Lost in Shame

I hadn’t been awake but a couple of hours when the first food shaming comment hit my Facebook page. Eating turkey is morally bankrupt, utterly unnecessary. and an offense to the universe. Okay. I’ll just go for the veggies and other stuff. Then the next bit of shaming came in. Sweet potatoes are dug up by hand by migrant workers. This is back breaking and inhumane.

Pass the beer please.

So, I punted on the shame. I had some turkey and piles of non-animal foods. No sweet potatoes though. It wasn’t shame. I hate them.

Today, I took the day off from work. It is apparently the thing these days to shame people into not shopping on what has come to be called Black Friday. REI closed its doors and urged its customers to go do something outdoors instead. They even created a hashtag for it: #optoutside

I could tell you that I chose to give in to this shaming because, after having eaten the turkey, I was riddled with guilt. The truth is I hate shopping even more than I hate the taste of sweet potatoes. To me, one day of shopping is like eating corn beef and cabbage every day for a month. And I don’t need REI or any other store to persuade me to go for a ride or a hike. So I went all in on the #optoutside thing today.

I waited until 11 to get moving. Mostly because the temperatures here in the DC area were rising through the morning. At 11 they were rising through the 50s. Time to boogay.

I decided to drive to Indian Head Maryland and ride their rail trail. I also took the cue sheet and map from a book of rides I have. The plan was to ride the trail one way then do the book’s ride that covers some of the same route as the Southern Maryland metric century. Just by eyeballing the thing, I figured I’d be doing about 40 miles of riding.

Even though I’ve done the rail trail many times, I had trouble finding it. I eventually gave up and took the roads from the century ride. After about five miles this route intersected with the trail and I switched over to Plan A.

The trail was newly paved. Each time I do it some additional improvements have been made. It’s getting better every year. This time of year there is not much to see along the trail. A damned up creek forms a trailside pond. I spotted two bald eagles in trees along the edge of the pond.

The trail ends in a parking lot that continues on to scary US 301. This is a high speed, four lane, divided highway. I think driving it is unsafe so you can guess how I feel about riding it.

I backtracked along the trail and hung a left on Middletown Road, a lightly traveled two lane country road. Weee!

From the book map, I could tell that Middletown would soon meet up with the route in the book. And sure enough it did. At US 301. All I had to do was ride on this highway of death for 1/2 mile. I did and it was pretty scary.

The book route is a figure eight. I had already ridden half of one loop of the 8 now I was looking to doing the other loop before returning to finish the first loop. I noticed that this meant that I’d be going against the directional arrows in the book. No big deal…..

The route took me into La Plata Maryland. La Plata is the county seat of Charles County Maryland. Charles County used to be all about tobacco growing and casinos. Both are long gone, replaced by a bed room community. It is a distant suburb of DC and Annapolis.

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It dawned on me for the very first time that this town bears the same name as the hometown of an Argentinian friend of mine. Our La Plata has cinderblock evangelican churches. Their La Plata has a gothic cathedral. Our La Plata has a horrifically scary highway blasting through town. Their La Plata has tree lined boulevards that radiate from a central square. (Their street grid actually looks a lot like DC with boulevards cutting diagonally across a a grid of streets.) Our La Plata has the world’s best barbeque. (It said so on a sign so it must be true.) Theirs has world class padbol. (Don’t ask.) Our La Plata is a tornado magnet. Theirs not so much. Both, as it turns out, have Thai massage therapists. Whoda thunk?

I passed through our La Plata and kept going. Then I found out that going against the arrows was not such a good idea. The route took me back to 301. To stay on course, I was supposed to ride the shoulder of 301 against the traffic for 1/2 mile.

Not gonna happen.

So I crossed 301 and continued on the country road opposite in hopes it would re-connect me with the route. After 1 1/2 miles I came to a fancy gate. Very big and impressive looking. With keyed entry. The road continued through the gate and wound up a hill to a massive house overlooking acres and acres of carefully groomed land. Next to the gate was a sign that said “Private Road.”

Not gonna happen.

