My Ride to the Star Destroyer

It was supposed to be a flat recovery ride. I got a bit carried away. Within a mile and a half I was riding up the hill on Sherwood Hall Lane. Then I rode up the grade on Fort Hunt Road, descended and rode another hill past the golf course to the Beltway.

Okay, I’ll be good. I’ll ride the new Alexandria bike trail all the way to Crystal City.

It was flat. So I continued on to the Pentagon.

It, too, was flat.

I worked my way over to the Mount Vernon Trail and the Humpback Bridge, mostly because the Humpback Bridge sounds cool.

Over the river on the 14th Street Bridge and up Maine Avenue past the incredibly big Wharf construction project. First phase set to open in 2017. Yes, it’s that big.

M Street took me to the 11th Street Bridge across the Anacostia. Whoever decided to put a bike path on this thing is a frickin’ genius. (Is “frickin'” even a word?)

Now the fun begins: the long slog up Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard. If this is junior, I don’t want to know about senior. I had multiple flashbacks to my seven 50 States Rides during which I admired the fit behinds of all the riders who can climb faster than me. Which is to say every entrant ever!

One thing I noticed during my climb, it matters what pants you wear. Pants that are tight around the hips make it harder to climb. Today I wore loose mountain bike shorts under baggy wind pants. Claudio Chiapucci I ain’t but the climbing was not so bad.

It goes up and up. Then it goes down conveniently stopping at South Capitol Street so that all that downhill momentum is lost. Then up some more for a while until I plunge down the steep hill to the Police Academy complex. Every time I see the sign for Police Academy I think of the dreadful movie. At least it had Bubba Smith in it.

Of course at the bottom of the hill there was a stop sign. I stopped. A police cruiser noticed and gave me a friendly toot on the horn. (Take note Alexandria Virginia Police!! You don’t have to treat cyclists like criminals.)

What goes down must go up. After a meander through the messed up Oxon Cove Park I confronted the beast. I don’t mean this apparent imperial star destroyer under construction. (It’s a trap!)

Side note: Oxon Cove Park could be a local jewel. It has the misfortune of being located in a poor, out of the way section of Prince Georges County Maryland. The few people who live near it rarely use it. What a shame.

The beast was the long, ever steepening climb at Oxon Hill Farm. I HATE this hill. It starts with the indignity of a false flat. Then a true hill emerges in front of you. And emerges and emerges.

I made it to the top without calling for my mommy.

Across the Beltway on Oxon Hill Road and down the side path to the river. Up the spiral ramp (I love this spiral) to the deck and back across the Beltway. Somehow I now had legs and rode over the Wilson Bridge actually accelerating as I made the climb.

I headed home on the Mount Vernon Trail but after a few miles I bailed out to take on one more hill: Westgrove Boulevard, as suburban street that also steepens as it rises.

Mommy!!!

Okay, I made it. In pretty decent fettle. I made my way back home once again riding up the Sherwood Hall Lane hill. For the life of me I can’t figure out why riding up the steeper part going west is so easy. I just thrash it every time.

So 31 1/2 miles. On a rest day. When I couldn’t help myself. If it rains tomorrow, I spy a museum. (If I get out of bed.)

Some Ride/Hike Ideas for 2016

About a year ago I was admonished by a friend for sounding wishy washy regarding my 2015 vacation plans. “Stop planning. All we have is today” was her way of saying don’t plan, DO! Irony alert: in January 2014 she told me of her plans to obtain certification to teach in DC schools and to open a business. She followed through on none of it, eventually leaving town. Even so, she had a point.

I suck at advance planning. Somehow I managed to do a bike tour, a non-bike trip around the world, nearly a dozen day hikes, half a dozen bicycling events, and take in a bunch of Nationals games. So with that in mind I began thinking about things to do in 2016.

I anticipate one non-biking vacation (to Sweden and thereabouts) to visit my daughter. (A return to Thailand in the dry season would be nice but I can’t face the 18 hours of flying right now. Maybe 2017.) That will leave plenty of vacation time. So here are some ideas I am tossing around in my head.

