Tag: biking

Natchez Trace Tour – Final Thoughts

It’s been over a week since I competed my van-assisted tour of the Natchez Trace with the Adventure Cycling Association (ACA). I’ve had time to reflect on things. Here are some thoughts.

Tour Administration

I signed up for a tour that began in Nashville, a 10-hour drive from home. Day 1 of the tour was supposed to involve a 9-hour shuttle ride from Nashville to Natchez. Apparently previous participants found this unappealing. (I can’t argue with that.) A week or so after I committed and paid for the tour, I was notified that the tour would begin in Jackson, Mississippi, a 15-hour drive away. It would still involve a shuttle from the end in Nashville back to Jackson. I was notified that if I wanted to return to Jackson at the end of the ride, I would have to cough up an additional $75 for a seat on the shuttle. Finally, the itinerary was changed to include a 90-mile day. These changes gave me the impression that the entire operation was amateurish.

Participants were also advised that it would be wise to bring a light-weight road bike instead of a heavy touring bike. The Mule, which I long ago altered with easier gearing for touring, has carried me on 8 loaded tours over 10,000 miles. The Mule was not amused.

Fortunately, once I was on-site, the mishigas stopped and the tour itself was well-run.

After the tour, I received an email with a link to a feedback survey from the tour organizers at Adventure Cycling. Like most people, I have filled out dozens of on-line surveys without incident. This survey was a Microsoft product that failed to accept my login information. Try as I might, I couldn’t crack the secret of launching the survey. I have never encountered survey software this lame before. I ended up sending an email with some feedback to Adventure Cycling instead.

Operational Aspects

The tour co-leaders were Jeff and Beth Ann, both of whom are very experienced. The experience showed. There was a system to every aspect of the tour. The whole thing went off like clockwork with only a couple of glitches that were easily resolved.

Shopping for and cooking dinner, breakfast, and lunch was the responsibility of the riders, organized into groups of two or three people each day. It was obvious that the idea of rushing through a long ride to shop for food so that the rest of the riders could eat before dark was unappealing. We all knew this cooking and shopping arrangement was part of the tour but the reality of it just didn’t sink in until the second 70+ mile day. Remarkably, each group had a creative chef and support crew. Vegetarian options were provided which is quite a trick when cooking outdoors for 15 people. Also, Jeff taught us how to make coffee using a French press. Suffice it to say, bicycle tourists drink the stuff by the gallon and it was very good.

On the second day we were confronted with a situation near Jackson. Traffic is quite heavy in this area. Trail users are normally required to use a side path but the path was under construction. The tour leaders offered a shuttle ride past the problem area and we all accepted the lift. Safety first.

The 90-mile day began with a long, steep-ish climb from our lakeside campground back to the Trace. Some of the riders were already tired from three long days. It became clear that most of the riders wanted nothing to do with the either the distance or the climb and requested a “push”, a shuttle ride 20 or so miles into the route. The tour leaders met this request without drama. (It’s a serious pain to load and unload the bikes onto the roof of the van so the leaders’ cooperation was not without significant effort.) I decided to ride the whole 90 miles. Jeff had told us of a stone wall (a man’s tribute to a relative who walked the Trail of Tears) that was a must see along the route. There was no wayfaring information on the Trace so we would have missed this otherwise. It was beyond cool. Unfortunately, with 90 miles to cover in a day, I felt I couldn’t stay at the wall more than a few minutes. (As it was I was the last person to finish for the day.)

Tour Lowlights

Sleep: For some reason I struggle to sleep on bike tours. Camping, hotels, Warmshowers…it doesn’t matter. I don’t think I had more than 4 continuous hours of sleep on any night during the tour. When I arrived home, I slept like a log for 3 straight nights.

My Back: Whenever I was off the bike, I had back pain, caused by my lumbar spinal stenosis. Lugging things to and from the trailer, hefting my bike up to Jeff on the roof of the van, not consistently doing my therapy exercises, poor sleep, and driving 15 hours to the start all contributed to an incessant dull ache in my lower back whenever I was on my feet. (I had no such pain while riding, however.) Once home, I switched to riding Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent, for a week and got back on my therapy routine. It feels much better now but I am still thinking of getting a referral to a surgeon.

The Fixed Itinerary: I didn’t think about this when I signed up but normally I draft an itinerary for all my tours. Each day’s ending point is determined by the availability of a place to sleep. If I am feeling spunky, I ride farther (I’ve done more than 100 miles in a day several times). If I’m dragging, I take a short day or an off day. On an organized tour, you pretty much are locked into an itinerary. Not much of a lowlight, but I wanted to mention it anyway.

Waiting: It takes quite a long time to cook and clean up dinner for 15. It’s nice to have company but the waiting can get irritating. It’s worth noting that the leaders’ organization helped keep this under control.

Truck Sewer: The drive to and from Jackson was especially stressful on I-40 in Tennessee. The truck traffic was incredibly heavy. From time to time the trucks would clog both lanes and traffic would go from 70 to 0 without warning. Ugh.