Frustrated, I turned around and decided to head back to La Plata. After back tracking halfway to town I decided to look at the map. Sure enough I could actually get back of course by riding a big circle to the east. It looked like about a five mile detour on country roads. Onward!

It actually turned out to be a mighty nice ride. There was one big downhill to a creek crossing and an uphill on the other side but the views were pretty and the traffic was light. Then, about a mile from re-crossing 301 I came upon Rich Hill. Straight up. No messing around. I do believe they should change its name to Bitch Hill.

Finally, I re-crossed 301 and was back on course. Chapel Point Road is another lovely two-lane country road that meanders by farms and fields. At the top of a hill is a beautiful old church. It’s bell was ringing the three o’clock hour. Next to the church was a graveyard. Just beyond, the hill fell away and the Port Tobacco River could be seen down below bathed in the late November sun. I really should have taken a picture but I was worried that any more delays might leave me out in the dark. I didn’t bring any lights so this was a pretty serious consideration.

The road followed the drop off of the hill and wound up, down, and around small hills that overlooked the river. As the road nears Port Tobacco, it passes dilapidated tobacco barns. Then the remnants of the original settlement from colonial days can still be seen. The US Census says the population is 13. Quaint.

On the far side of the town of Port Tobacco is Rose Hill. I remember Rose Hill from all the times I rode the Southern Maryland Century. It winds up and gets steeper near the top. What makes it hard is heat and humidity. There was little of either today so I managed to climb the hill without too much difficulty. Perhaps my ease in climbing was relative. After making it up Bitch Hill, Rose Hill wasn’t so bad.

The rest of the ride was rolling hills on country roads. I was worried that I’d get caught in the dark with temperatures falling so I kept plugging along. It was something of a relief to get back to the trail. The trail goes gradually uphill for 5 miles to Indian Head. This sort of false flat can really be discouraging, especially after you’ve already ridden farther than you intended.

Pedal. Pedal.

Soon I was riding under the archway at the trail head. I made it back to my car with plenty of daylight left and 53.5 miles on my odometer. I could feel the air cooling as I prepped for the drive home.

So there is no shame in La Plata. What would you expect for a town that lived off of tobacco and gambling?

Time for some leftovers. My mama always said that it’s a shame to waste food.

Let’s Play “Was It Worth It?”

Today’s bike commute was an exercise in serial stupidity. I felt like I was trapped in a video game populated by idiots.

I was headed to DC, riding along Morningside Lane, a shoulderless two lane road about 2 miles from my house. For cars, this road leads leads to the GW Parkway; for bicyclists, it leads to Park Terrace Drive. I am on this street for all of 200 yards. I was rolling along and heard cars coming up from behind. I stuck my left arm out to indicate that I was going to take a left turn. The driver of car behind me immediately stepped on the gas and passed me on the left, exactly where I had indicated I was going. Somehow this driver thought my hand signal meant “Kill me over there.” Endangering my life saved the driver at most ten seconds. Was it worth it?

I stopped to take in the sunrise. You never know when it’s going to be your last.

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I headed to Friday Coffee Club. Afterward, I roll west on G Street, a one way street that goes past the World Bank and through the campus of George Washington University. As I was about to start out, a sedan came zooming onto G Street from 17th Street. It careened down the street swerving around other cars to get to a right turn just before the light turned green. The driver nearly hit two cars in the process and saved himself one minute at most. Was it worth it?

A few blocks later a short elderly woman (Think “Where’s the beef?”) was making her way down G. She could barely see over the steering wheel. She decided to turn right into one of the garage entrances to a World Bank building. She didn’t bother to signal and nearly took out two bicyclists. Was the parking space worth two lives?

Our next contestant was a DC bound bike commuter on the narrow path on the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge. I was heading outbound. There was a strong, gusting cross wind. As I usually do, I wave DC-bound riders to pass me then I stop and hug the rail so they have plenty of room. (By the way, very few say “Thanks” which really pisses me off.) Today I waved a cyclist to come on by me. He was looking up river at the Georgetown waterfront. He had a wool hat on and it was pulled over his ears. He kept coming. On my side of the path. Straight at me. I yelled “Wake up!” He kept coming. I yelled again. About ten yards before hitting me, he turned and saw me and swerved around me. I could see wires extending from beneath his cap. He had earplugs in and didn’t hear me. Was the view and the tune worth it?