Hiking: there are still many, many hikes to do in the Shenandoah National Park. Also, I have barely scratched the surface of hiking in nearby Maryland and Pennsylvania along the Appalachian Trail. One possibility is to gear up and do some overnights. I have never done this and it would be an interesting extension of my day hikes (not to mention save on driving home after a day’s worth of hiking).

Biking Events: WABA swears that it’s going to offer a century ride this year. If it works into my schedule, I’ll definitely do it. Then there are the usual events: Vasa, Cider, 50 States, Backroads, and Great Pumpkin. I’ve done all of these several times, but the Backroads course was moved to West Virginia this year. I was in Australia and missed it. I can’t wait to do the new version. Two more that I keep threatening to do are RAGBRAI and the Five Boro Ride in New York City. Both of them are cattle drives. Both offer logistical challenges. Some of what follows are a lot easier to do.

Bike Trails: There are all kinds of cool trails around here that I haven’t ridden. Here’s a list of Virginia trails:

The Virginia Capital Trail goes between Williamsburg and Richmond. This could be a fun 2-day deal or a long single day ride.
High Bridge State Park down near Farmville and Appomattox looks really cool with a long, high bridge.
The Virginia Creeper Trail is a bit of a drive from DC. It’s only 34 miles but could be a beast of an out and back ride.
The New River Trail is a 57-mile trail that looks really promising with 30 trestles and bridges and two tunnels. This is a two-day ride with camping I think.

In Pennsylvania the Pine Creek Rail Trail runs 63 miles through the Grand Canyon of the East. Looks like a good overnight camping round trip to me.

Bike Tours: Right now I have eight possibilities on my list. All in the Eastern U.S.

Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway: This is a monster tour, 578 miles from Front Royal, Virginia to Cherokee, North Carolina. How the hell I’d get back is anybody’s guess. It’s also super hilly so I figure I’d be lucky to average 45 miles per day, 13 days of riding. This could be beyond my physical abilities. (Never stopped me before.)
The Natchez Trace: This 444 mile road is truck free. Tack on another 90 miles or so and the route would go from Nashville to New Orleans. Logistics on this one is a bit pricey (two bike flights). Bike Friday to the rescue?
Figure 8 in Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York: Adventure Cycling has two routes that form a figure 8. One loops around Lake Champlain, the other does a lap of the Adirondack Park. This one would be logistically pretty easy as I have family in the Albany area where the Adirondack route begins. The total distance exceeds 700 miles. The riding in Vermont and upstate New York is incredibly nice. Also weather up yonder is pretty much perfect for cycling in June – August.
La Route Verte: There are over 5,000 kilometers of marked bike routes in Quebec. The possibilities are endless. Then there is the interesting prospect of conversing in my horrid, mostly forgotten high school French. The idea of cycling to Quebec City, which I have never seen, or around Montreal is pretty intriguing. Getting there is a bit of a haul, but c’est la vie.
A New Kind of Rail Trail – North: Amtrak now has roll on bike service on the East Coast. Theoretically (relying on Amtrak is always an iffy proposition) I could take my bike on a trail and ride to Brunswick Maine, then ride up to Acadia National Park and ride all or part way home.
A New Kind of Rail Trail – South: Alternatively, I could take the train to Florida, ride to Key West, ferry to Tampa and ride across the state to Amtrak in Miami. Or just ride home.
Around Lake Michigan: This one starts in Monroeville, Indiana, one of the most bike touring friendly small towns in the US. It heads north through lower Michigan into the Upper Peninsula. Then across to Wisconsin and returns by crossing Lake Michigan on a ferry. It’s 1,100 miles. Logistics would be simplified by using my in-laws house in north central IN as an alternative starting point.

In the increasingly likely (yet still somewhat improbable) possibility that I retire there is this:

The Trans Am/Western Express/Northern Tier Cross Country Ride: There remains a faint possibility that I might retire this year. If so, adios, amigos! I don’t know which route I’d take but the possibilities are numerous. The Trans Am is the classic route from Yorktown to the Oregon coast through Yellowstone. The Western Express shortens the Trans Am by taking a b-line across Utah and Nevada for California. The Northern Tier goes close to the US-Canada border.

