Tag: #bikedc

Cold Monday, Big Rides

Winter came back. I thought we had this thing licked. Apparently not.

I chose to ride Big Nellie to work. I haven’t ridden the Big one to work in many months. I left early. It was dark. And cold. No worries. I just pedaled my ass off until I warmed up.

I was pleased that the wooden bridges had no frost on them. The whole way to DC.

On the asphalt north of the Memorial Bridge black ice coated the trail in a few spots. No guts, no glory. I rode straight across the ice. Each section was maybe 10 feet long.

At work I parked Big Nellie next to my boss’s Yuba Mundo. That was a lot of bikeage.

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Having ridden to work early I was looking forward to riding home in the daylight. Alas, work ran long and I left after dark. I’ll get even with the daylight gods soon. In about a month or two. Just wait.

It was about 10 degrees warmer for the ride home. No black ice. Just a shocking number of bike commuters. Go #bikedc!!!!

 

It’s January? Go Figure.

It was 50 degrees at 7 am. On January 10. Go figure.

I decided to take Big Nellie for a spin. I got side tracked by bike maintenance. It’s hard to do bike maintenance when it is cold outside. So I cleaned and lubed the chains on three of my four bikes. It’s a bit like getting your teeth cleaned at the dentists. The chains are all shiny now.

Big Nellie was very patient. Off we rode to the Mount Vernon Trail. By this time it was about 60 degrees and windy. There were serious waves on the river. I spotted a guy in a wet suit leaning against his car to my left. To my right was his sailboard. Dude, it’s January.

As I approached Fort Hunt Park I spotted a man with a fully loaded bicycle at the water fountain along the trail. (It’s January 10 and they haven’t turned off the water yet? Go figure.)

Ivan is from China. His English is perfect so we had a pretty extensive conversation. He’s been riding across the US for the last 12 months. He started in Washington State then rode through Oregon, Idaho, Utah,….,the Katy Trail in Missouri. I’d have remembered all the places he has ridden but I was thinkin24215142381_fd843fc327_zg about how much cold weather this dude has been riding in. Dang. He said he did 30 – 35 miles on short days and 60 – 65 on long days.  I suppose he’s had lots of practice. He’s staying with a friend in Arlington, selling his bike, going to Boston then back home to China. If you want a fully equipped Chinese touring bike, keep you eyes open. The model is, I kid you not, “World Traveler.” After trying out the seat of Big Nellie, Ivan headed off toward DC. Nice guy.

I did a lap around Fort Hunt Park. There were all kinds of bicyclists and a tadpole trike rider doing laps. I peeled off and headed for Old Town. I made it back to the MVT and, sure enough, passed Ivan who was getting a MAMIL escort.

I rode up Union Street to make sure that Ivan wasn’t going to get harassed by the Alexandria police. They were not having a bicycle stop sign stake out so I kept rolling to the north.

At Four Mile Run I headed over to Arlandria and from there back toward home.

The wind was in my face but it didn’t much matter. When I got back to the MVT, I was passed by a faired recumbent with a body sock. It looked something like this.  It went by me like I was standing still.

It started to rain so I headed home.

So ended  a 150-mile week to open the new year.

Go figure.

 

 

Perception > Reality

A friend of mine admonished me last summer for confusing perception with reality. Funny thing is she hates cold weather. I think cold weather is a reality. How you deal with it is all in your head. Okay, clothing has a lot to do with it too. We all have our limits, but simply throwing in the towel when the thermostat drops a bit seems rather defeatist and pathetic. My reality is that riding in the cold for short stretches can actually be surprisingly comfortable and enjoyable.

On Tuesday I rode to work in pretty nasty conditions. The wind chill was 0 Farenheit. (She uses Centigrade. Maybe that’s her problem.)  I took it as an adventure. Not one I’d want to deal with every day but an adventure nonetheless.

