Tag: #bikedc

A Regular Day

Another lovely day for a ride to work. The Mount Vernon Trail was very busy with bike commuters and others. On the way to work I saw five regulars: Hoppy Guy, Three Step Runner, Nancy Duley, French Braid Girl ( though her hair wasn’t braided), and GraffixNerd Clone.

I was passed by at least a dozen bike commuters. Everybody was on their best behavior. I arrived at the Rosslyn Circle of Death without incident. For the last several days, I have watch cars blow the red light at the intersection of the MVT and North Lynn Street to make a right turn. Why bother stopping on a right turn on red?

I left work a few minutes early. Ed, a co-worker who commutes on a fixie from Old Town Alexandria, rode next to me. We chatted side by side most of the way. I got some ugly looks from on-coming riders. I was taking up too much space on the trail. My bad. I won’t do it again.

Near the TR bridge boardwalk, Chris B. came rolling by. He’s a semi-regular. We also past Broken Ankle Guy. This is a bike rider with one foot that is askew; it enters the toe clip at an angle, which obviously slows him down quite a bit. I see him a lot.

Ed put me through my paces. He was toying with me. He’s much young and is actually in shape. I am old and my shape is a pear.

I arrived home in plenty of time to shower and change and head out to the Birchmere. Mrs. Rootchopper saw the Proclaimers perform.

After yesterday’s events, it was refreshing to hear them sing the words, “I’m on my way from misery to happiness today.”

Today was [Trumpet fanfare!!!] my 50th bike commute of the year. I knew it was supposed to rain this morning so I watched the radar on TV very closely and set out for work when there was a clear gap in the storms. About 1/4 of a mile into the ride, I saw a flash and heard a boom. It then occurred to me that the guy at the TV station  who lines up the doppler radar echos with a map needs to find a new job.

I wore shorts and a shirt under a rain jacket. It worked okay. There was a whole lot of standing water along my route so my feet got soaked.

I lucked out in that there wasn’t any more lightning and thunder. Just rain. Lots and lots or rain.

The upside to this nasty weather was that the Mount Vernon Trail was empty. No tourists. No people with dogs on 15 foot leashes. No five year olds careening all over the place on training wheels. No Lancelots blowing by me without warning inches from my left elbow. Just me, Little Nellie, and a few bazillion gallons of cold rain.

As I rounded the bend at Gravelly Point, the rain was joined by a gale force crosswind. I had to lean into the wind to avoid being blown into the Potomac River, where white caps were dancing.

The westerly wind came in handy when I turned onto the 14th Street bridge. It blew me across the Potomac. As I reached the Tidal Basin, I could see that the cherry blossoms had succumbed to the storm. Thousands of little blossom petals littered the sidewalk and street. I’m sad to see them go, placed along the trail by eastern redbuds’ purple blossoms.  And soon we’ll soon be dealing with the 17-year cicadas. Eek!

I walked into Swings for Friday Coffee Club and the six cyclists who were there laughed at me. I probably looked like a wet rag. We stood around a couple of tables, drinking coffee and letting the morning’s rain run off our clothes onto the floor. Normally, on Friday mornings I take my coffee with a heaping spoonful of estrogen. Not today. For the first time ever, it was all guys. Was it something we said?

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The ride to Rosslyn across the narrow path on the TR Bridge featured a first: not one stop for DC-bound cyclists.  I did have to slow to squeeze by a runner but she gave me plenty of room.

When I arrived at work, I was greeted with this:Image

The bike parking had been taken over by movers. I pushed some of their moving stuff out of the way and tied Little Nellie to the hitching post. Then it was off to the fitness center where I used an abundance of towels to dry off my stuff.

By the end of the day, my office reeked of wet wool. It’s amazing what an odor just two wet wool socks can put out.

The ride home was dry and warm. The MVT was clear sailing all the way home. My pair of geese is back where they belong in Dyke Marsh but there were no gosslings. Yet.

What’s August Going to Be Like?

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It was t-shirt and shorts day. No need for layers since it was already 65 degrees outside when I left the house. I have been so obsessed with the cherry blossoms in DC that I forgot about the one on the front lawn. It’s a weeping cherry and Little Nellie thinks it looks fine.

The ride in was as splendid as a bike ride could be. My only problem was the fact that I got only 5 hours of sleep last night because it was 80 degrees in our house. We are experiencing a bit of a heat wave here in DC.  The thermometer hit 90 today which broke the record. Fortunately the humidity was low, so there were no dead bodies along the Mount Vernon Trail.