Tour Highlights

Weather: Days began in the 40s with temperatures rising above 55 degrees within an hour or so. It rained for a grand total of 15 minutes. Once. Humidity was low until the last day. Darn near perfect

Bugs: Except for a spider bite on the first or second day, I saw virtually no evidence of bugs. This sucks for the frogs and birds but it was pretty amazing for bike riders and campers.

The Road: The Natchez Trace does not allow commercial truck traffic. The pavement reflects this. It was smooth nearly the entire way. There were occasional expansion joints but these were the exception. There was very little wild life. Road kill was minimal (but the armadillo was pretty cool).

Windsor Ruins: Windsor Ruins is about ten miles off the Trace. The road surface was rougher and the terrain was hillier. It was worth the extra effort.

Wichapi Stone Wall: This thing was amazing. I could have spent well over an hour there. It’s only a few hundred yards off the Trace. A must see.

Cypress Swamp: We rode through a cypress swamp on the third day. There’s a boardwalk but you can also see the swamp from the road. Spooky. (No, we didn’t see any gators.)

Scenery: Leaving Jackson on Day 3 we rode by a 50-square-mile acre reservoir. Other than this and the cypress swamp, the Trace passes through woods and small farm fields for the entire route. With mostly very light traffic (except near Jackson and Tupelo), no turns, no stop signs, and no traffic lights, the Trace is hard to beat for losing yourself. (If you want to you can park your bike and take a walk along the Old Trace footpath. Just the thing for the tired cyclist.)

Showers: Getting into the vibe of a long bicycle tour typically includes a few days in a row without showers at night. Not that I find this appealing. We had showers on all but one night. Well played ACA!

Leadership on the Ground: Jeff and Beth Ann were both very experienced tour leaders but they had never led a tour together . They complemented each other like Astaire and Rogers. Jeff is the chill-est human on the planet. Beth Ann is a bit more frenetic. They were organized, knowledgeable, helpful, and utterly professional.

The Riders: I’m an introvert and find that self-supported solo touring is my preferred way to ride. It’s remarkable that I can only think of one unpleasant bike tourist I have dealt with in all my time on the road. Even so, putting 13 people together on a tour is pushing your luck. Fortunately, our Natchez Trace group of 13 riders was remarkably harmonious. And old. Eight of the 13 riders were between the ages of 69 and 74. And fit. Dang, some of these old folks can move! And pretty good at cooking. And intellectually diverse: we had, among other things: a doctor, lawyer, bank examiner, economist, professor of environmental science, farmer, and eagle expert. We heard funny stories about life on a submarine (don’t press the red button) and the full contact ballroom dancing.

Food: One of my biggest problems on a bike tour is eating well. Peanut butter on tortillas is my go to. I have been known to inhale a Pop Tart or four for breakfast. One big advantage of this tour is that the food was pretty darn good.

Three More States: I added 3 states (Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee) to my list of states biked in. I’m now up to 41. If I had thought about it, I easily could have driven to Louisiana and Arkansas. Oh well.

Marching toward Natchez 2025

Reading

Truman by David McCullough. I had been reluctant to tackle this nearly 1,000-page biography only because of its enormity. I am a huge fan of McCullough both on the written page and from his work on PBS. (He narrated The American Experience and Ken Burns’s The Civil War.) This book took him ten years to write and it is a masterpiece. I’m sorry I waited so long to read it. Sadly, there remain only two McCullough books left for me to read.

The Greater Journey – Americans in Paris by David McCullough. So, I read one of them. This book chronicles the artistic, scientific, and diplomatic lives of Americans who lived in Paris in the nineteenth century. It bogs down in places as the author describes paintings and aspects of sculpture for pages on end. Still, I learned a lot about how art is made. The cast of characters is a who’s who of America. Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and dozens more. Not McCullough’s best but well worth the time.

Watching

While Democracy Turns – My wife and I have been watching the coverage of national politics on The Rachel Maddow Show, The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, and The Daily Show. It seems amazing that we are only a couple of months into the madness of King Donald.

Daredevil – Born Again – For those of you (like me) who have felt that Marvel Studios has jumped the shark, think again. DBA is absolutely terrific. There are reports that the lead actors and at least one supporting actor insisted that scripts be re-written. The producers, to their credit, listened and the result makes for intense viewing. Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock/Daredevil and Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin are back. Oddly, most of the plot takes place in courtrooms and offices. Fight scenes are intense but brief and very violent. And each episode has a shocker in it that makes you want to watch the next one.

Tour Aotearoa – Mat Ryder and his trusty American sidekick John rode Aotearoa (New Zealand) from top to bottom in about a month and a half. Check it out.

Baseball – The Washington Nationals are back on the field to try to regain the glory of the 2010s. I’ve watched their first three games and let’s just say glory will be a couple of years in the future.

Riding

Most of the month I have been consumed with pre-tour anxiety. Is my 69 1/2-year-old body up to the task for riding nearly 500 miles in a week? Time will tell. Pray for tailwinds.