At the Intersection of Doom, I normally have at least one close encounter with large deadly metal objects each day. Today did not disappoint. Although the light had just turned red (giving me a walk signal), the driver of car turning from the I-66 off ramp decided to turn right without stopping, the better to save a minute on the way to work. As I have learned to do, I delayed crossing to avoid getting hit. I wonder if the driver even thought about the fact that she could have killed me. Was my life worth one minute of her time?

Our evening contestants included two ninjas. These fine folks wore dark clothing and nothing reflective and no lights as they ran along the Mount Vernon Trail. Was the money you saved on a blinky lights worth it?

Finally, just south of the Beltway, the Mount Vernon Trail takes a 90 degree right and turn across South Street, the access road from Washington Street to two big apartment buildings. A left turning motorist (sounds so refined) didn’t bother to signal saving at least 10 seconds of bulb life. Had I not anticipated his stupidity I’d have been t-boned. Was the bulb life worth mine?

Sadly, these near misses are pretty much typical for my commute. I am very much aware that most of my #bikedc friends have it much worse since they are on city streets for their commutes. I have managed to survive another week of “Was It Worth It?”

Pass the wine.

To the Trestle and Back

Today I had the day off for Veterans Day. I still kind of like the original name, Armistice Day, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, and all that. It’s a decent Paul Simon song too. No disrespect to Veterans, mind you. My father was an amused Veteran. He used to tell the story that medical school students were drafted and left in school. The army would take them out to a base on Long Island and march them around. My father said they were pathetic, skinny, pale, uncoordinated. Gomer Pyles but with brains. My father stayed in the reserves through the Korean War. All this was before my time.

Having the day off, I decided to do one of my favorite rides, from my home in Mount Vernon Virginia to Bethesda, Maryland with a stop at Rock Creek Trestle. The temperature was in the mid-50s when I left with a strong northwest breeze, a headwind. You don’t get many windy days in the DC area when its warm so the breeze was a portent of many cold windy days to come.

I rode my Cross Check on the Mount Vernon Trail to Old Town Alexandria. The trail was covered in leaves and I was fearful of slipping and falling so I was extra careful. Once in Old Town I decided to leave the Mount Vernon Trail and head through most of Alexandria on a couple of newer bike trails. I picked the first trail up just off of West Street and rode it to the Braddock Road Metro station. There I zigzagged to get on the new trail that runs several miles, nearly all the way to Crystal City in Arlington. No lights. No stop signs. No obnoxious ticketing by Alexandria Police.

I rode through Crystal City and hit every traffic light on the green. This NEVER happens. My route took me on Boundary Channel Drive along side acres of Pentagon parking. Then I rode through Lady Bird Johnson Park, under the GW Parkway, up and over the Humpback Bridge, onto the 14th Street Bridge and across the Potomac River.

During this part of the ride the rear fender of the Cross Check became disengaged from its frame mount for what must have been the 20th time. I re-attached it and decided it was time for a permanent fix.

Once in the city, I rode the the K Street Bicycle Space store where a mechanic did what mechanics do and soon I had a fender that would not fall off. Knock wood. During the repair, I noticed that Paul, the mechanic most likely to play Doc Brown in Back to the Future IV, was working on an HP Velotechnik Street Machine. This is a recumbent to die for. The owner and I talked about the bike. He bought it from a Canadian for $1,500 Canadian. New this bike costs 2 – 3 times as much. The owner, who looked to be in my age cohort, rode it across the country. Dang! Bike envy!!!

Another customer came in to get her bike ready for Saturday’s Cider Ride. I didn’t have a chance to talk to her but maybe I’ll see her during the ride.

From Bicycle Space I headed up Sixth Street to check out the church whose congregation is upset by the possibility of having to share the street with a protected bike lane. Sixth Street is WIDE. I don’t see the problem here other than selfishness.

I wended my way through town and up the protected 15th Street bike lane at Meridian Hill. This short hill is quite a bitch, I must say. I recovered by doing a slow lap in the park. On weekends the park is a hive of activity but today it was nearly deserted. I checked out the view of the water cascade and then headed through Adams Morgan to Rock Creek Park.