Unfortunately, the lovely weather has brought out the Lancelots, cyclists who think its reasonable to buzz past you without warning at 25 miles per hour. I will not cry when I see one of them under a BMW.

On the way home I diverted into DC for a final ride by the cherry blossoms. It seemed a good ten degrees cooler in DC. There were people everywhere. I rode two laps around East Potomac Park, meeting up with Dana from the Friday Coffee Club. We continued on through the epic traffic jam, on to the 14th Street bridge, and south on the MVT.  I mentioned that it seemed significantly hotter on this side of the river. Dana said, “That’s because we’re in the south.” He should be a meteorologist.

We had a fierce headwind. Dana tucked in behind me and was kind enough not to rear end me when I came to a near stop several times. At the south end of the airport, Dana turned off on the Four Mile Run trail. I continued into the wind.

Near the power plant two passing runners looked like they were having seizures. I heard one of them say “bugs”. A second later I was in one of those spring time bug clouds. Ack!

The rest of the ride was honest work. I didn’t see any interesting waterfowl. Or raptors. My recent regulars weren’t around, but I did see Hardware Store Guy. He owns the hardware store near my house. He rides a red Serotta up and down the MVT in the morning.

Tomorrow I get the day off. My daughter has a lacrosse game and my wife turns 37 again.

Nearly Spring

Here in DC we are being tormented by a winter that just won’t let go. We have had one day over 60 degrees so far this year. March was colder than January. The wind has been blowing day in and day out. No mas.

I didn’t ride to work yesterday so that I could attend my daughter’s lacrosse game. She is the goalie. Watching your kid in goal is difficult. If she performs well she will come home with bruises and contusions all over. If she doesn’t the team probably loses.

It rained overnight, right up to the moment I left the house. It was in the low 40s or high 30s and I had a headwind. So I put on all my rain gear.  Of course, it stopped raining.

Despite the wind, the ride in was pleasant. Two ospreys were messing around at and in the air above the Belle Haven bald eagle nest. I think they are taking over. Ospreys are pretty impressive, unless you have a bald eagle around. Bald eagles are rock stars. Ospreys sing folk tunes.

I have noticed this week that some of the geese are sitting in the grass. I am pretty sure they are mothers about to lay their eggs. Every year two geese set up house on a very narrow piece of grass where the waters of Dyke Marsh pass underneath the GW Parkway. There were two geese there the last few days. By next week we should be seeing fuzzy goslings along the Mount Vernon Trail.

I rode Little Nellie to the Friday Coffee Club. I passed by DC’s famous cherry trees. They are still not in bloom, but the big show should start in a day or two.

Coffee Club was crowded again. This week some Arlington bike commuters began a separate get together. I say “accept no substitutes!!”

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Work was work-like.

By the time I left for home, spring had made an appearance. It was 60 degrees and I had a nice tailwind to end the workweek. I packed my rain gear and went with shorts and short fingered bicycling gloves. My fingertips were pleased to be liberated from long fingered gloves.

At the south end of Old Town the Mount Vernon Trail passes a small wooden area that has river overflow in it. I could hear spring peepers making their calls as I rode by. In a couple of days, the frogs near my house will be making quite a racket.

 

 

Springtime in Sweden

Today was the first event of my 2013 riding calendar. Each year the Washington Area Bicycling Association and the Swedish Embassy get together to hold the Vasa ride.  In Sweden, them crazy Swedes hold a really long cross country skiing event called the Vasaloppet. Thousands of Swedes, nearly crippled by cabin fever, go skiing for hours and hours. Somehow, like chocolate and peanut butter, WABA and the HofS decided to merge the Vasaloppet concept with bicycling and, voila (sorry, don’t know any Swedish), a ride was born.

The Vasa event is held in March, because Swedes don’t give a damn about cold weather. This helps keep the number of participants in the Vasa ride down. Still we had several hundred folks doing one of the 3 rides. There’s the full Vasa of 59 miles. Then there’s the Halv Vasa of 31 miles, and finally there’s the Kort Vasa of 16 miles. (Swedes ain’t so hot at fractions apparently, but we at the Rootchopper Institute of Anal Retentive Arithmetic are a forgiving lot.)

At the end of the ride, the HofS gives riders hot blueberry soup. It’s actually pretty tasty, buy I wouldn’t want to drink it every day.

The infamous Friday Coffee Club came out in great numbers, a few even brought along their significant others. You can tell it’s true love when your partner will ride 30 or 60 miles in the cold for a cup of blue soup and your company.