I rode 987 miles this month. I included seven long and long-ish rides (77, 63, 54, 53, 53, 50, and 44 miles), many of which were deliberately hilly affairs. The second 53-miler was today’s ride to take in the cherry blossoms in the Kenwood neighborhood of Bethesda. The ride back into a stiff headwind put the hurt on me. I only rode 36 miles indoors so I think it’s time for Big Nellie to come out of the basement. I am on track for 9,892 miles for the year.

The Trace awaits and The Mule abides.

I Really Need to Get It in Gear

I’m about a month away from the start of the Natchez Trace tour. By now I had hoped to have done a 50 mile ride in preparation. Then I caught my wife’s cold. Let’s just say it has not been a productive week on the wheel. Despite feeling lousy, I managed to do six 30-mile rides. One day when my cold was at it’s peak, I managed an hour and a half on Big Nellie in the basement.

To assuage my feelings of anxiety, I have been dealing with a number of annoying odd jobs, which someone on the interwebs called problitos. These are the things that you know you ought to do but the day never comes to actually do them. In the last month or so I’ve placed magnets on the doors of some kitchen cabinets to hold them closed (with only modest success), re-attached a piece of wood trim that fell off the top on one of the cabinets, tracked down and installed some florescent bulbs for a couple of under cabinet lights, turned on the water to the outside of the house, did 10 days of laundry (the result of waiting for a plumber to deal with a clogged drain), did our taxes, and found a yard service for the summer. I also downloaded the maps for the tour.

All that’s left is to go shopping for stuff for the tour. I need just a few items: a mess kit for eating in camp, a power pack for charging my phone and lights, a bigger camp pillow, and a handlebar mount for my cell phone. I was going to buy most of this today but REI is having a sale in a week so I decided to wait. I could order this stuff online but REI and Dick’s Sporting Goods (where I’ll get the mess kit) are about 15 miles away. Perfect for a rest day ride.

The last several days were cool and windy. Today, I rode 13 miles into a gale. I suppose that’s good prep for the tour but it wasn’t much fun. Until I turned around. On the way home I stopped and bought a book to tide me over until April.

I hope to ride 60-ish miles tomorrow, 70 on Tuesday, and maybe another 70 later in the week. The distances sound like a lot but as I alluded to above I ride about 30 miles a day with relative ease. The plan is to ride 30 miles. Eat lunch. Ride home.

Still, I continue to have pre-tour anxiety. My brain bounces between feeling confident in my level of experience (this will be my 14th tour) and my ridiculous mileage base (10,000 miles per year for seven straight years has to count for something) and feeling old (I’m 69 1/2) and fat (so many cookies, so little time). The daily mileages on the tour may seem daunting but I won’t be carrying half the crap that I do on my unsupported tours. That has to count for something.

I know that last two days of this year’s ride will be hilly. To get myself mentally prepared I took a look at the elevation profiles from my tours of the last two years. They look somewhat similar to this year’s tour but with one big difference: the scale. In 2023 I rode across the White and Green Mountains of New England. Admittedly the daily mileages were lower but dang were those climbs nasty! The Kancamagus Pass in New Hampshire alone was orders of magnitude harder than anything the Trace will throw at me. And I did that one in the rain.

Middlebury Gap in Vermont was nearly as bad. I did walk the last 200 yards of Middlebury Gap when I was unable to hold a straight line of travel. I think the gradient near the top was 12 percent. Oof.

I just need to keep in mind that when I’m bike touring I’ve got all day. No hurries. No worries. To paraphrase Steven Wright, everything is biking distance is you have the time.

With enough snacks, all things are possible.

February 2025

Watching

Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part 1. After a week of nonstop awful news, we needed some good old fashioned escapism. This mess of an nonsensical movie provided non-stop action anchored by a way-too-old Tom Cruise. Reminded me of Roger Moore in his last Bond flick. One implausible scene after another. At one point, a character gave a speech about how he would obtain a technology which, backed by the mighty power of the US, would rule the world. Hey, I thought this was escapism. Ugh. It is appalling that there will be a Part 2.

American Fiction – A film adaptation of Percival Everett’s book Erasure about an academic who writes a trashy blaxploitation novel and struggles with his conscience. Jeffery Wright was excellent in the lead. It’s sarcastic and funny and ironic as, forgive the expression, fuck.

Riding

A pretty decent month considering I had carpal tunnel surgery on February 3. The surgery and icy roads relegated me to riding Big Nellie in the basement for 262 miles. I did 181 miles on the Tank before taking it in for its annual physical. The Mule came home from the bike shop and carried me 233 miles, the longest ride being 40 miles. The best part was that many of the rides in the second half of the month were in shorts. I ended the month by riding to Friday Coffee Club for the first time since January. My mileage for the year is 1,451.

The Natchez Trail tour I signed up for through me some surprises. It starts in Jackson, Mississippi instead of Nashville. That adds a day of driving to and from the ride. To get back to Jackson from the end in Nashville requires a 7 hour ride in a shuttle van. Ugh. Lastly, the itinerary change, adding, most significantly, a 92-mile day near the end of the tour. Knowing these things I probably would not have signed up but it is what it is. I need to get some serious training in. Let’s hold March weather behaves itself.

