Tour Options for 2024

It’s starting to warm up and my thoughts are turning to a spring/summer bike tour. I have pared my ideas down to two tours, all originating from home and involving parts of the Atlantic Coast, Trans America, and Great Rivers South routes designed by the Adventure Cycling Association.

Pre-tour Jitters

I have some trepidation about this tour. Of course, pre-tour worry and anxiety is nothing new. It is tempting to let these feelings snowball, what Buddhists call papañca. There is some usefulness to anticipating problems, of course, but, left unchecked, this sort of mental proliferation can ruin your tour. About 50 miles into my 760-mile DC-to-Indiana tour, I was making myself miserable with pointless worrying. I stopped and gave myself a mental dressing down: “You’re on vacation. Relax. If bad things happen, you’ll figure them out.” It worked.

My list of worries is short. For a start, I am not a kid anymore. I was a youngster when I rode across the US alone in 2018 at the age of 62. I’m now 68 and don’t I know it. I have nagging physical issues with my lumbar and cervical spine. Also, I have the usual age-related reduction in muscle strength. The only cure for these things is to walk when I need to and to shorten my riding days to the extent practicable.

A second concern is dogs. The route I am taking is notorious for aggressive dogs. In the past I brought a small can of pepper spray. I never once used it gave me peace of mind. It occurs to me that on a windy day or on a downhill I am likely to spray myself. Yeah, let’s do 25 miles per hour downhill on a bumpy road with a snarling junk yard dog at my heels and get a load of pepper spray in my face. Nope. I am going to find a small horn of some sort and hope for the best.

Weather is always a concern. Since I am heading south, I am sure to encounter much more heat and humidity than last year. I’ll need to stay hydrated and take breaks. Depending on which route I take I’ll could be dealing with serious headwinds.

The topography is a bit intimidating. Like last summer, I’ll be crossing the Appalachian Mountains for a good chunk of the tour. In my mind’s eye this means steep climbs straight up one mountain after the next. That’s not how it works, of course, and I never seem to remember that those climbs are followed by descents.

Now, let’s consider the options.

Option 1: Finish the Trans Am

I have about left over 1,000 miles of the TransAmerica route unfinished: from Ashland, Virginia (just north of Richmond) to Ash Grove, Missouri (just east of the Kansas border). I’d ride south about 110 miles to Ashland then bang a right on the TransAm. And follow it over 1,400 miles to Ash Grove.

A big advantage of this part of the route is the lodging situation. There are something like 21 inexpensive places to stay including campgrounds, town parks, fire houses, hostels, churches, and such. Another advantage is the fact that I will encounter bike tourists along the way thanks to the popularity of the TransAm.

After Ash Grove it makes sense to me, at least, to ride south to Bentonville, Arkansas. This would take about two days and add 110 miles. There’s all kinds of flights to DC from this city thanks to the fact that it is the home of Wal-Mart.

Beyond Bentonville is the possibility of picking off Oklahoma. Tulsa is three days and 130 miles west. Add another 150 miles on old Route 66 and I’d be in Oklahoma City, another city with several flights to DC. All told, DC to Oklahoma City would make for a tour of about 2,000 miles. Tulsa and Oklahoma City have the added benefit of being on Southwest Airlines’ network, meaning I’d probably fly home for free.

Option 2: Laissez Les Bon Tons Roulez

This town is identical to the tour above until Marion, Kentucky just south of Cave-in-Rock. At Marion, I would pick up Adventure Cycling’s Great Rivers South Route, taking that to the start of the Natchez Trace near Nashville. With the exception of a detour to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to take in a bit of music history, I’d ride to Natchez, Mississippi. After that, it’s a few days of riding to New Orleans. The total mileage is about 2,100. Theoretically, I could take a train home from New Orleans but it would take at least 26 hours.

I once had a business trip to Louisiana in April and could not believe how humid it was. Add ten or 15 degrees and you get pure misery. It probably would make more sense to just fly to Nashville, do the ride to New Orleans, and fly home. That would be about 900 miles and would take me about a month.

Mysteries

I know from my running days that wearing long pants and extra layers slows me down. It holds true for bicycling too. I ride about 10 percent faster in shorts. Go figure. Today’s temperatures were in the 60s here in North Carolina. I don’t actual live in North Carolina but the climate here in the DC area is about the same a North Carolina’s ten years ago. I put the snow shovels away a week ago. It’s spring. Climate change is real, y’all.

I went for a long ride today. The 41 1/2 miles was my longest of the year and I could have easily tacked on another ten. All while riding 1 mile per hour faster than usual and while riding some nasty hills. My route took me from Mount Vernon across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge into Maryland. Once there I had a 0.8 mile climb to Oxon Hill Road. A couple of miles of level ground was followed by a steep plunge, with my max speed being something like 36 miles per hour by the not-advisable look-down-while-in-flight method. Eek.