One interesting side benefit from “enduring” the cold on Tuesday is that 40 degrees now seems pretty damned comfy. I rode to work today and was having trouble avoiding being too warm. Of course, I stopped off at Friday Coffee Club. The joint was jumping. Even Froggie, now a resident of northern Vermont made an appearance. He gave me a small bottle of maple syrup too. Thanks, Froggie.

Mary was handing out Coffeeneuring patches. They are pretty spiffy. I didn’t get one because I didn’t participate this year. I drink plenty of coffee as it is having added incentive to get all jagged out on caffeine on successive weekends doesn’t work for me. Incidentally, I also don’t participate in Freezing Saddles. This is a friendly competition in which cycling teams ride during the winter. I don’t need an incentive to go out and break my neck on ice and snow. The Mule still bears the damage (slightly bent handlebar, slightly damaged brake lever) from last winter’s icy folly. I’ll likely be back at it for the Errandonnee in a few months.

From Coffee Club, I rode G Street to the TR Bridge. At a red light, I watched in horror as a bike messenger riding a bike with a really long front end  blew the light in heavy cross traffic. He made it across all three lanes but he pissed off all the drivers who had to take evasive action to avoid running him over.

The TR bridge has a stupidly narrow side path. I routinely stop to let DC-bound cyclists pass. Very few of them thank me. People who work in DC are more important than anyone else. Today, a DC-bound cyclists, a woman with her head wrapped like a burrito, said “Thanks. Have a great day.” What a shame this is exceptional.  We need more women on bicycles.

Since I took yesterday off from bike commuting, I had fresh legs on a Friday. This sounds like a bizarre lunch entree, doesn’t it? Well, that’s not what I meant. I was getting out of the saddle and riding with unusual vigor. Vigor at 8 am is really pretty damned alarming.

The ride home was a misty, foggy, dark affair. There’s a joke in there somewhere but I’m not touching it. Ed, who needs a nickname to avoid being confused with the other Ed, rode part of the way home with me. I veered off to go to the bank. There was a bad busker near the ATM. Banking really has gone downhill. It used to be you’d go inside the bank and interact with a human being, often a pretty young lady who was impressed by your massive…demand deposit. Nowadays, you stand in the rain and listen to this dreary busker play bad trumpet then start singing out of key. Perhaps he should take up the guitar to free up his mouth for singing. It worked for Paul McCartney.

The rest of the ride home was much more pleasant than the ATM. That’s the reality. To hell with perception.

 

 

I Can’t Believe I Am Getting Used to This

It was 17 degrees when I left the house. Winds were calm. I left late and sunlight was upon me.

Cowabunga!

After two days, I have the clothing aspect down. Same as yesterday but today I swapped two layered mountain bike shorts for underpants and tights. Also, I swapped to my new Performance rain pants from my Marmot Precip pants. The former is cut for cycling and has thinner material. Perfect.

After my usual 10-minute warm up, I was cooking with gas (nods to my college friend Susan who used to say this all the time back in the day). I stopped at Dyke Marsh as usual, this time where the stream cuts through to the river. Ice and sunrise. Pretty stuff.

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The boards of the Dyke Marsh bridge were cover with a crunchy frost which was surprisingly grippy, another benefit of 17 degree weather.

I cruised through Old Town without a care and made it across the two long wooden bridges to the north without slipping. Oncoming bike riders looked pretty tense but I just laid off the brakes and tried to minimize leaning.

How nice it was to break free of the tree cover and not be smacked in the face by a headwind.

Across from the Washington Monument, I stopped to take a picture. Damn, this city is pretty. I never get tired of this place. Funny how I can say that about the last two cities I lived in as well but not about my hometown. I suppose if I lived there now I’d see it in a different light. As Confucius said, “No matter where you go, there you are.”

The ride home was another day in the park. It was actually above freezing but I didn’t notice. It felt no different from the morning. The geese apparently disagreed. They were having a party in the river.

The rest of the ride home was dark. Unlike dying people, I went toward the white light.