Reading

Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go by George Pelicanos. The third Nick Stefanos, private eye, book set in DC in the 1990s. A story nearly as implausible as MIDR- Part !. Interesting only in the descriptions of DC neighborhoods like the area around Nationals Park back when it was nothing but warehouses and run-down seedy looking buildings. The story begins with our “hero” goes on a drinking binge and passes out in his own puke near the bank of the Anacostia River. When he comes to he witnesses a murder which he must solve because that’s what alcoholic PIs do.

The Mediocre Follow-Up Tour (a. k. a. The No-Name Tour) by Me. Re-reading the journal (made from blog posts on my phone) of my 2019 tour brought back a host of memories, many of them bad. It turns out that riding 3,000 often mountainous miles on one good leg isn’t such a good idea. Oddly, my memory had changed the location of many events during the tour. One of the advantages of riding with Mark and Corey during the first half of this ride was that we collectively made decisions, nearly all of them good. Once I was on my own, I pushed myself way too hard.

The Big Blowdown – George Pelicanos’s fifth novel tells the story of the generation of Greek and Italian immigrants who set the stage for the Nick Stefanos books. This is by far the best of the Pelicanos books I’ve read so far. It follows the fates of neighborhood kids who go to war overseas and end up mired in the grim underbelly of DC.

Truman by David McCullough. Although I didn’t finish it yet, I’ve been plowing through this 1000-page, Pulitzer Prize winning biography for a couple of weeks. It’s worth the time to read about his service as an artillery officer in World War I, the Truman Commission that rooted out waste in government military spending, his repeated long-shot wins in elections, the death of Franklin Roosevelt, the decision to drop the atomic bomb, the deft avoidance of a post-war economic calamity, the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine which led us into the Korean and, later the Vietnam wars, McCarthyism, and more.

Update on the hand and the tour

Carpal Tunnel Update

I have been testing my surgically repaired hand and all seems to be going well. A couple of days ago I managed to do my bird dog stretches with my hand flat on the floor. The incision on my wrist is healed and there is very little in the way of numbness in my fingers. I don’t know if it is related but the persistent nerve pain in my cervical spine seems to be gone as well.

The Mule Is Back

After weeks of below-average temperatures and riding in the basement, I’ve managed to get outside for some riding. The Mule has returned from its winter physical and all is well with the bike. Switching bikes always involves a couple of days of aches and pains but I am adjusting. After my first ride two days ago, my upper back was unhappy but that seems to have resolved. Somehow my left butt cheek is very sore probably because I am not used to the big Catalyst pedals on the bike. I have been having all kinds of leg cramps which are responding to an extra post-ride banana. Life is good.

I was so eager to get back on the bike that I overdid it a bit. My first ride was a 40-miler including a decent hill across the river in Maryland. Yesterday I did a 35-mile loop that included a roller coaster trail along I-66 in Arlington. I was feeling quite fat and sucking wind, especially on the last one steep hill. Oof. So despite temperatures (finally!) cresting 60 degrees, I took it easy today, riding a flat 30 miles. I felt fresh at the end. It didn’t hurt that I was wearing shorts. (Something about long pants just seems to make riding harder.) In any case, I need to up my longest ride distance quite a bit, because the Natchez Trace tour just through me a couple of curveballs.

Tour Changes

As I posted recently, the tour itinerary began in Nashville where participants would meet up and be shuttled to Natchez, nine-hours by van to the south. My plan was to drive to Nashville on April 5 and drive home on April 15 after the tour.

Today, I received the official tour package from Adventure Cycling. It included several surprises. First, the tour participants are gathering in Jackson, Mississippi. Instead of a ten-hour drive to the start in Nashville, I face a 15-hour trek to Jackson. So I’ll be leaving on the 4th and stopping halfway. After the tour, a shuttle back to Jackson is offered for an additional $75. Under the old itinerary, the shuttle was included in the tour fee. (I’m not happy. ) The new itinerary includes a whopper of a day, 91 miles. Mercifully, there is only 2,800 feet of climbing on that day. The first day is a shuttle from Jackson to Natchez and 12 miles of riding to a hotel (included in the tour price). On Day 3 there’s a hotel in Jackson, the same one where we will meet on Day 0. Somehow the overall mileage increased by 30 miles. No rest for the weary.

Whenever I start worrying about my ability to handle these miles, my wife reminds me that I’m going to be carrying about 25 or 30 fewer pounds of gear on this trip compared to my usual self-contained tours. (I will need to carry rain gear and basic tools and repair stuff but no camping gear, off-bike clothing, and such.)

