Big Nellie is my Easy Racers Tour Easy recumbent. I bought her in 2001 or 2002 when I thought The Mule was on its last legs. (At the moment, The Mule is laughing in the shed with over 41,000 miles on its odometer.)
So today, with trumpets blaring as I rode between the scenic warehouses of Old Town Alexandria, Big Nellie turned 40,000 miles. She was quite impressed with herself. On to the next milestone later this week or early next week. Stay tuned.
The Mount Vernon Trail is one of the most heavily used trails on the East Coast. Ab
out two miles from my house, the trail merges with Northdown Road. As
you can see from the picture, at this point, the trail and road are only one lane wide. It is in fact a trail not a road. That didn’t stop this cement truck driver from parking in the trail. I’d use the words “middle of the trail” but the truck obstructed the entire trail. Every last inch. Perhaps the driver thought “Hey, look at this trail. It’s the perfect width for parking my truck.”
Trail users had to dismount and make their way through the mud on the side of the trail. It was barely wide enough to get by.
I may be making a big deal out of nothing but this is the kind of disrespect that bicyclists and bicycle infrastructure routinely get, especially in places like Fairfax County. All this truck driver had to do was park where I was standing when I took this picture and trail users would have had free passage.
Earlier today, a 92 year old driver was parking his SUV in an alley a block from the Mount Vernon Trail in Old Town, Alexandria. He hit a parking attendant, then he hit another man, killing him. How the hell you can kill someone in an alley that is about as wide as the trail in the picture above is beyond me. Why in the world does Virginia allow 92 year olds to drive? Will somebody from the DMV show up at the funeral to explain this to the loved ones of the deceased?
Meanwhile in the 400 block of North Union Street an SUV was parked perpendicular to a house. It’s front end completely obstructed the sidewalk. Sticking in the ground next to the front bumper was a sign that said “No Not Block Driveway.” There is no end to the entitlement mentality of the landed gentry of Old Town Alexandria.
On Friday evening at rush hour my family and I drove to Tyson’s Corner. (This is the first time I have driven to Tyson’s in a year. It will be the last, but that’s another story.) On the way we got on the Beltway at US 1, just west of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. Traffic heading to the bridge from Virginia was backed up for miles. In all six lanes. The bridge is only a few years old. The project to rebuild the bridge and the adjacent roadway and exits cost about $2.5 billion. The rationale was that this would relieve congestion. Trying to relieve congestion by adding more capacity is like trying to achieve happiness by buying more stuff. If only I had one more lane! If only I had one more HDTV!
The bridge was designed with the capacity to carry a Metro rail line. This has yet to be implemented. Already people are calling for the rail line space to be converted to car lanes.
The plan was to put two new tires on The Mule. Then I walked outside. It was MUGGY. Then I looked at the old tires on The Mule. They looked acceptable. Sort of.
Then I jumped on my neglected Cross Check and headed to Great Falls Park in Maryland.
The first 13 miles was essentially my commute route, the Mount Vernon Trail and the 14th Street Bridge, to DC. Ohio Drive and some sidewalks masquerading as bike trails took me to K Street in Georgetown. I survived the half mile traffic gauntlet and made it to the Capital Crescent Trail.
I was making pretty decent time. This is attributable to three factors: a light tailwind, fresh legs, and, well, I’m a badass.
I switched over to the C&O Canal towpath at mile 18. The Cross Check loves the towpath. After a couple of miles, I had some solitude and it was bliss. Sweaty bliss but bliss nonetheless.
I rode past Widewater, a section of the canal just downriver from Great Falls. There were about 8 women sitting on stand up paddle boards in the canal. They were finishing, I am not making this up, a yoga class. Floating yoga? Really?
I stopped to check out the rapids at Great Falls. It rained heavily yesterday and the rapids were muddy and raging. If you’ve never been to DC, make sure you put Great Falls on your to do list. (I prefer the Maryland side because it has the towpath, a trail out through the rapids, and several really good hiking trails.)
After watching the water show, I headed out of the park on the access road. It’s a long up hill that leads to what is normally a fun, curving downhill. Unfortunately, the road surface is choppy and, even on the Cross Check, not a road I want to ride over 30 miles per hour on.