Somewhere along the way I passed 100 miles for the year. Woot.

No bike commute tomorrow. I’m going to a high school basketball game after work.

 

 

 

Greetings from Hoth

I couldn’t sleep. I was really worked up about my bike commute today. I turned on the TV at 4:30 am. The weather report said temperatures were 17 degrees colder than yesterday. Wind chill was 0. (That’s Farenheit not your wimpy centigrade wind chill. And what happened to Celsius? Did he get fired?)

I went back to bed because all that’s on TV is ads for herbal penus enhancements. Insomnia and gullibility apparently go hand in hand.

I woke up at 5:50 and went out to get the newspaper. Dang. Twas cold.

After a hearty breakfast of oatmeal and fruit I got dressed. Underpants, tights, socks nearly up to my knees, wind pants, hiking boots with chemical hand warmers inside, long sleeve base layer, t-shirt, holey wool sweater, rain jacket, balaclava, mittens. Now if I could only move my body.

I penguined outside and managed to climb on my bike. I would have taken my tauntaun but it froze to death. So off I went on The Mule.

Twas cold.

Pedal, pedal.

I was so encumbered by my layers on layers that sustaining 10 miles per hour was a challenge. The headwind didn’t help. And there’s always a possibility that The Mule needs some TLC.

I don’t think I broke 20 mph on the Park Terrace descent. Usually, I hit 30 with ease.

I stopped for a sunrise picture at Dyke Marsh. It was too soon. Too soon for the sun. Too soon because 100 yards further along there was beautiful ice in the marsh. I didn’t take a picture of this because…

Twas Cold

Pedal, pedal.

Lots of effort. Very little speed. And I was overheating.  I lowered the zipper on my jacket. In minutes my upper chest was frozen. Yeah, well.

In Old Town the illegally parked car at 406 North Union was gone. It was replaced by another illegally parked car. At least this one wasn’t blocking the bike lane.

An astonishing number of people were riding on the trail. I saw a woman running. She was pushing a stroller. Don’t mess with this family. They are from Hoth. (Hotians?)

Ed, a bike commuter who lives near me, blew by me like I was standing still. As did pretty much every other DC-bound commuter.  Ugh.

As usual the headwinds intensified between the airport and TR Island. I started talking to myself. Mostly cuss words. Slow progress. Pedal harder, mofo. My left eyeball started to feel frozen. Gross.

I found that I had to stand to get up the Rosslyn hill. Something really must be wrong with this bike. Or could it be the 4,000 cookies and 3 cases of beer I ate and drank over the holidays?

I arrived at work. The garage attendant and a maintenance worker congratulated me. All bike commuters should have fans.

It took me another 10 minutes to peel off all the layers. I got to the office 30 minutes late. It was so worth it.

I was looking forward to a tailwind all day. Then I got the news. The winds had calmed but it was a springlike 31 degrees outside.

Arlo Guthrie once referred to a 40 degree day in the Berkshires as New England tanning weather. I was practically ready to break out the sunscreen. Instead I ditched my t-shirt layer.

The ride home was truly lovely. For the first ten minutes it was light out. I warmed up immediately and was perfectly comfortable. Even better I was riding at my normal 11 – 12 miles per hour. Between the TR and Memorial Bridges I came upon hundreds of Canada geese. They posed for a picture then I did my best Charlton Heston and made them part.

Geese

Okay, Moses didn’t yell “Yee Haw!!!!” but I did.

The rest of the ride home was geese free. In Old Town, the bike lane was free of parked cars.

I am looking forward to my ride to work. It will be in the 20s with light winds.

I cannot believe I just wrote that.

Welcome Winter

We have had an exceptionally warm winter so far here in the DC area. That ended today. And wouldn’t you know it, today was the first bike commute of the new year.

Nothing says fun like riding into a headwind when it is 28 degrees outside.

And so I did.