DateStartFinishMiles
Day 0Jackson0
Day 1April 7JacksonNatchez12
Day 2April 8NatchezHermanville60
Day 3April 9HermanvilleJackson49
Day 4April 10JacksonFrench Camp83
Day 5April 11French CampShannon72
Day 6April 12ShannonTishomongo55
Day 7April 13TishomongoHohenwald91
Day 8April 14HohenwaldNashville67
Day 9April 15NashvilleJackson0
Total489

I looked into alternatives to driving but I hate boxing the bike and schlepping it to and from airports. And then there’s the fun possibility of losing or breaking the bike in transit. Flights from DC to Jackson are all one-stops out of BWI which is an hour from my house. So with boxing the bike, driving to BWI, waiting an hour or so to board and five plus hours on the plane, I’d be eating up a day of my time anyway. I checked Amtrak; it doesn’t go from DC to Jackson. So car it is.

I am actually looking forward to the riding part of this tour. The before and after not so much.

My Year on the Wheel – 2024

This was my seventh straight year of riding more than 10,000 miles, 10,394 to be more or less exact. I put more miles on two of my bikes than I did on my 2009 Honda Accord (it’s going to last forever).

The big event as usual was my bike tour but this year was the first time since 2003 that I quit early. In that year my rear tire blew out, my gears and brakes stopped working, I was sick as a dog, and it was raining. You don’t have to be a genius to know that the bike gods are not on your side. So it was in 2024 when I found myself struggling to ride up even the most moderate of hills. The final straw was a ride of less than 30 miles into Charlottesville. I felt like I was dragging both brakes the whole way. I decided to take the train home and let my body recover.

A week later I lit out from home on a bee line back to Charlottesville. It worked out okay except for nasty traffic on a narrow two-lane road just north of town. I persisted and, the next day, was back on my original route, the eastern third of the TransAmerica Trail. There were some good days after that. I hiked the Blue Ridge tunnel, stayed overnight at the Cookie Lady’s house in Afton, Virginia, rode a short, but spectacular stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and had a fabulous ride on the roads to Damascus, Virginia.

The rest of the ride was not so great. I rode past several hypdermic needles on the road outside Lexington, survived a scary thunderstorm, felt lousy when I was pedaling up hills, pushed my bike up several mountains, and was attacked by dogs over and over again. By the time I reached Hazard Kentucky, I was totally stressed out mentally and physically. When the caretaker of a bike shelter 50 miles west told me to buy bear spray, I rented a car and drove home.

The rest of the year featured my usual array of local rides: three one-way rides from the western end of the Washington and Old Dominion Trail to home, several rides on Maryland’s eastern shore, and three rides in Virginia hunt country. I also did five event rides including my 16th 50-States Ride in DC.

As usual, The Mule won the prize for most mileage: 3,912 in all. Despite nearly getting rid of the Tank in March, I ended up riding it 3,795 miles, thanks to some smart wrenching and advice from the good folks at Bikes at Vienna. Little Nellie saw very little use, if you can call 839 miles slacking. Big Nellie racked up 1,847 miles, albeit 583 miles connected to a resistance trainer in the basement during reading season.

The end of year odometer readings.

December 2024

Riding

Once I hit 10,000 miles on December 14, I tapered my riding. Mostly I was focussed on getting used to the new Catalyst platform pedals on The Mule. They work great. I did develop some left hip pain at the end of the month so I need to tweak my saddle position some more.

I rode 28 days out of 31. My long ride of the month came on the 30th when I rode 47 miles (in shorts!) to Bikes at Vienna and back to drop off some bicycling books. (They have a mini-free library.) I totalled 771 miles with 171 miles indoors on my Tour Easy recumbent. The Mule, and all that pedal testing, kicked in 418 miles.

Maybe my best move of the month came off the bike when I discovered a few new stretches for my upper back. These greatly reduce the discomfort from the pinched nerve in my upper back and allow me to hold my head up instead of hunched over like a mad texter.

Watching

After Sun. Paul Mescal plays a divorced dad on vacation with his 11-year old daughter (Frankie Corso) on the Turkish coast. A coming-of-age character study of the girl; a portrait of clinical depression of the father. Mescal was nominated for best actor.

Walking from Boston to New York City on the Old Post Road – A YouTube video of a man who (nearly) goes the distance. I lived in Boston and Providence and have visited many places along his route. The old New England clapboard houses, stone walls, and graveyards made me realize how I didn’t appreciate my time there. The traffic and scuzzy businesses not so much.

All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain: A one-man tour de force in which Patrick Page takes us through the progression of villains in Shakespeare’s plays. Just incredibly good.

Conclave – Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci, and Isabella Rossellini and a host of others in a suspenseful story about the election of a Pope. Dang them Cardinals are nasty. Excellent.

Reading

Call for the Dead by John Le Carre. Le Carre’s first book and the introduction of George Smiley. My mother was a big Le Carre fan but this is the first time I’ve read one of his books. Le Carre describes secret agent Smiley as “Short, fat, and of a quiet disposition, he appeared to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes, which hung about his squat frame like skin on a shrunken toad.” Hardly James Bond. It seems odd that Smiley is played by Alex Guiness and Gary Oldham in movies.