I survived the descent.
The ride back was a familiar one along MacArthur Boulevard to Resevoir Road, back to the canal. From there I retraced my ride out with the exception of using a new bike path through the park on the Georgetown waterfront. The path is nice enough, but on an oppressively hot day the pedestrians and tourists on bikes were annoying. They’d just stop and chat in the middle of the path.
I had the following conversation a half dozen times:
“PASSING!”
“Oh. Sorry.”
I have the patience of a Swede.
The ride home was uneventful. There were no Lance Mamilots to irritate me. Despite encountering plenty of families with little ones riding tentatively on the trail, I remained civil.
How unlike me.
When I arrived home, my odometer read
60
So I went inside and had this:
One day when I was in college, I drove my older brother around in a car. He was (and is still, for all I know) a skilled photographer. As he took pictures, I remarked again and again, “Why are you wasting film on that?” His answer was that what seems mundane to me may be fascinating to a photographer. “A photographer views his world differently,” he said. I didn’t really understand him.
Fast forward to about ten years ago. My eyesight was terrible. I had had two surgeries to repair a detached retina in my left eye. The result was that the vision from my left eye was blurry and far more nearsighted than my right. Given that my vision in my right eye was something like 20/400 this was a significant problem. To make matters worse, my post-surgery vision while passable was also severely deficient in depth perception. (Before the retina detachment, while wearing my glasses, I could see well enough to hit medium speed pitches at the local batting cages. After, I couldn’t put the bat on the ball if my life depended on it. Was I low, high, early, late? I just could not tell.)
Then I got lucky. I got cataracts.
Before the surgery my lenses were cloudy. This made it very hard to see at night and put a yellowish tinge on everything I saw. The surgery (which takes ten minutes per eye under light sedation) involves removing your lens (one eye at a time) and replacing it with a man-made lens. Since your lens is being replaced, you can replace it with a lens of a different power. So a more powerful corrective lens went in my bad, left eye than the lens lens that went into my right eye. The result was literally awesome.
(Digression: my father was an ophthalmologist. Often when walking in a shopping mall or other public place, someone would walk up to him and thank him profusely. I thought these people were bonkers, but now I had a first hand understanding of where they were coming from.)
The replacement lenses got me to 20/100 or so in both eyes so I still wear glasses, but my fully corrected vision is, well, eye opening.
One day, after getting my new glasses, I was standing in the opening to my shed facing the yard. A passing shower was dropping rain on my back yard but half the sky was clear allowing the evening sun to strike the raindrops at an angle. My new eyes saw these raindrops as shining silver droplets; they seemed like tinsel falling through the air. I had never seen anything like it.
Normally, when we move through a landscape we focus broadly. We see everything as a whole. We correctly perceive ourselves passing through the landscape as things we see leave our focus and move behind us.
Lately while riding my bike I’ve started playing with how my eyes focus on the world I am passing through. I pick out an object like an tree limb overhanging the trail and focus my attention on it. This causes the limb to take on a separate p
lace in the visual field, not unlike the 3-D effect of a Viewmaster. The rest of my visual field is slightly out of focus. I notice that when I do this eye trick as I ride, it seems like the landscape is moving and I am staying still. As if, the landscape is moving through me.
My commute is really beautiful, but I have ridden the Mount Vernon Trail to and from DC several thousand times. I can practically ride it with my eyes closed. Now, however, my little perception experiment is opening my eyes to an entirely different perspective.
I can’t help but wonder if I would have been able to pull off this visual stunt with normal, healthy eyes.
This morning was a rude re-introduction to biking to work in DC. It was incredibly muggy. I was sweating before I pedaled once. Ick.
I rode Big Nellie to ease my way back into reality. It was a smooth fast ride to work. A fellow bike commuter passed me without warning with inches to spare near Porto Vecchio just south of Old Town. I yelled at him to give a warning. He passed a man walking a dog again without warning. I rang my bell and passed the man who proceeded to yell at me for not giving a warning. I said I gave a warning and rang my bell again. “You have to do it louder!”
I can’t win.
I miss the peaceful riding with logging trucks going past at 60 miles per hour.