After about three miles I was comfortable. I was also protected by trees and short buildings in Old Town Alexandria. After a while my fingertips started feeling cold. And my toes. Then “Hi, John!” It was Linel.

We talked for a while. Or tried to. It’s hard to hold a conversation while riding, with your ears covered, in a headwind.

About that headwind. It got stronger as the tree protection fell away. Linel and I swapped leads. When we came to the exposed area just north of the airport, I took the lead. Oof!

Linel turned off to go across the 14th Street Bridge. I proceeded into the headwind.

Pedal, pedal.

I took the trail bridge across the Parkway. I was about 15 feet up and the headwind was now a cross wind. Whoa! (It turns out that Linel was exposed to this crosswind for about 1/2 mile. Not much fun.)

Damage report. All decks.

I arrived at work with numb toes. The shower I took made them burn.

The ride home was a ride on a tailwind. I didn’t struggle. I just went with the flow. Bikes passed me. Fast. I didn’t care. A tailwind is a terrible thing to waste.

Near the Memorial Bridge, large gaggles (weird word that) of Canada geese were bumbling about on either side of the trail. The trail was covered in geese poo. Lovely. Honk your own self.

It was cold but with the wind at my back I was surprisingly comfortable. And in a good mood. Until I reached Old Town Alexandria.

At the first cross street, a car made a u-turn across the trail as I was riding past. The driver could have continued 100 feet and used the circular turnaround in front of some office buildings. Instead the driver decided to take a chance on running me over. This happens all the time for some reason.

A quarter mile later I was in the bike lane on North Union Street in Old Town. A car was parked perpendicular to the curb completely blocking the bike lane. It was parked at 406 North Union. This is a frequent occurrence. I was cold so I didn’t stop to take a picture or knock on the door. I did note that the license plate was Virginia J 3. This sounds like a well-connected individual. The house is worth well over $1 million. When I got home, I called the Alexandria Police. They took my information and said they’d check it out. In light of the fact that Union Street is patrolled by a parking enforcement person every night, I suspect that the city looks the other way at resident parking scofflaws with deep pockets.  Call me cynical, but I doubt anything will change. Except I will keep complaining to the police, because it’s a bicycle friendly city. It says so on a sign.

The rest of the ride home was uneventful. Cold but uneventful. Tomorrow will be colder still. I will be wearing hiking boots with chemical foot warmers inside. Tights under wind pants. An additional layer up top. A balaclava will complete my stylish look. I hope I can pedal under all the clothing I’ll have on.

Of course, I could drive or work from home.

Except nothing says fun like riding into a headwind when it is 18 degrees outside.

 

Recumbents and Vultures and Toros

January 2 is a pretty big disappointment. The day after the New Year is so pathetic sounding. Christmas gets Boxing Day. Thanksgiving gets Black Friday. Even Halloween gets All Saints Day. (Okay, July 5 doesn’t really cause goosebumps but it’s summer time and nobody much cares about goosebumps. Unless you are in Tierra del Fuego. If you are in Tierra del Fuego, you deserve whatever you get.)

Bored and wanting just to get out of the house, I took a spin on my long neglected recumbent, Big Nellie. I had no where to go and wasn’t in a hurry to get there. I decided to ride up toward National Airport and see how the new 50 yard stretch of the Mount Vernon Trail was sizing up.

In Belle Haven Park, three vultures circled in the sky above. Were they expecting me to die? (No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to RIDE.)

As for the trail repair at the airport, it’s wider than before. Straighter than before. And bumpier than before. I guess they haven’t de-bumped it yet. Can’t wait. I was getting sick of the detour through the mulch.

I didn’t see anyone I knew and my feet were starting to get cold (it was in the mid-40s) so I rode home on the new Potomac Yard bike trail. This trail is nice and wide but it merges with a sidewalk at haphazard intervals. An old man in a sweatsuit doddered across the trail/sidewalk directly in front of me. Good thing I have the reflexes of a 60-year old so I could avoid him. (You politely use terms like “old man” and “dodder” when you ride a recumbent. It says so in the user’s manual.)