I was headed to Fort Washington, a bona fide old timey 19th century fort. In addition to that fun descent I had a nice tailwind for most of the way. This helped as I made the two steep climbs to the fort. Dang, it’s hilly.

While on route, I came upon something you don’t see every day around these parts: a sheep farm with a llama. Yep, just 15 miles from the White House there’s a shaggy llama standing guard over some shaggy sheep (and a goat or two for good measure).

The return trip involved retracing my route down the hills from the fort and past the llama sighting location (my llama buddy and his wooly pals were nowhere to be seen). Of course, this was all into a strong headwind but I was in shorts and kept cruising along. Shorts!

I came to the big climb back up Oxon Hill. I had chosen The Tank for this adventure and it’s sheer mass and unforgiving gearing made the climbs into slogs, none more sloggy than Oxon Hill’s steep beast into a headwind.

I huffed and I puffed and I made it. Asthma, smasthma.

The other day I took The Mule out for a 30-mile spin. Afterwards my neck and back felt terrific. My neck is a medical mystery. Go figure. Oddly, I find that while I’m on the brake hoods on The Mule, my hands bear more weight than when I’m doing the same on The Tank. It seems to me that this should bother my neck and shoulders but it doesn’t. The Mule feels like and extension of my body.

So before leaving home today I took measurements of The Tank and The Mule. Based on this, I decided to slide the saddle back on The Tank and see what happens. As it turned out, it’s still not as comfortable as The Mule but I can’t say that my neck bothered me during the ride. The real test will come when I wake up in the morning. Will my neck feel stiff and sore?

Leaping into a New Year – January 2024

Riding

The month started out a bit slow and stayed that way. I think I ate more cookies than miles. By the end of the month, I found hills to be a bit more challenging. Ugh.

I rode 634.5 miles for the month. This was my lowest mileage month in two years. I did 90 miles on Little Nellie, 307.5 miles on The Tank (my CrossCheck), and 237 miles indoors on Big Nellie. (I convert time to miles based on 10.5 miles per hour.) The Mule took the month off.

My long ride of the month was only 35.5 miles and this was split up into three rides. I rode 30-miles round trip to Friday Coffee Club with a detour to a hardware store on the way home. I followed that up with 5.5 miles on two short rides running errands to the office supply store and a different hardware store.

I ran a ton of errands by bike this month. The errands help me get motivated to ride outdoors on cold days. I have noticed that the daylight is lasting much longer now. I did lose about a week of outdoor riding because of two light, but messy snow events.

My indoor riding has helped me get some reading done (see below). I am currently halfway through David Copperfield which is turning out to be not quite the slog I had anticipated.

Watching

The Big Dig – I began listening to this nine-hour podcast from WGBH News last month. It tells the story of the biggest urban highway project in the country in which Boston’s infamous elevated Central Artery was buried and a new tunnel to Logan Airport was built. I learned only after listening to seven episodes that a video version is available on WGBH’s YouTube page. If you are into transportation, construction, infrastructure, urban planning, and such, you really should listen to this. The entire ordeal reminded me of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and Panama Canal as described in books by David McCullough.

Loki Season 2 – Oddly well acted mess of CGI and multidimensional nonsense. There’s this sacred timeline and it’s spawning branches but the time loom can’t control them so the time lines will break and everyone who lives on them will die. Or something like that. YMMV.

Echo – Another mediocre Marvel miniseries centered on Maya, a Choctaw, deaf, amputee, who is a badass fighter, of course. Promos make it look as though Daredevil has a big role in this but he’s in it for all of a minute. Hawkeye, played by Jeremy Renner, is in it for a few seconds.

Armaggedon – A Netflix Ricky Gervais stand up movie. Crude. Funny in parts.

The Enemy Below – Robert Mitchum, U. S. warship captain, faces off with Curt Jurgens, U-boat captain, in WWII. I saw it as a kid and loved it. Star Trek ripped it off. Das Boot did it 1,000 times better. Still entertaining though.

Barbie – An absolutely fantastic opening sequence but otherwise meh. I am a big Greta Gerwig fan but let’s just say I wasn’t the target audience for this one.

Two NFL “Championship” games – I watched the Super Bowl semifinals so that I may look somewhat knowledgeable at our friends’ annual Super Bowl get together on the 12th. I need to bone up on my Taylor Swift songs though.

Reading

Why We Love Baseball by Joe Posnanski. What better way to spend the time before spring training than reading 350 pages of stories about baseball. IYKYK. There all all kinds of oddball anecdotes in this book but sadly it leaves out my two favorites from the Washington Nationals. Juan Soto hit his first home run five days before he was called up officially to the majors. Weirder still was how Michael Morse hit a grand slam without a bat in his hands. As Joe Garagiola said, “Baseball is a funny game.”