At the north end of Old Town, a resident had parked his car completely obstructing the sidewalk. Did you know that Alexandria’s city motto is “Where pedestrians come last.”?
I managed to avoid any more unpleasantness until the evening commute.
My co-workers started warning me about a very nasty storm approaching from the west at about 3:30. (I had the radar on my screen already.) I timed it too tightly and managed to find myself a mile from work or shelter in a downpour. The tailwind was nice but the visibility was almost nonexistent so I pulled over beneath the 14th Street bridge to wait it out.
After 15 minutes the rain abated and I headed out. Within a mile the rain began anew so I pulled over under the National Airport access bridge near Crystal City. I had some company including a dad and his toddler son in a Bakfiets. The boy was upset, not because of the rain but because he had lost his bottle.
The r
ains abated again, this time for good so I headed home. Of course, old difficulties came in Old Town. Three cars pulled u-turns in front of me (two were in intersections) without signaling. A car was parked across the bike lane on North Union Street. Rather than take a picture and report it, I gave the house the finger as I rolled by. Going in the opposite direction was an Alexandria police cruiser. They didn’t bother to stop and ticket the car. They never do. It is days like today that I really believe that the League of American Bicyclists should rescind Alexandria’s bicycle friendly city status.
South of the Beltway the Mount Vernon Trail was strewn with branches and other tree debris. I managed to get through without a problem.
Tomorrow I get to do this again. The day after I may have my head examined.
The ride to work was going splendidly on this Monday morning. The wind was at my back. The sun was shining. Puffy white clouds were floating aimlessly above. The sunlight glistened off the river. It was so nice that I even could ignore the Lance Mamilots.
At 12 miles, just past the 14th Street Bridge underpass, the bikes ahead of me started veering this way and that. Then I saw it. A ducking. Alone. In the middle of the trail. Somehow, miraculously, unharmed by the bikes whizzing past.
I pulled over. And, with bikes now whizzing past me, I shooed (literally with my shoes!) the duckling to the grass on side of the path. I took a rather bad picture, then went back to my bike. I looked over my shoulder and the darn bird had waddled back onto the trail. I suppose it was following the path of least resistance, but still it was annoyingly determined to get itself killed.
Back I went to try again. Then a bike commuter pulled up. Her name is Veronica. She grew up on a farm
and volunteers at an animal rescue place. Really. Could the Fates be more generous on a Monday morning?
I have a thing about handling animals so Veronica, who is not so disinclined, picked up the duckling. She pointed out that a duckling alone in the wild is pretty much doomed to be road kill or an hors d’oeurve for some larger critter. So off she went, duckling in hand, looking for mama duck.
Mama duck had fled the scene so Veronica started to try to figure out how to transport the duckling. This is not as easy as it seems. Then the Fates returned in the form of Linel. Linel normally comes to work much later but not today. Maybe the Fates whispered in her ears during her slumbers. “Get up, Linel. Go to work early. You are needed.”
Linel had a Rickshaw Backworks Pipsqueak (I kid you not) bag on her handlebars. It is the perfect size for a duckling. So she offered it to Veronica. Veronica attached the bag to the lateral chest strap of her small back pack and the duckling transport problem was solved.
And so the workweek began.
I slept in.
When I woke up it was a perfect summer day. The second in a row. There was just one thing to do.
I rode my bike.
You saw that coming, didn’t you.
After all, I could have spent my day doing something truly exciting like dry toasting some quinoa. (Or driving a funicular railcar. I actually know people who did these things today.)
But I rode my bike.
I chose the Cross Check for my adventure. The first ten miles were unremarkable which is remarkable for a Sunday on the Mount Vernon Trail. Normally, the MVT is a zoo on a nice weekend days but today it was less busy than a weekday evening. I rode it all the way to DC. Unmolested.
I made it to trail along the Potomac on the DC side before disaster almost struck. I was patiently following two tentative riders as they made their way through the narrow underpass of the TR Bridge. There was stream of bikes coming our way then a runner. Just as Tentative Rider number 1 came upon the runner a stream of Lance Mamilots came around the bling corner on the other end of the underpass. Two got past the runner but the third nearly hit her. The tentative riders somehow managed not to find themselves in a big pile up. As did I. The runner was rightfully pissed. I yelled something non-obscene at Lance.
