, it appeared. Nothing says paradise quite like a smokestack from a sewage burning facility and a spaghetti bowl of elevated highway ramps.
Once we arrived at the monument, Baltimore showed us its charm. The monument is on top a small hill in the middle of a cobblestoned circle. A beautiful old church stood to one side. And a neighborhood that looked reminded me of Lewisburg Square on Beacon Hill in Boston extended a block to the west.
The Mule and the Monument – Baltimore
After some picture taking, we made our way to the Alewife brew pub and restaurant for lunch. Tim took off for home. He missed some fine vittles.
We headed back with an intermittent tailwind. Once we cleared the city, I got my legs working. Unfortunately, my nose was running like a faucet. And my wind pipe was so sore I could not get a deep breath. For the second time during the ride I tried some albuterol. It had little effect. Despite these problems, I found myself occasionally in the lead of the group. There is no truth to the scurrilous rumor that I put Vicodan in everyone’s drinks at lunch.
We stopped for Rod to repair a flat. It seems pretty amazing that with about 800 miles of biking among us, we had only one flat. Alex had some problems with her shifting (she was riding a brand new bike) but it seemed to resolve itself.
The next 20 miles were actually quite easy, especially considering my allergy and asthma woes. Mike peeled off near Greenbelt. Once we jumped back on the Anacostia River trails, the group speeded up considerably.This was odd because the trail was swarming with people. Nevertheless there were no close calls and smiles all around. Somewhere along this stretch Rod veered off and headed for home. We were now five. Kevin, Justin, and Alex apparently could taste their end-of-ride shower beers (it’s an Alex thing). John and I lost them somewhere near Catholic University. John had a trip to Meridian Pint on his mind. I lost contact with him somewhere along the Metropolitan Branch Trail.
My last four miles were done on impulse power. The warp engines were toast. So was my wind pipe. I rolled up to the Washington Monument and celebrated with a photo op.
The Mule and the Monument – Finish
I drove home, stopping along the way for a Fat Tire Amber Ale. I bought six, drank two. They tasted monumental.
Check out the rest of my pix on my Flickr page. And some more on Justin’s.
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.
A Few Spokes Shy of a Wheel 