Once I find out when the WABA Century and the Sweden trip will happen, I’ll pick two of the tours and as many events and hikes as my aging bones can handle.

Pictures of the Year 2015

Pool Noodles for the Win: Sam got us organized. We were going to occupy the Pennsylvania bike lanes to get barriers installed between 13th and 15th Street to keep cars from making illegal u-turns. Somebody got the idea of using pool noodles as props, to indicate where the barriers would go. Afterward, Dave carried them off. I think they took him to the nervous hospital later.

19566313641_cc7b5aa8c7_z

We all had a blast. Human bollards come in many shapes and sizes. Here’s the Katie Lee model. It’s generally impervious to u-turning cars, but can be moved aside with tickets to Packers games and Phish concerts.

Here’s Sam, the mad genius behind #biketivismdc. It’s funny what getting run over by a car does for your determination to make streets safer.

Kelly Biked to Work!: Kelly sits across from me at work. She had hip surgery which meant she couldn’t run for weeks. So she took up bike commuting. The smile means it was a success.

18595872232_19694ef663_z

To her credit she really got into the bike commuting thing. Here she poses at an underpass on the Four Mile Run Trail. A few days before rising water during a downpour caused her to abandon shelter and head into the maelstrom. She survived and added a snorkel to her bike commuting gear.

Like Father Like Daughter: I went to a bunch of baseball games this year. Katie Lee and I attended a couple of games together. She is a meticulous genius at scorekeeping, an art she learned from her late father. At one game, there were two little boys in the row in front of us attending their first baseball game. They were trying to figure out how to keep score. Katie moved down and gave them a game long tutorial. It was an act of kindness that just knocked me out. Somewhere her dad is smiling.

20150524_154735

Posh Bike Parking: For some inexplicable reason, our office building started getting all environmentally conscious this fall. Without telling anyone, they replaced their absolutely crappy bike racks with a pretty awesome, secure bike room. Combined with the gym and showers one floor above, it’s a pretty darn bike friendly place to work.

Here’s the before shot.

Here’s the after.

No Wrong Plan: Ryan, Kevin, and I rode from Pittsburgh to DC. It was my first bike tour in a decade. Here we pose in Georgetown’s Waterfront Park at the end of our trek. Any resemblance of me to Hoss Cartwright is entirely coincidental.

In Williamsport, Maryland, we stopped at the Desert Rose Cafe for breakfast. They made us sandwiches for lunch. Inside the bags they included napkins. Each one had a personal message. Such nice people. Such good food. Eat there. (They speak veggie and vegan too!).

Going Up: I did quite a lot of day hiking this year branching out to Shenandoah National Park for several exceptional hikes. All my hikes were solo except for this one with Ultrarunnergirl. She kicked my ass all the way up to Little Hawksbill, the highest point in the park. Then the mountain kicked my ass all the way back down.

On my 60th birthday, I hiked Old Rag. It was a tough hike and convinced me that rock scrambles are for the young and frisky. Also, the thin.

Glory Days: Mrs. RC is a very talented quilter. When I had to quit running about 25 years ago we talked about using my race t-shirts to make a quilt. Nothing came of it until she made the quilt as a surprise for my 60th birthday. What an amazing gift. Oh how I wish I could run like that again.

22656414917_f86c358923_z

Around the World in 19 Days: My kids were living in Sydney, Australia and Phuket, Thailand. We decided to go visit them. While in Australia, Mrs. RC and our daughter Lily went to Uluru for dinner under the stars. Here we enjoy a drink just before sunset.

After trips to Melbourne and the north island of New Zealand, we headed for Phuket. The island is very hilly so everyone rides a motorbike like this one my son Eamonn uses.

We paid a visit to Big Buddha. He was aptly named.

Lily made friends with a baby elephant.

Cookies and Cider: I did a bunch of event rides this year. The Cookie Ride had a good hook. Cookies at every rest stop. Here I pose with a human cookie along with Paris and Lisa.

I missed my two favorite rides of the year, the Backroads Century and the 50 States Ride, which both occurred while I was traveling. I swore off the Cider Ride last year but decided to give it a go after they moved it into November. Finishers got this cool mug. Thanks to Michelle for her event magic on behalf of WABA.