Another mile went by. As I approached K Street, I was following a rider on a very Eurpoean-style city bike. She was riding very slowly and came to a stop a the turn off for K Street. Somehow she fell sideways into a small patch of grass. She was more embarrassed than hurt. So I turned onto K and headed toward the Capital Crescent Trail. The CCT was busy and a few impatient riders nearly caused head on collisions. I just moseyed along and kept a positive attitude. It was just too nice a day to get upset.
Approaching Bethesda, I was passed by another Lance. He was headed straight for an on-coming walker. Oncoming walker was an unassuming looking, thin woman, perhaps in her late 60s, with thinning brown hair. In a vaguely eastern European accident she shouted: “Get on the other side of the trail, ASSHOLE!”
I could not stop laughing. For miles.
In Bethesda Row, I stopped at Bethesda Bagels (I love places with creative names) and bought a bagel sandwich. I rode to the trestle over Rock Creek Park and ate half of it there, looking out from the treetops to the creek far below.
And to think I could have been dry toasting my quinoa.
Dang.
With my tank topped off, I headed outbound on Beach Drive. I had some company, mostly on bikes. At Garret Park I turned around. I had a bit of a head wind and put my head down for a moment. When I looked up, I nearly rode into a fawn. There were two in the road. So cute.
Back to DC, staying in, mostly car free, Rock Creek Park. Lord, was it nice. Warm, breezy. The soothing sound of the creek rushing past only a few yards to the side of the road.
I climbed out of the park on Park Road and made my way to Columbia Heights. Normally this hill is difficult for me. Not today. I rode the bike lane straight up Irving Street, passing a long stream of cars waiting in line for the short light at the top of the hill. Sucks for them, I thought.
Soon I was sitting on a bench in the shade in Meridian Hill Park. The rest of my sandwich didn’t have a chance.
For some reason, riding down 16th Street on the way home has become a favorite of mine. There are so many interesting buildings and people. Unfortunately, it ends with a ride through the touroids near the White House. I managed to get behind a tour group on Segways clogging the 15th Street cycletrack.
Riding a bike behind Segways is only marginally more enjoyable than dry toasting quinoa.
I survived. Nobody killed me as I rode out of DC. The MVT was once again not half bad. The last ten miles were not the easiest. I have to remember to drink more water while I am riding during my tour next week.
I rode all winter, all through a cold, wet spring. Today’s beautiful 63 1/2 miles was payback.
Tonight, I’ll dry toast some quinoa.
Just kidding.
Too bad there aren’t any funiculars around.
It was a perfect summer day for a nice long bike ride. I rode. 1 1/2 miles. What a stud.
I am leaving next Saturday for my bike tour of Michigan and Wisconsin. I need to get on the road around 6 am so there will be no time for dithering about the house looking for this doodad and that gizmo. All the things have to be in the car and ready to go.
So I made a list and spent the morning (while waiting for a visit from the air conditioner man) pulling my stuff together. Sure enough there were things missing. I made a list of them too. I packed everything into my panniers and did a test ride around the neighborhood on The Mule.
When you ride a touring bike unloaded, the bike feels awkward and clumsy. Put a full load, properly distributed, on it and it rides like it’s on rails. Weight distribution is key. The small panniers in front carry all the heavy, dense stuff like maps, books, tools, personal hygiene stuff, lights, and chargers. The rear panniers carry clothing, and my sleeping gear. My saddle bag is removed so that I can mount my tent on it. Rolling along feels great. Stopping might be another story.
Grinding through the list took forever. First was the hair cut. (Short hair simplifies bathing and I hate bathing in campgrounds.) Then I went shopping. I bought:
Good thing I mowed the lawn last night because all the shopping and such took all day.
So now I am as ready as I will ever be. All that’s left is to work a week, attend a Nats game (if you have a free ticket handy, I’m your man), and drive 12 hours. And avoid my bike touring jinx. (I was planning tours when my father died, when my mother died,and when my wife got hit by SUV. Let’s just say you don’t want to schedule a sky dive when I am going on a tour.)
I got all the tedious touring prep done. Now I am watching the Nats game on TV, cold beer in hand. We’ll call it pre-tour hydration. It’s proper preparation!