About two miles from home, as I approached the stone bridge, I heard an ominous, horrifying noise from behind a wooden fence. It was a lawn mower. Are you effing kidding me? I was feeling very mindful and peaceful and stuff so I let the fool do his yard work in peace.

So there you have it. My exciting first ride of the year. You should take a nap now. That’s what I’m going to do.

A Year Well Ridden

For a guy who spent three weeks on a bike-free vacation and the better part of the winter waiting for a thaw, I rode a whole bunch in 2015.

For the year I clocked 7,518.5 miles. Nearly two thirds of this total was from riding my bikes to work 162 times. Pro tip: if you want to boost your annual miles, get a job farther from home. The remaining 2,601 miles was on various weekend and bike touring excursions. The No Wrong Plan Bike Tour was about 370 miles including riding to the shuttle at the start and riding home on Bike to Work Day at the finish.

The tour made May my biggest mileage month at 951. September, usually a big month, was my lowest mileage month at only 296.5 miles. I spent nearly three weeks on vacation and didn’t touch a bike despite the fact that I could have laid claim to riding in Asia and Australia and New Zealand. Oh, well.

The Mule, my oldest bike, got the most use, 3,342 miles, including exactly half of my bike commutes. The least mileage went to my new bike, a Surly Cross Check, at 1,000 miles. Of course, I only had this bike for four and half months. None of these miles was from commuting.

I rode indoors on Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent six times for the equivalent of 99 miles. Otherwise, Big Nellie fell into disuse. I rode it only 86 miles since August. Over the course of the year, I rode it to work 25 times. Its total mileage for the year was 1,289.

Little Nellie got much more use than I expected. It is a Bike Friday folding travel bike but I didn’t travel with it. Instead I just rode it a lot locally. I did 56 rides to work and 1,887.5 miles overall. Being able to stash it in the trunk of the car came in handy many, many times.

My longest ride of the year was exactly 100 miles from my house to Whites Ferry and back on Big Nellie. The second longest ride of the year was the 18 mile ride home from the Tour de Fat event. I find riding a bike after a beer or two not to be problematic. Riding a bike after drinking beer in the hot sun for five hours, is considerably more challenging. Next year I will volunteer so as to remain sane. (Of course, I say this every year and rarely get around to volunteering. Bows his head in shame…) Another rather long bike ride was my bike commute the day after returning from Thailand. I was jet lagged out of my mind. It was not a lot of fun.

Other than the tour, the rides I liked best usually involved baseball games at Nats Park. The Nationals’ bike valet service is just about the best thing going.  Every ballpark, major or minor league, should do this.  A couple of times I had the pleasure of riding with Katie Lee to the Capitol and watching her do a victory lap – riding around in circles, hands free, head back, with an ear-to-ear smile. Pure bike joy. And then there’s always the fun of a ride home after a night game. I love riding home in the dark on a warm summer night.

The last ride home on the bike tour on the C&O Canal was special. Ryan intercepted us on his way to Brunswick. Then Rudy gave us a full escort from Great Falls. Near Fletcher’s Boat House, Mary came out to escort us. Somewhere along the line Chris showed up. We rode to Glen’s near Dupont Circle for a celebration where we were joined by even more #bikedc friends. I was escorted on my ride home against the Bike to Work Day flow on the 15th Street cycletrack and down the Mount Vernon Trail  by Mount Vernon resident Ed. This day was in stark contrast to the last day of my other tours when I was greeted with a ho-hum from non-biking relatives. (This is why I made it a point to meet Linel in Belle Haven Park at the end of her C&O Canal tow this year.)

I don’t recall how many times I rode to Friday Coffee Club, but it’s a thing and it’s fun.

I went to several bike events: WABA’s Vasa and Cider rides and holiday bash, the Great Pumpkin ride, the Tour de Fat, the kinetic sculpture race in Baltimore, the Cookie ride, and the #biketivismdc protest on Pennsylvania Avenue.