On weekends and holidays, Beach Drive, the main drag in the park, has limited car access. I rode north on the windy road, wind in my face, sun on my shoulders. It was a mighty fine ride. I made my way to the Georgetown Branch Trail and to the Rock Creek Trestle. The view from above the treetops is one of my favorites.

RC from Trestle — Rock Creek View from the Trestle

RCT and CC — The Cross Check Takes a Breather on the Trestle High above Rock Creek Park

GBT — Georgetown Branch Trail Heading West from the Trestle

After taking some pictures I headed west on the trail to Bethesda. I could tell that my body was not feeling it today. I still haven’t recovered from Sunday’s hike. I slogged on stopping only to refill my water bottles when I should have stopped to eat.

In Bethesda I picked up the mostly downhill Capital Crescent Trail and a tailwind. Ahhh.

Normally I be bombing along this trail at 20+ miles per hour but not today. I was suffering from insufficient junk food syndrome or IJFS. Don’t get this. Eat you donuts, people!!!

On the way home I rode past the Lincoln Memorial. I expected the place to be mobbed with Veterans checking out the nearby Vietnam, Korean, and WWII Memorials. There were plenty of people, many obviously veterans, milling about but I think whatever festivities there were had concluded hours earlier.

I made my way to the 14th Street Bridge and retraced my route to the south end of Old Town. Not wanting to ride the Mount Vernon Trail for the 400th time this year (a guess, but not too far off), I took Fort Hunt Road and Sherwood Hall Lane home. This is a pretty hilly route and I had nothing left in my legs so the going was slow.

Long story short:I managed to ride 55 1/2 miles on a sunny November Day. Not half bad.

A Bicycling Hostile City – Again

Once again the police of Alexandria Virginia are singling out bicyclists by means of excessive enforcement of traffic laws on the streets of Old Town, Alexandria. The primary points of enforcement are along Union and Royal Streets which coincide with the Mount Vernon Trail. The usual reason for the enforcement (sometimes euphemistically referred to as educational efforts) is not an increase in bicycle-pedestrian crashes, but rather the cranky complaints of a handful of residents. Admittedly sometimes these complaints are justified. An example is when Walter Mittys in lycra go zooming through the streets with no regard for any other road user. These people are obnoxious and deserve whatever tickets they get.

Generally speaking, however, most of the people that get ticketed are the bike commuters who probably average about 10 miles per hour during their time in Old Town. In the morning these bike commuters (like me) are riding on a virtually empty street. Personally I’d rather be focused on delivery and garbage trucks than some overzealous police officer trying to teach me a lesson.

The fine for rolling through a stop sign is $91. And cyclists get tickets for these infractions even when their transgressions have absolutely no impact on public safety. Yeah, I know the argument goes that if you obey the law you won’t get a ticket. Well, how many people who use that argument go below the 55 mile per hour speed limit on the Beltway? Now suppose I called the State Police to claim that red Toyoty Camrys are speeding on the Beltway. And then the State Police strictly enforced the speed limit only for red Toyota Camrys. “Sorry,sir, the speed limit is 55 and you were doing 57.”

While driving 57 in a 55 is technically in violation of the law, it’s almost certainly safe and is probably more safe than driving 54 (as is rolling through a stop sign at slow speed. See my first example below.) I can only imagine the traffic court judge who has to deal with scores of red Camry drivers who show up to contest tickets for going 2 miles per hour above the speed limit. He’d throw them out and reprimand the ticketing officers.

The fact is that cars on Union Street are far more of a public safety threat than bicycles. Here are three recent incidents from my evening commute.