After all, it’s a perfect summer day.
4. I have friends who are so unreliable, I can rely on their unreliability.
2. Add another list to the bizarre people I have met: he was a paragon of government IT contracting who was once worth over $200 million. He had more charisma than anyone I’ve ever seen. When he walked into a room, all eyes turned to him. Since I last saw him ten years ago, he’s had a drug conviction, been accused of rape, and filed for bankruptcy. It appears he was a complete fraud.
8. According to a book I am reading, the sales tax on cars in Denmark is 180%. Oof.
5. I have a friend who professes to be “present”, that is to live in the present moment. Over five months ago she told me that we will get together “soon.” In mindfulness- speak that pretty much means “never.” It’s a bit like Zeno’s dichotomy paradox. We’ll meet tomorrow, but when tomorrow comes, it’s today, so we’ll meet tomorrow, ad infinitum. What a clever way to tell someone to cheese off.
9. Icelandair offers a free 7 day layover in Iceland to anyone flying their airline to Europe. They operate tours and hotels too. Why doesn’t any other airline do this? Okay, maybe it wouldn’t work so well for Yemeni Air, but…
6. I happen to be okay with gluten. (I tried a gluten free pastry a few weeks ago. It was dreadful. It was almost as bad as the neoprene vegan hot dog I ate last year.) This is why, after your umpteenth “gluten is bad” post appeared on on my Facebook page, I unfollowed you. Nothing personal. You are now one of the 20 percent of my Facebook friends that I have unfollowed. (For the record, I also block eight people.) Pass the pretzels.
3. Whenever I travel I experience a “prime directive” moment. That’s when you see something in conflict with your normal life that you have to restrain yourself from interfering. From as early as I can remember I have been told to look both ways when crossing the street. In Stockholm, parents with little kids just walk. They have absolute confidence that drivers and cyclists will follow the rules to the letter and stop for them. Every time I saw this happen, I felt like screaming “NO!!!”
7. I like the idea of the drum circle in Meridian Hill Park, but I can only take about ten minutes of it before I get a crashing headache.
10. I rode to work in the pouring rain today. It was actually pretty nice because both the air and the rain drops were warm. It was a bit like putting your bike on a trainer in the shower and riding for 75 minutes.
1. Ten years ago it was absurd to suggest that DC was a better place to live than Fairfax County. Not any more. Ten years from now I wonder if people will look at Fairfax County and wonder what went wrong.
I often write about the animals on my bike commute. Bald eagles and snapping turtles get the most “ink.” May is prime time for eagles. June is when the snapping turtles lay their eggs. I look forward to each ride to and from work on the Mount Vernon Trail along the Potomac River.
Occasionally, the reality of nature makes itself known and it’s not pretty. Last year, near a tree holding a bald eagle nest, I saw the skull of a small animal, a dog or a fox, I suppose. A few days earlier I saw the head and spine of a Canada goose in the same area. No feathers. No skin. No meat.
Today I came upon another carcass, similarly stripped of skin and muscle. I initially thought it was a large bird but on closer inspection it appeared to be a beaver. I could only guess this by the small bit of tail fin on the end of the spine. Beaver paddles must not taste very good. The carcass was on the edge of the trail between the trail and the river. I am guessing that the beaver was hit by a car on the nearby parkway and made its way toward the river where some other animal put it out of its misery. The stripping of the carcass was likely done by crows or vultures.
Sometimes we dream of what it would be like to be a beaver gracefully gliding through the water. Sometimes, not often, we see the reality of nature.
As Mark Knopfler said: “Sometimes you’re the windshield. Sometimes you’re the bug.”
One life, some bicycles. A million possibilities, zero clue!
Information and news from David Goodrich, author of A Hole in the Wind.
Coast-to-coast US bike tour
Exploring Nevada's backroads by bicycle
Just another manifestation of my obsession with riding
Around Eire on Frida, Bike Friday
Follow my Journey!
just a girl on a mission to pet every puppy in the world. #stillatourist
Two travelers on two tires
The Weston Front - the destination of a road less travelled...
One step, then one step more
Riding the South Coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island
Welcome To My Adventures
A Few Spokes Shy of a Wheel 