In the Woods by Tana French. French’s debut novel is a police procedural about Dublin detectives working to solve the murder of a tween-aged girl. The contemporary crime is complicated by the disappearance of two similarly aged kids 20 years before. An entertaining who-dun-it.

The Likeness by Tana French. The follow-up to In the Woods. It’s a good read but the story is based on an utterly unbelievable premise; an undercover cop assumes the identity of a murder victim (who was using the name of the cop’s previous undercover identity). The victim’s housemates, thinking the victim survived the attack, completely believe the undercover cop is their roommate. Give me a break. Aside from this, it was an entertaining book.

Bike Tripping by Tom Cuthbertson. My friend Beth posted a picture of this book, published in 1972, on her social media. I knew I had a copy, purchased in 1979 during my summer in the Bay Area. I decided to re-read it and found it very interesting from an historical perspective. In my adult lifetime, bicycles, bicycling, and bicycle gear have changed markedly. Today’s bikes are orders of magnitude better than 50 year ago. Components and lights are vastly improved. And, thankfully, bicycle infrastructure is also more widespread and better designed (for the most part).

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. My first Christmas gift book of 2024. A novella about a man who is encounters the evil of the Magdalen laundry in his small Irish town at Christmas time. Wonderful.

On Bicycles: A 200 Year History of Cycling in New York City by Evan Friss. Another Christmas gift. This book tells the story of the wheel from the first short-lived velocipedes in 1819 to the boom in bike infrastructure and the Citibike bikeshare system in the 2010s and 2020s. I wasn’t expecting much (oh how I hate New York City parochialism) but this was a very well written and informative history.

Weather Gone Bung – November 2024

The month began with more rainless days. The streak continued for over 35 days. There were wildfires in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. At the very end of the month, the weather switched to wintery. Brrr. Climate change will be the death of us.

The election results shocked me. I can’t believe that Harris didn’t even win the popular vote against the most flawed opponent in history. As I recall Biden won by only tens of thousands of votes in the swing states. In a tight race, misogyny and racism exceeds incompetence and corruption. The next four years are going to be painful. As for me, I am turning off the TV and skipping the alarmist articles in the newspaper about what is going to happen. Worry is like carrying an umbrella on a sunny day.

Bicycling

The quest for 10,000 miles carries on. I hit 9,000 miles on November 7 and finished the 865-mile month with 9,623 miles.

I did two event rides. The 60-mile Cider Ride featured a posse of six. We had good time and the pizza and beer afterwards were delicious. The Ride for Your Life was a more somber affair. The ride was 8 miles from Bethesda to the Lincoln Memorial. The event raises awareness about traffic violence in the U.S. Getting to the start was a 21-mile ride in itself, making for a 43.5 mile day.

My back woes were really getting to be unbearable in October. I went to a wedding and the pain was tough to take. I also had neuropathy (pain and tingling in my right hand and arm) that seemed to worsen by the day. After riding my recumbent upon my return, I could barely stand up. I had been researching platform pedals for a while when I kept hearing that when using them you need to move the saddle forward. So, on a whim, I moved the saddle on the CrossCheck forward a few millimeters. My comfort on and off the bike was immediately improved.

I bought some MKS Lambda platform pedals and put them on the Tank. It was the first time in 40 years that I had ridden without toe clips and straps. I found I needed to raise the saddle a tad but the resulting position served me well. Even better, the pedals work great with my overboots and with my hiking boots.

Unfortunately my neuropathy returned. Earlier in the year I developed trigger finger on the middle finger of my right hand. (The finger will randomly lock in a crooked posture like a claw. Eek.) A hand surgeon gave me a shot of cortisone. Time will tell if sets me right. He also tested me for carpal tunnel syndrome. I passed! So I have a medical BOGO and, as a bonus, a pinched nerve in my neck.

A couple of week later I went for a deep tissue massage. It was pretty painful but the therapist concurred with the surgeon about the pinched nerve. She pulled me this way and that. She pressed one knotted muscle after another. I hurt all over. But two days later I felt much improved.

Reading

The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto tells the mostly overlooked story of New Netherland with a focus on New Amsterdam. My wife gave it to me for my birthday and I thought it was going to be a snoozer but it turned out to be very interesting. (I am from Albany, New York which plays a role in the story so I have a heightened personal interest.) New Amsterdam, like “old” Amsterdam was a mixture of melting pot and wild, wild west. The town was an outpost of the Dutch West India Company which specialized in privateering, raiding non-Dutch vessels and stealing their goods. New Amsterdam was on the threshold of becoming a sort of proto-US when the Brits showed up with their warships and took over. God save the king and all that nonsense.

The Hunter by Tana French. This grand thriller is a sequel to French’s The Searcher. Cal Hooper is a retired Chicago cop living in rural northwestern Ireland. He’s an outsider and a distrusted guarda (cop) to the locals who make living in a small town something out of a Sartre play. A couple of grifters come to town in search of gold. Crosses and double crosses, plot twists and turns, and that’s all before the murder. And then the Dublin police show up. Eek.