I hiked a bunch too. I honestly can’t say which trail was my favorite. They all have their distinct characteristics. I learned that I don’t much care for rock scrambles or crossing steams on slippery logs. In my running days I was a pretty darn good downhill runner. I am a pretty lousy downhill hiker.

I am not much of a massage fan but I had three massages this year. The last and only other time I had a massage was after a century in 1991. I liked the oil massage in Thailand the best. It was outdoors under a shelter in the rain. The next best was a Thai massage from a friend in McLean Virginia. This was relaxing and nothing like any of the other massages I’ve had. The reiki at the end was also pretty cool. The sports massage I had near my home was rather vigorous. I was sore for days afterward. I am still not much of a massage fan. I’m just not into pampering, I guess.

Enough with looking back already. It’s 2016. Let’s get on with it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crossing 1,000

MG over at Chasing Mailboxes recently decided to put in as surge of running to get to 1,000 miles for the year. I thought this was not such a great idea because it reminded me of my running days when I discovered what I called junk miles. Junk miles are miles you run for reasons other than fitness. I wanted to run 3,000 miles one year (I biked a whole lot less in those days). So I was running lots of 70 mile weeks. Do the math. Mostly this meant that I spent a lot of time nursing injuries. After the year was over, I discovered that 60 miles per week worked every bit as well so I dumped about 10 junk miles off the weekly running schedule.

So what does this have to do with biking? Shortly after commenting to MG about the concept of junk miles, I noticed that I had about 900 miles on the odometer of my Cross Check. Hypocrisy be damned, I went for it.

After many miles of riding flat neighborhood streets I decided to put the 100-mile challenge to better use. I started seeking out hills. I hate hills. So I tackled Oxon Hill (twice), Mason Hill near my home (twice today), Beacon Hill (once is plenty), and assorted other hills leading from the GW Parkway near the river up the hill that runs roughly parallel.

To my surprise, I actually got better. Even today when I forgot to take my asthma medicine. Of course, I had help. El Nino and climate change have conspired to bring us unseasonably warm weather with generally light winds.

After doing my hills, I headed up the Mount Vernon Trail. On Union Street in Old Town Alexandria I came upon an old friend who I hadn’t seen in nearly a decade. I could tell because he was cycling with his son who was now 13. The last time I saw the boy he was a rugrat.

As we were talking, a co-worker of mine ran past. He’s pretty fast. Every time I see a runner with good form I feel a twinge of jealousy.

After the chat I did a loop north to Four Mile Run and back to my neighborhood.

I pulled into the driveway to record this picture:

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Mission accomplished.

See you next year….

Active Rest

After climbing hills for a couple of days, I wanted to give my legs some rest. I toyed with the idea of an easy hike but went for a gentle ride instead. My plan was to avoid anything that looked like a hill and I think I succeeded. The Cross Check and I rolled around the Fort Hunt neighborhood, never exceeding 20 miles per hour and reaching that for only a minute or two.

This kind of thing is called active rest. I intended to take pictures but that rarely pans out for some reason. I did, however, return to the scene of the house demolition to see how it is progressing. Basically the middle half of the house, except for the chimney is gone. There is a garage to the right and the remnants of what might have been an addition on the left. It’s as if some giant came along and took a bit out of the middle of the house.

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I spent the rest of my ride doing laps around Fort Hunt Park. As if to prove I was taking it easy  a rollerblader passed me and proceeded to leave me in his dust going up hill. After three or four laps a mist started falling, the perfect excuse to head for home.

After showering I ran some errands. One involved purchasing some beer so rather than risk tragic breakage I drove. I could feel a bounce in my step as I shopped. Looks like the active rest day did its thing.

Tomorrow I hope to do a last ride of the year. Nothing special. There is at least one hill nearby that I haven’t climbed this week.