One evening last week, I was being paranoid and came to a complete stop at all the stop signs. It was dark. I even put my foot to the ground. (This makes me a sitting duck to any vehicle coming up from my rear.) A Honda CRV came up behind me swerved into the left hand lane and blew through the stop sign without breaking. The car was going what looked to me like 15 to 20 miles per hour. From personal experience, I can tell you that if that car hit a pedestrian at that speed they’d be out of work for at least 3 months. Because that is what happened to my wife three years ago. The driver continued south on Union, blowing through a second stop sign before pulling over near the beach volleyball court in a park at the south end of Union. As I rode past, I noticed the driver was fiddling with her cell phone.
Last night I was riding south on Union when I came to a stop at the intersection at King Street. It was dark. A pedestrian wearing a reflective belt across her chest was about to walk across the street in the crosswalk. She had to stop because a car came through the intersection heading north on Union with only its parking lights on. The driver never saw the pedestrian. The pedestrian looked at me and shook her head in disbelief.
Two blocks later I was blinded by a northbound car with its high beams on. This blast of light backlit three pedestrians dressed in dark clothing walking across the street in mid block. Had I been going anywhere near the absurdly high 25 mile per hour speed limit I’d have hit them for sure. After I passed them, still in the glare of the high beams I spotted two more mid street pedestrians who were obscured by the intense back light.

If you think I may have contributed to this consider the following set up. I have two rear facing red lights one of which is attached to my helmet with a reflective yellow band. I have four rear facing reflectors. I was wearing a reflective vest. My sidewalls are made of reflective white material. My shoes and pedals have reflectors on them. I have one forward facing reflector and a 500 lumen light on my helmet. If you can’t see me, you obviously don’t belong behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.

My short term remedy to avoid this harassment is to use other cross streets in Old Town. Some bike commuters have suggested just riding down Washington Street, the very heavily traveled commuter route to and from DC. I honestly think we should give this serious consideration. The traffic back ups from this would be epic.

My medium term remedy is to do a study of crashes involving pedestrians and vehicles in Old Town. How many are there? When do they occur? What injuries occur? How many days of work are lost? (Wanna bet who would come out on the short end of this study?) Then use the data to enforce the traffic laws rationally.

My longer-term remedy for traffic safety in Old Town: reduce the speed limit to 10 miles per hour. Sorry drivers you’ll have to use that pedal in the middle of the floor. Replace every other stop sign with a yield sign. Enforce the traffic laws without harassment, including ticketing drivers. Problem solved.

And while we are at it, give parking tickets to the homeowners on North Union street who park perpendicular to the street blocking the sidewalk and the bike lane. I routinely see the parking enforcement patrol ignore these violations.

Fancy Pants Bike Parking

My office building in Rosslyn has been showing some love to bike commuters. First they removed the dim florescent bulbs in the garage and replaced them with LEDs. Now I can ride into the garage with my sunglasses on. In fact, I might even need them.

This week we got a peek at the new bike parking facility. It’s activated by the same card key security system as the rest of the building. You have to register with building management to get your card upgraded for access to the bike room. It has space for 20 bikes, 18 hanging and two on an inverted U rack on the floor. It also has a bike pump and tools.

The old bike parking was lame. (At my previous job the bike racks were the same as my elementary school’s. I went to that school in the 1960s. I am not entirely sure if the racks at my current office are any better.) A bike commuter had her Cannondale road bike stolen earlier this year. Here’s what it looked like. (That’s Little Nellie on the right.I took the pump off the frame because someone stole a similar pump off The Mule earlier this year.

The new bike room is more better. Here you can see one half of the hanging bike rack and the U rack on the floor. The pump is on the lower right.

There was an opening day card key problem. Once they activated your card for bike room access, they deactivated it for access to the gym and showers. I’m sure they’ll get it all sorted out soon.

Celebrity Cycling Quiz

One of the really fun aspects of living in DC is serendipitously spotting famous people while you are out and about. Easily my biggest get was President and Mrs. Reagan. My younger sister had come to DC for the first time. Reagan’s limo came down Constitution Avenue. We ran to the edge of the street and stood alone as the small motorcade came by. My sister waved like a lunatic. Reagan spotted her, pointed at her, and waved back!

Lesser sightings occur about once per year. Earlier this summer while drinking a beer outdoors at a DC brew pub with Katie Lee, I spotted Colin Powell standing about 50 feet behind her. He and his wife Alma were posing for a picture. We traded stories about celebrity sightings. She shopped in a liquor store next to a Supreme Court justice (I forgot which one). My wife and I shopped for a TV with Dick Gephardt, former House Majority Leader.