Sunrise: The year is nearly over but I am pretty sure that the new one will start something like this. Thanks for reading.

The Last Bike Commute

Today was the last day of autumn. At 11:49 tonight DC goes into winter. Tomorrow there has less than one second of daylight than today. Wednesday we pull on the rope and say “Screw you, South America” and pull the sun back.

Or something like that.

I am working from home or taking vacation days until 2016 so I am done with bike commuting for the year. Unofficially, I’ve ridden to work 160 times this year. Not half bad considering I took more vacation and teleworked more than ever before. So this was the year that I drove to work the least since I moved to Fairfax County in 1989.

As I left for work, I momentarily panicked. I couldn’t find the battery for my headlight. Then I remembered that my new headlight also can be run off the battery for my old headlight. Yessss!

The morning was comfortably cold. As the sun rose the temperature followed and my base layer became noticeably wet. Traffic on the Parkway and the Mount Vernon Trail was predictably light. I cut a little off my commute by taking Royal Street through Old Town. I could do this safely because St. Mary’s School of the Holy SUV was closed so I didn’t have to deal with its drop off line.

The willow trees across from the Washington Monument are losing their now yellow leaves. Yellow and gray.

23519612499_0151f79d83_z

It was a nice ride so I didn’t complain. The office bike commuter matrix was all full of non-complainers. (Of course, Kelly was out of town so that may be why.)

The ride home was much warmer. I took my time. My bike commute is so nice I really wanted to milk the last one for all it was worth. The trail work on the Mount Vernon Trail is really taking shape. Pavement went down today. It is only a matter of a few more days before the detours are removed and we get to ride on the new, straighter and wider trail.

I moseyed on down to Old Town where the trail meets the city streets. The stop sign where the trail meets the street had a new addition.

I New sign #mvt #oldtownalexandria Passive aggressive city was happy to see this because it proves my point that the city is biased against bicyclists. I have never seen a sign that shows a picture of a car with the words “must obey all <STOP sign>”.

As I rode the length of Union Street through Old Town I counted the cars at stop signs. Sure enough, 7 of 8 rolled through the stop signs.

After another five miles, I pulled into my yard. Another year of bike commuting under my belt. One of these days I’m going to ride to work and then not stop. Just keep going until I hit the blue Pacific waters. Could that happen in 2016?

Hmmmm……

My Top Ten of 2015

The year began with a paper lantern rising in the post-midnight sky over Old Town Alexandria. I hoped it was a sign of good things to come. Here in no particular order are the highlights of what followed:

Around the World in 19 Days: When your kids move to the other side of the world, you have a perfectly good excuse to go visit them. We flew via LAX to Sydney to meet up with our daughter who was studying abroad at Macquarie University. We explored Sydney, Uluru, and Melbourne in Australia and Rotorua in New Zealand. Then we flew to Thailand where our son now lives, teaching English at a school in Phuket. We flew back via Abu Dhabi and JFK, completing our trip around the world. Speaking of travel….

Six Days without a Plan: I did my first bike tour in ten years, riding 370 miles from Pittsburgh to home, nearly entirely off road in six days. Kevin and Ryan made for good company. The Meth Man not so much. Earl and Anne, two friends from my years in Boston, met up with us for Mothers Day brunch. And we saw the Pirates execute a triple play at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. Speaking of baseball….

Where’s My Ring?: I pretty much went all in as a Washington Nationals fan this year. I attended 8 or 9 games (one was a rainout) and watched dozens more on the tube. In the process I discovered the wonderful bike valet service at the ballpark, bottles of ice water (mostly ice) sold outside the stadium, and SeatGeek, a web service for cheap seats. Sadly, the Nats completely fell apart in August and September ending with the sad display of a bad apple reliever choking the eventual league Most Valuable Player. Speaking of things surly…

Getting Surly: My bikes were getting old. And so was I. So I decided to buy a new one, just for riding events and such. I bought a Surly Cross Check on the enthusiastic recommendation of a half dozen friends who own one or wish they did. I’m still working on giving it a name. My fleet of now four bikes carried me over 7,000 miles this year. Speaking of mileage….