Watching

Endurance is a National Geographic documentary about the 2022 search for the wreck of Ernest Shackleton’s ship at the bottom of the sea near Antarctica. The film interweaves the story of the Endurance expedition of 1914 to 1917 and the search for the wreckage nearly 10,000 feet below sea level in 2022. I’d already read two books on the Endurance so I knew the story of the expedition but I found the documentary interesting nonetheless.

Mat Ryder’s Great Divide Mountain Bike ride – After watching the video series of his ride across the US by road, I decided to check out his ride from Banff, Alberta to Antelope Wells, New Mexico along the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route last year. Steep climbs, scary descents, wildlife (grizzly bears, elk, bison, rattlesnakes, llamas, free range cattle, hawks, vultures, and more), rain, impassable mud, hurricane- remnant winds, blistering sun, high altitude, and more. There was also amazing scenery, appalling meals, and incredibly friendly people. He crossed the routes of my 2018, 2019, and 2022 tours in several places. This video series comes in roughly half hour installments (beginning here) or in one edited three-hour movie.

Beatles ’64. This is a documentary that trots out film and interviews about the Beatles first trip to the U.S. There’s nothing new to be seen, of course. I watched it while I was doing laundry. The performances benefited from new techniques that clean up the sound and isolate the band from the screaming crowds. It’s interesting to hear parts of their first U. S. concert in a boxing ring at the Washington Colosseum, now home to an REI store. I was one of the 70+million viewers who saw them on Ed Sullivan and didn’t “get” them. They were very different from what I was used to. I was a little too young and wasn’t into music yet.

September 2024 – Wet/Nice/Wet

The weather in September 2024 in the mid-Atlantic suffered from bipolar disorder. It started out rainy but then we were treated two two weeks of gorgeous weather. The last two weeks have been a washout. Fortunately for me, when it rains this time of year, the droplets are warm. Riding in the rain has actually been kind of pleasant.

Biking

With both The Mule and The Tank back from the bike shop, I was ready to ride my steeds into autumn. During the nice weather weeks, I did a 56-mile ride in the Virginia Piedmont. I wasn’t feeling all that strong at the start but I listened to Mitch McConnell and I persisted. I was aided by a MASSIVE club sandwich at a country store in Orlean at the 20-mile mark. The climb up Naked Mountain was pretty tough, even with the new, lower gearing on The Mule. The traffic and rumble strips on US Highways 17 and 50 was nasty but I had a good time regardless. I followed this ride with a couple of 40+ mile rides, one on The Mule near Middleburg, Virginia and the other on The Tank in Talbot County, Maryland. The latter featured me running out of gas on the drive to the start and a pleasant 10-minute ferry ride.

Otherwise I solved my where-will-I-ride-today problems by running errands by bike. My bikes took me to a building supply place in suburban car hell, to a pharmacy to get a flu shot, to the polls to vote, to a diner to have breakfast with my wife, to Nats Park three times, to Friday Coffee Club four times, on a fruitless search for the best Italian sub in DC, and on a tour of auto body shops to find a good place to take my car (my neighbor backed into my car with his big pick up truck a couple of days ago).

The Washington Area Bicyclist Association’s 50 States Ride came around on the calendar and I was once again joined by a fabulous posse. This year we had Michael, Kevin, Chris, and Sara back from last year and several new additions. New friends of the posse included Neena, Richard, Imogen, Wolfgang. Mac, Constance and, at the next to last pit stop special guest John. This was my 16th 50SR and one of the toughest. Many of us will be riding together on the WABA Cider Ride in early November. There will be pie.

For the month I logged 940 miles, my first sub-1,000-mile month since May. I will begin October with 7,945 miles for the year. If I average a little over 22 miles a day until the end of December, I’ll break 10,000-mile mark for the seventh straight year.

Watching

Baseball – The Nationals closed out the season by bringing up a bunch of young players from the minors. And the results were pretty much as expected. Mediocrity. The best thing the Nats have going for them is the bike valet at the ballpark, conveniently located 15 miles from home.

Movies – Monsieur Spade is a six-part noir mini-series in which an old Sam Spade gets involved in shenanigans in a French town. Everyone is trying to find a young boy, but why? Like the Maltese Falcon, the boy is a classic McGuffin. Clive Owen plays Spade. Understanding the plot requires some knowledge of French involvement in Algeria in the 1950s. Unfortunately, this info isn’t provided until the next to last episode.

From Russia with Lev – A documentary about how a Ukrainian grifter became an intermediary for Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump in Ukraine, helped Trump get impeached, and destroyed himself and many others in the process. Absolutely fascinating how a nobody could become a close associate of an incompetent and corrupt president.

VIdeos – I looked forward to the end of each week to watch the latest installment of Mat Ryder‘s ride across the country.

Reading

North Woods by Daniel Mason. The tale of events in a single home somewhere in western Massachusetts. The story begins in the 1600s and continues episodically into the 21st Century. Along the way, it touches on aspects of American history including the Puritans, apple farming, abolitionism, murder, lobotomies, the loss of native flora and fauna, and more. Sound weird? It’s not. A very fine book.