Once in Boston my sister and I were seated at a restaurant. Sitting behind my sister at the next table was Red Sox right fielder Dwight Evans. I didn’t tell her he was there because she would have gone berserk. He had recently been beaned and was having a miserable time regaining his ability to hit. (He ultimately became a follower of the Charlie Lau/Walt Hriniak batting system and saved his career.)

I’ve also seen Stephen Stills (at Disneyland – oddly not seeing any Disney characters on a rainy day), Hillary Clinton (nearly tripped over her at a play at my daughters’ high school), Steve Case (of AOL, who took French next to me at my daughters’ Back to School night) former Senator Trent Lott (walking across Pennsylvania Avenue in front of me as I waited for a red light on Big Nellie), George Will (at a high school baseball game), sports announcer Dick Stockton (in my cab in Boston during college), Red Auerbach (in front of Boston Garden – he passed my cab up), Archibald Cox (in the Harvard subway station), Caroline Kennedy (in Harvard Yard), John Kennedy Jr. (at Brown, several times), Dan Rather (on a DC to NY shuttle flight in the seat in front of me), basketball great Willis Reed (at my high school where he was providing motivation to a misbehaving student who’s mother was a friend of Reed), Gemini and Apollo astronaut Michael Collins (on the C&O canal towpath), and Tom Hanks (riding a bike past me while filming a movie in DC before he became TOM HANKS).

There are a many others but I know them personally so they don’t really count. Also, I can’t count the head of my government agency or other celebrities who came to events at work.

So today I was out riding my bike in my neck of the woods in suburban Northern Virginia. I was riding laps in Fort Hunt Park when I spotted a man walking his dog. He was wearing a Washington Nationals t-shirt. As I rode by I said hello and he said hello back. Only then did I realize that this man is something of a DC-area celebrity. (Okay, you have to be a baseball fan to know who he is but still I thought it was pretty cool.)

Can you guess who he is?

First Freeze for a Buff-less Wonder

I knew the cold was coming. A few days ago I foraged around the house for my cold weather gear. My favorite piece of cold weather clothing is a tube of light-weight fabric called a Buff. The damned things are remarkably versatile and they are perfect for late fall and early spring weather. They also have one annoying characteristic. They disappear like odd socks in the laundry. And so my remaining black buff was nowhere to be found.

So I ordered three of them from Buff world headquarters in ironically warm Santa Rosa, California and hoped the package gods would smile down upon me and get them here before temperatures dipped into the freezing territory.

Hope, as they say, is not a plan.

Today, buffless, I did battle with the first frost of the season. I am happy to report that I emerged victorious. No noo-noos were frozen. The only discomfort came during the first three miles from home as by body heat became trapped in the three layers I wore on my upper body. In fact, the only parts of me that remained at all uncomfortable were the lower half of my face and my neck. This is where the Buff normally does its magic.

Despite my cold face and neck, I fell into a comfortable trance on the way to work, my legs fresh from having not ridden yesterday.

Temperatures rose about 25 degrees during the day making for a more comfortable ride home. There must be something about cool dry air that allows my brain to shut down into a meditative state. Or maybe it’s just the fact that the summer nimrods (who make long stretches of my summer commutes on the Mount Vernon Trail a sort of slow-speed bike slalom) were nestled all snug in their Metrobuses.

Somewhere near the airport someone headed for DC said hello. Being in my trance the voice didn’t register in my brain for several seconds making responding politely futile.

The rest of the ride home happened. I know because when I ca 22326715851_78b3e50773_z me to I was putting my bike away. Somewhere in there I lost about 45 minutes of my life. There must be a wormhole just south of the airport.

At my front door was a big envelope. Inside were my three new Buffs. This time I bought them in an array of colors so they won’t blend in with all my other black outerwear (like tights and arm warmers and gloves).

So I suppose you can say my next bike commute will be in the Buff.