Turning the Odometer: I hit 60 in August. My brain still can’t believe it but my body does. Denial only gets you so far in life. I celebrated by hiking Old Rag. My advice is to do this hike long before your 60th birthday. Mrs RC made me with a quilt from my old running t-shirts. This totally surprised me with it even though she made the thing right in front of me. Still, turning 60 was inescapably depressing. Speaking of depressing…

Goodbye Blue Mondays: I started the year dealing with rather severe depression, not the “I’m sad” kind but the clinical kind. It’s a drag just thinking about it. I forced myself to socialize (see below), ate vitamin D supplements (I had a severe deficiency), and began daily meditation at the repeated suggestion of a friend. You could say that when it was over I had become comfortably numb. Speaking of numbness…

My Right Foot: I also started the year with a mysteriously numb right foot. I saw a neurologist who was incredibly enthusiastic, competent, and beautiful about my case. She sent me to a physical therapist who gave me a set of exercises including bird dogs, side planks, and nerve flossing that I still do every other day. On a whim, I went for a Thai massage. It didn’t do a thing for my foot but it was just about the most relaxing 90 minutes I can recall. “Use your third eye, John.” I also went to an acupuncturist who didn’t do a thing for my foot either. He did fix a pain in my upper arm and recommended some orthotics for my shoes. Speaking of shoes….

Ramping Up My Hiking: After each of my hikes last year, my back and knees were killing me. The second I put the orthotics in my shoes, my back felt better. I did ten hikes this year, most of them in Shenandoah National Park and a little further north on the Appalachian Trail. All but one were solo hikes. The exception came when Ultrarunnergirl kicked my ass all the way to the top of SNP and back. My knees and back hardly protested. Speaking of protests…

What’s a Park It?: Bike riders in DC had been getting hit by cars turning illegally through the Pennsylvania Avenue bike lanes. I attended a protest that was designed to bring awareness to the fact that new barriers called Park Its had not been installed on two blocks of the avenue. The protest was successful (the Park Its were installed a few months later) and was a great opportunity to get together with friends old and new. Speaking of new friends…

Do I Even Have a Fusiform Gyrus?: Three months after apparently meeting me at a December 2014 holiday party, a woman walked up at a post-ride reception and said “Hi John.” I had no idea who she was. She later said I needed to have my fusiform gyrus checked out. So began my improbable friendship with Katie Lee. A few days later we spent four hours in a booth in a downtown tavern. Two peas in a pod, pod people you might say, engaged in an incredibly intense conversation. I felt as if I had caught lightning in a bottle of Shiner Bock. On my way home for the first time in months the fog of my depression had lifted. Like a paper lantern. I know a sign when I see one. Thanks for showing me the score, KL.

Encore, you say?….

Sitting in the Lap of the North Wind: A year or so ago, Mrs RC bought me a CD of celtic sounding music by a Quebec folk group called Le Vent du Nord. As luck would have it, they played very small venues near DC twice this year. We were in the second row for both performances, practically in the lap of the foot drumming, song singing, fiddle player. Even though I studied French in high school and college I can’t really follow their lyrics but I have no trouble enjoying their hurdy gurdy fueled music. Tres bon.

And People Say I’m Crazy?

Almost without fail, when the weather is bad, a non-bike commuter will look at me in my bike commuting get up and say, “You’re crazy.’ Just like “Watchin’ the Wheels.” I expect them to “give me all kinds of advice to save me from ruin.”

It’s raining today. I drove to work. My mode choice had to do with an after work social commitment in the city. (Irony alert: it’s the Washington Area Bicyclists Association’s holiday party.) It was just me an tens of thousands of other worker bees driving to work alone in their cars. On a Sunday, driving the 15 miles to my office takes between 20 and 25 minutes. Today it took an hour. Mostly I spent the time stopped in traffic looking at the tailgate of a humongous Ford pick up truck. When I got bored with that I looked over at the Mount Vernon Trail and watched the bike commuters go zipping along.