The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton. This one’s a whodunit set on a island after an apocalyptic event. Rather than explain why, let’s just say this one wasn’t my cup of tea. After 200 pages and dozens of red herrings, I could not have cared less who did the murder or why.

What fools these bicyclists be – 50 States 2024

Saturday was the Washington Area Bicyclists Association’s annual big fundraising event: the 50 States Ride. The ride is a triumph of marketing over sanity. Participants pay $80 to ride 60 hilly miles in the heat and humidity (when it’s not raining), all within the eight wards of the District of Columbia. Did I mention that the streets are open to traffic? We’re havin’ fun now!

This year was the 21st running of the 50 States and my 16th time participating. I’ve been riding WABA events with Chris, Michael, and Kevin for several years now. Remarkably they have not grown tired of my company. A couple of years ago Chris invited Sara with whom he worked. The five of us form the core members of the posse. (Domitille, a sixth recent member, had to miss this year’s ride due to injury. We hope to have her back in the fold for WABA’s Cider Ride in November.) Our posse members invite others to join us. This year Chris invited Isabon, Sara invited Jenna and Richard, Kevin invited Neena. Isabon brought her father, Wolfgang. Monica, who rode the last couple of rides with us, decided to volunteer at a pit stop but sent along Constance and Mac.

The course changes every year. Lately it has gone clockwise around the city. The course is tweaked to show off new bicycle infrastructure, sponsors’ projects, and changes to the cityscape. Having done this ride since 2006, I can attest to the fact that DC today is vastly different than it was 18 years ago.

Funny. It looks flat on this map.

The dozen of us lit out from the start in the Edgewood neighborhood smack dab in the middle of DC. We timed our departure to avoid other groups whom the ride organizers send out at intervals with ride marshals. We don’t mean to be antisocial but when you get over 20 people of different skill levels riding together in the city the congestion can get stressful. There were a few miles where we were bunched up with other groups but by and large we were successful riding as an independent unit. As is often the case, we adopted a couple of course marshals, Micah and Stephen, along the way. At the rest stop around 45 miles into the ride I was greeted by an old friend. John is the father of one of my son’s best friends from high school. He was riding the event for the first time and looked considerably fresher than me.

Two Johns at the Wegman’s pit stop in Northwest.

Michael decided to ride the entire ride on bikeshare bikes. Every so often he’d veer off course to trade in his bike for another. I think he gets some sort of points from the bikeshare folks and avoids rental charges. He managed to obtain electric assist bikes for the hillier sections. We hate Michael.

Chris told me that his GPS file indicated there are 11 significant climbs along the route. I counted 45, a triumph of misery over digital mapping science. The worst climb goes one steep mile from MacArthur Boulevard to Macomb Street in the northwest section of the city. After a brief downhill, this monstrosity is followed by a second, soul-sucking half-mile climb up Cathedral Heights. Six miles later we descended into Rock Creek Park only to climb right back out for a mile. Dang.

Instead of using the digital file, I use the paper cue sheet. Actually, it’s a 18-page booklet containing nearly 270 cues. This virtually ensures that I will make a wrong turn. This year I set a PR, making four wrong turns. (Actually one was semi-intentional as I saw three of our riders obeying the GPS audio instruction and turning a block early and going off route. I followed them in order to lead them back to the course.) Ironically, earlier in the ride after we crossed over the Washington Channel, a course marshal made a wrong turn entering East Potomac Park. I ignored the error and stayed on route. The Mule abides.

The clockwise course seemed somehow hillier than in prior years. I struggled for most of the ride even though The Mule had a new, lower climbing gear thanks to Beth at Bikes at Vienna. It may have just been the heat (mid-80s) and humidity at work or perhaps the fact that I’m old, decrepit, and grumpy.

By 58 miles I had had enough. We could have gone straight to the finish but the course meandered through the campus of The Catholic University, along the super nice cycletrack on Irving Avenue Northwest, and past the bizarre looking McMillan Sand Filtration site which is being developed into a mixed used community by one of the event sponsors. After McMillan we had a tedious one-mile ride in heavy traffic to loop back to the finish.

After the ride, the posse hung out at the after party which, owing to our slow riding pace, was all but over. Still we ate some sammies and hydrated our weary bodies. (I went all Stanley Kowalski and had a Stella.) I guess the ride was a success because several posse members expressed an interest in doing the (considerably easier) 60-mile Cider Ride in November. Well done, y’all.

Most of the posse after the ride. Clockwise from left: Richard, Chris, Me, Sara, Michael, Constance, Mac, Jenna, Micah, Kevin, Neena.

Many thanks to all the volunteers and WABA staff for all their hard work on this event. Special thanks to Mike and Lisa who convert their home in Tacoma into a very welcoming pit stop every year. And to Patti Heck who stood at the corner of Alaska Avenue and Geranium Street Northwest to take photos (links above) of riders as she has done for many years now.