Beautiful Ride – Ugly Reality

The day began with crisp fall air. I was ready for it as I pit on my vest, arm warmers, and head band. Dressed perfectly, I headed north on the Mount Vernon Trail bound for DC and Friday Coffee Club. The ride in went so smoothly that as I rode onto the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River I had that strange how-did-I-get-here sensation. A tailwind and fresh legs (I drove to work yesterday) probably helped.

Coffee Club was crowded. It was good to see some faces that I haven’t seen in over a month. This definitely eased my recent feeling of social ennui.

I rode to work on the narrow side path on the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge. I stop for DC-bound cyclists because there just isn’t enough room to pass on the fly. One of them asked me if the bridge was one-way. He was new to DC and he couldn’t believe the trail was so narrow. I assured him it wasn’t. Welcome to the land of improving bicycling infrastructure.

I left work and head for home, once again assisted by a trail wind. It was a similar vibe to the morning. No discernible effort involved. I barely broke a sweat. My delight in this wonderful autumn commute came to an end. I stopped to take a picture of this sign posted next to the trail north of Old Town Alexandria just after the Slaters Lane turn off.

It’s a sad reality to the women of this area that enjoying area trails comes with this risk.

Not 100 feet after starting up again I was passed by an on-coming woman running. She had earbuds in her ears.

Every safety expert I know warns against doing this. I know it sucks and it’s unfair but you are responsible for your own safety. Whether you are trying to avoid a potential human assailant or a garbage truck you need to hear what’s going on around you.

Speech over.

The rest of the ride was thankfully peaceful. For me at least.

Be careful out there.

Bike Karma : From Calm to Cash

Yesterday I wrote about how a very pleasant calming had come over me, as if my worries had melted away. Today very nearly topped it.

Back in my running days, I frequently found money in the part of the street that cyclists call the door zone. I think what happens is that drivers reach into their pockets for car keys and inadvertently pull money out with the keys. For a starving grad student these bits of serendipity were welcome surprises.

A couple of years ago I found a $20 bill in an ATM. I thought about taking it into the bank but I figured they already had plenty of $20 bills. Over the course of the next several weeks I bought lottery tickets with the money. It was, of course, gone in a short time.

Bike riding does not lend itself to these kinds of lucky finds. Bike riders typically find large objects like screwdrivers, bungee cords, binkeys from children being pushed by jogging moms, and stray pieces of clothing. (I once found a bra on the Mount Vernon Trail. If only it could talk….)

Today, in the middle of the street in front of my house, I found a $20 bill folded neatly in half. Wow! My lucky day. I looked around for someone looking for lost lucre and saw no one. So I put the bill in my handlebar bag and rolled on.

Fifty feet later I found another $20 bill, also folded in half.

You: You must be joking.

Me: I am not

I repeated my look-around and plopped the second bill into my handlebar bag.

Thinking maybe there was a line of $20 bills down the street away from my line of travel, I reversed course and rode back the other way looking for more.

No such luck.

Okay, I thought, time to count my blessings and head off to work. I got about 50 feet from the second $20 bill when I saw a folded piece of paper at the very edge of the street.

It was a $100 bill!

I started looking around to see if I was being filmed.

No one was around; it was just me and the found treasure.

I grew up Catholic. Feelings of guilt began to rise within. Mea culpa. Mea cupla. Mea maxima culpa.

But only for a second.

Mea maxima cnote.

It must be my week.

Last night I made a donation to Sam and Jeff’s charity ride. I chalk up today’s bounty to bike karma.

Maybe if you made a donation, you’d get some bike karma too.

It was hawt (as they say in Beantown) for the ride home. I made it about 9 1/2 miles before the rumbles of thunder turned to rain. Just enough cool rain to take the edge off the heat. When I turned off the trail about 3 miles later the rain stopped.

When I got home, my lawn looked bone dry. Go figure.

Strange day.

Bittersweet End of Summer

When I go out to get the paper, it’s dark out. I take this personally.

It’s also unseasonably cool. It feels like September.

I want it warm. I want it light. I want it to stay that way. Do I have to move to Argentina or something? Oh wait, a friend already has that covered. I could move to Australia. Oh wait, my daughter has that covered. Maybe I should visit her.

In the meantime, I’ll take a picture of the sunrise over Dyke Marsh.

Have a great weekend, y’all.

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