No wonder bicyclists generate so much anger from motorists. How dare they actually enjoy their commute. You should have to sit here like the rest of the world and rage at the traffic gods. (It’s not my fault that there is so much traffic. It’s the other drivers’ fault. If only they’d get out of my way!)

Traffic is a sure sign that Americans are dumb as stumps. How else could so many people be sucked in by such BS as “See the USA in a Chevrolet” and “Zoom, Zoom” and “Farfegnugen” and “Fine German Motorcar?”

My bike has “Farfignewton.” It has “Pedal, Pedal.”

The only advantage to driving to work that I can see is I get to listen to music. Today’s car tunes are Le Vent du Nord’s Les Amants du Saint Laurent and The Notting Hillbillies’ Missing… Presumed Having a Good Time.

To paraphrase the Beatles: “Beep, Beep, Beep, Beep, NO!”

The Office Bike Commuting Matrix

I work in an office of about 25 to 30 people. Several of us ride our bikes to work.

As readers of this blog know, I ride to work nearly full time. I don’t ride with ice on the roads, jet lag, or unavoidable conflicts. So far this year I have ridden one of my bikes to work over 150 times.

My boss is Mohammad. He recently upgraded from a garage sale Schwinn to a Yuba Mundo cargo bike. He uses it to take his kids to school in DC. He’s an everyday commuter.

During her recovery from hip surgery, Kelly needed to get some exercise or she was going to go insane. (Not that anyone would notice.) This summer she began bike commuting. She’s currently on bike commuting hiatus but seems on the verge of starting up again.

Kirk is a fair weather bike commuter. He rides incredibly fast for a man who is retirement eligible. A few years ago a runner on the Mount Vernon Trail did a crazy Ivan maneuver (known in football as a button hook). He turned right into Kirk’s path. There was blood and pain. He’s now fully recovered from the crash and presumably more careful.

Charlie is a once a week bike commuter. He plans his commute meticulously and avoids riding in the dark. We try not calling him a wuss.

There is a white board outside of Mohammad’s office that has news of the day for staff. For example, at the top it tells us the day of the week because some of the staff are, well, challenged chronologically.

Every morning a conversation evolves around who rode to work. Invariably somebody complains about something. So Mohammad and Rebecca his administrative assistant cooked up the bike commuter matrix to keep tabs. She is the commissioner.

23529133352_b4ff772f33_z The commissioner adds graphics to make things interesting. That’s actually Mohammad and his kids on the Mundo in the upper right. That’s not Kelly in the lower left. A more recent picture showed Kelly being pursued by a chainsaw murderer. There have been two homicides on her route so she has suspended bike commuting until the killer(s) have been brought to justice. What a wimp.

You either did or didn’t ride and you either did or didn’t complain. I recently was tagged for complaining (see above) after I merely observed that it was foggy. I wasn’t complaining. I was simply stating meteorological fact. Still I was recorded as complaining. I filed an appeal with the commissioner and she ruled against me. I’d appeal to a higher authority (not that there is one) but the commissioner erased that matrix the next day.

You may notice something at the bottom of the frame. It says “D.U.S.T. = XX days.” This has nothing to do with bike commuting. DUST means Days Until Spring Training. Rebecca looked this up on the Yankees website. I was going to protest as a member of Red Sox Nation but I felt badly. She grew up in Albany (which I can assure you is punishment enough, says this native Albanian) and hasn’t been sent for proper deprogramming yet. We’re working on it.

What This Town Needs Is Later Sunsets

And that’s exactly what we are getting. The tilt of the earth and some other astronomical BS means that, although we are still losing daylight, the sun is setting later. Don’t the gods care about symmetry, goddamit?

I mean this really messes up everything. I am firing my shaman and getting a new jungle drug. My consciousness is in retrograde.

One consequence of all this cosmic buffoonery is I am leaving for work later. Subconsciously my brain says “get ready to leave” in the morning only when a certain amount of daylight is evident. I tend to leave a few minutes later each week as a result.

Sunrise at Dyke Marsh seems to be on schedule. I leave home ten minutes before sunrise and arrive Dyke Marsh just after the sun has cleared the trees on the other side of the river. My brain says, “You’re right on schedule.”