Temperatures were around 40 degrees and winds were light. At 8 a.m. a gaggle of FCCers took off with the Full Vasa riders. Our group included Mary and Ed on their amazing Co-Motion tandem, Ryan, Aaron, Will, Shawn, and Lisa. Leslie, another FCCer, was riding as a ride marshall. Thanks for volunteering, Leslie.

Lisa is now the official riding buddy of this blog. We’ve done five or six rides together in the past year and she hasn’t cussed me out once yet. (She shows remarkable restraint.)  The last official riding buddy of this blog was run over by a pick up truck, so, Lisa, watch your back. Although I didn’t see them during the ride, Shawn and Will were also in the Full Vasa pack as we headed out.

The ride went out the Capital Crescent Trail, crossed over to MacArthur Boulevard and headed to Potomac Maryland. At Potomac Village we stopped to chat with Megan and Katie, two WABA people who were giving out drinks and maintaining good cheer despite standing in the cold all morning.

At this point, Lisa and I made the executive decision to turn around while the rest of the group forged on. Their plan was to do a 3 Kort Vasa, the full ride less a portion in Rock Creek Park.  Lisa and I had fun riding back despite feeling a  bit chilly.

Back at the HofS, we met up with Dave, another FCCer who had ridden the Kort ride with Jean, his wife. Jean did the ride despite disintegrating riding slacks, a recent purchase gone sadly wrong. I am sure she will get her money back.

While at the HofC we met up with Rachel and Kate, FCC regulars, and their partner in cycling crime, Katie Ann. Other FCCers we met up with at the HofS included Crystal, John and Kate, and Justin and his wife, whose name escapes me. (This has been a problem of late. I mixed up Kevin with Ben, another FCCer, at the start. I may have to up my coffee consumption.)

The Rootchopper Institute would like to thank the House of Sweden and WABA for putting on this event. I’d list all the names of the WABA peeps who got up super early to pull this shindig off, buy I’d miss a few names (see previous paragraph). Special thanks go to Alex, who managed to take pix with an SLR, tweet on her phone, and use a megaphone in the same morning.  Her stirring pre-ride safety speech was beyond compare. And also to Megan who was standing in the cold at the Potomac Village rest stop with Katie despite having run a half marathon yesterday and getting only 3 hours of sleep.

As usual, the only thing that could have made this a better ride was warm sunshine and more FCCers. These folks are a joy to ride with.

Mary, Ed, Lisa, and I took pictures. You can check them out here, here, here, and here. WABA’s pix are here.

Oh Yeah, That Winter Thing

The weatherman has gone to Defcon 1. We are supposed to get 3-8 inches of snow near DC tomorrow. It will rapidly melt, but not before creating a 2- or 3-day headache.

Little Nellie got the call this morning. I found a eye glass mirror in my son’s car last week so I tried that out. I also used sunglasses (actually a clip on my regular glasses). So I was on a vision quest. The sunglasses helped a lot with the sun at a  low angle shining straight in my face. This is the time of year when drivers can be temporarily blinded. Mostly they just keep driving and then when the hit something they say, “I didn’t see it!”  with astonishment. Be prepared to take evasive action.

I’ve tried the mirror out before. I really don’t like it. I have to twist my neck to see what’s behind me. Big Nellie has a mirror that sticks out of the end of the handlebars. (I can’t use one of these on my other two bikes because they have bar end shifters.)  I can glance at it and get a good view. I always know exactly where to look. And it’s big. My little eyeglass mirror is annoying. Two bikes passed me on the Mount Vernon Trail this morning. I never saw them coming.  I think I will try zip tying the mirror to my helmet. Maybe that will be better. It would suck if I ran into something while pre-occupied with this stupid mirror.

The ride in was another slog into a headwind. My legs seemed to struggle the whole way. It could be payback for the 6 ½ mile walk I did on Sunday.  There were no eagles or herons or Nancy Duleys to break up the monotony of the ride. I say this with a bit of irony – my bike commute along the Mount Vernon Trail is about as good as it gets. I am spoiled by the river and the monuments and the planes taking off and landing and the quaint homes of Old Town and on and on.. I long for a commute through a run down slum with industrial blight thrown in here and there.

Well, as luck would have it, nobody erected a slum with industrial blight during the day so I rode home. The wind was from the east, off the river so it was a two-headwind day. I tried not to take this seriously, but Little Nellie was pissed.

The weather was fine for the entire ride. No sprinkles. No snowgflakes. Reasonably comfortable temperatures. Tonight we may get thundersnow.  Cool.