This trickery doesn’t seem to be affecting others though. Running Mom was heading north, back to Old Town this morning. All I saw was her back. Usually I see her front as she heads south along the trail. Swivel Light, a southbound woman bike commuter with a red blinky light on a pivot on the top of her helmet, was nearly in Old Town when I saw her. Normally I see her up at the airport, some 3 or 4 miles closer to DC.

Too bad Trump isn’t president. He’d declare war on Argentina to get our daylight back. They’d fold like a cheap suit by March.

On a somewhat more serious note:

I saw some surveyors doing measurements on and near the Dyke Marsh bridge. This bridge was damaged by several storms over the last ten years. The surface twists and turns a bit as a result. Most of the other bridges on the Mount Vernon Trail have been replaced over the last five years. This bridge and the beaver bridge (just north of the Slaters Lane turn off) are past their sell date. Let’s hope an upgrade is coming this spring.

Basic Bike Commute Math

It rained. It was cold-ish. I thought about driving to work. I rode anyway. My thinking was pretty simple. Driving to work in the rain sucks. Riding in the rain is a bit of an adventure. Adventure > suck.

I was totally comfortable for the first ten miles. Around National Airport my gloves became so saturated with water that they were useless. No worries. I had only 4 1/2 miles to go and I had packed a spare pair of gloves.

One benefit of commuting on nasty weather days is that you get the Mount Vernon Trail to yourself. From my home to the airport, I saw one bike commuter. She was one of my regulars, riding from DC to somewhere in Alexandria. I see her almost every day. She probably thinks adventure > suck too.

From the airport to the office saw about a dozen bike commuters. Nobody looked miserable despite the soaking rain.

My only problem with commuting in the rain is the fact that it takes an additional ten minutes to get cleaned up before going to the office.

My co-worker Kelly took Metro today. I think her choice of footwear was a little bit over the top.

23337940802_3a3c69ae86_z

We took my boss out for lunch. In the rain. I was much more uncomfortable walking the three blocks to and from the restaurant than I was on my bike.

The ride home was surprisingly dry. For a day that the weatherman probably gave a 2 out of 10, I’d say the commute was a solid 8.

Except for one thing. About two miles from the office, I noticed a bulge in my rain jacket. I had forgotten to put my phone, keys and id in my handlebar bag. I reached in and removed my phone and keys but could not find my id. Lost. I need my id to get into the bike room at the office garage tomorrow.

I could just drive in tomorrow, but I’ll probably ride in and retrace my path, in case my id popped out of my rain jacket on the way home tonight. The smart money is on it being in the bike room.

I’d normally be upset about losing my id, but it actually gives me an excuse to turn my bike ride into a search and recovery mission.

Adventure > suck.

November by the Numbers

On the whole, November turned out to be a pretty decent month. The weather was unseasonably warm, except for a few days when I froze my ass off. I rode to work 15 times. My long ride was a 55 1/2 mile cavort through DC to Bethesda and back.

The Cider Ride turned out to be quite a lot of fun. It was especially good to see so many people I knew at the afterparty at the Dew Drop Inn.

With the exception of a single commute on The Mule, I rode only two bikes this month. Little Nellie took care of the rest of the commutes. My Cross Check handled weekend duties.

For the year I now have ridden 6,908 miles. Of that, 4,556 miles were just getting to and from work. About 1/2 the commuting miles were on The Mule. A third were on Little Nellie. A sixth were on my increasingly little used Big Nellie. Since August, practically all my fun rides have been done on my Cross Check.

I did a long solo hike near Harper’s Ferry. The views were fantastic.

I have had very few injuries this year. A back spasm now and then. And a numb foot that is mostly trouble free these days. All the biking and hiking (plus some therapeutic conversations with friends and meditation) have rid me of the depression that dogged me last winter and spring.

Let’s see if I can finish strong and break through the 7,000 mile barrier before the snows come.

	Rootchopper on March Madness
	Rootchopper on March Madness
	halffastcyclingclub on March Madness
	Jim on March Madness
	halffastcyclingclub on Blanket of blood – Snow…