Prequel by Rachel Maddow. Americans, acting as agents of Hitler’s regime, carried out a long campaign to keep the US out of WWII and, even, to try to violently overthrow the US government. Sound familiar? If you listened to Maddow’s podcast Ultra you pretty much know this story. This book fleshes out many of the details that could not fit into Ultra. Among other things, the plotters used the free mailing privileges of a number of sitting Congress people to distribute Nazi propaganda. Suffice it to say, the connections to recent events is obvious.

Blood Memory by David Duncan and Ken Burns. The companion book to Burns’s American Buffalo documentary on PBS. Both the book and the film are excellent. The book and film describe the slaughter of tens of millions of buffaloes and the efforts to bring the buffalo back from the edge of extinction. Just seeing one of these creatures up close is an intense experience. I can barely imagine seeing them as far as the eye can see.

Eat, Poop, Die – How Animals Make Our World by Joe Roman. Birds do it. Bees do it. Whales do it. It turns out poop (and pee) is a wonderful thing.

Medical

Lumbar Spinal Stenosis – My lower back woes continue. They are getting worse incrementally in spite of me doing a physical therapy session nearly every day. I decided to take up walking for a couple of weeks. It’s uncomfortable and slow. Using a cane is a must. I managed to top out at 3 1/2 miles one day last week. I read today that Merrick Garland, the U. S. Attorney General, is having spinal decompression surgery to address his similar problem. It will be interesting to see which doctor he uses and how he makes out. Personally, I don’t know how much longer and I put up with this.

Neck woes – Somewhere back in December or November I screwed up my neck. It feels like I have whiplash. I think I brought this on with a combination of fiddling with the handlebar height on The Tank and doing side planks as part of my stenosis routine.

I get sharp pains that shoot up into my head when I turn my head. I can feel the tightness in my lateral neck muscles with my fingers. It even affects my bite. I was seriously considering going to my doctor for some advice or maybe an x-ray (to ROC – rule out cancer) just to be safe. On a whim I pulled Yoga for Cyclists off the shelf and looked up neck stretches.

Basically the stretches involve moving your head to the each side as well as the 45-degree forward position. My neck is so screwed up that I actually had to gently guide my head back into a neutral position between stretches. I am happy to report that after just one session of stretches my neck felt much better.

I learned a couple of things. Neck stretching should only be done to the sides and front. (This is contrary to the stretches in Richard Hittleman’s classic yoga book.) Rotating your head back makes things worse. I augmented the book’s stretches with corresponding head twists (assisted by a gentle guiding hand). I can now comfortably turn my head while riding which is kind of important when you’re trying to avoid big metal things.

And Finally…

A Shorts Story

A few days ago a cold, snowy week gave way to temperatures above 40 degrees. I decided to brave the snowy trails and bike lanes and ride to DC to drop off some books at a used book shop. What normally would have taken 90 minutes each way took 115 because there were so many places where snow and ice made my route unrideable. Having made it about ten miles riding and walking, I decided to take a chance on some snow and slush on the trail that connects the Crystal City neighborhood of Arlington to the Mount Vernon Trail. I made it about 100 yards before encountering more snow and ice. I decided to hell with it and rode over it. Bad idea. I went down on my side, fortunately landing in a pile of powder on the side of the trail. This is why I don’t like winter riding. Had I landed on a hard surface I’d have been in a world of hurt. I picked myself up and continued on my way, making sure to avoid another crash. I made it back home without any further calamities.

Today is January 26. I rode The Tank to Friday Coffee Club, leaving just before dawn. The temperature was around 60F. I wore shorts. Yeah baby! It is amazing how much nicer bike riding is in shorts as opposed to long pants. On the way I encountered dense fog and somewhat cooler temperatures along the Potomac River.

The Washington Monument from Gravelly Point Park across from DC

Our band of merry bike riders enjoyed their coffee outdoors today. A week ago it snowed and, for all I know, nobody went to Coffee Club.

After a couple of hours of discussing our various medical woes and discussing other pressing issues of the day, I rode back toward home. The fog had lifted and the sun was burning off the rest of the clouds. The ride downriver was as good as it gets for January.

Today was a good day to put in some extra miles so I stopped at an Ace Hardware store in Old Town Alexandria. After a quick transaction, I was back on the bike riding further south to pick up some milk at the local grocery store. (So far, the only downer to the morning had been the near sour milk I had poured over my Wheat Chex before leaving home.)

Once at home I read the paper and grabbed some lunch before heading back out on the bike to buy some tax software at an office supply store. I dropped the software off at home and headed back out again to drop off my lawn mower blade to be sharpened at the neighborhood hardware store. While there I picked up 15 pounds of bird seed which fit nicely in my two large Ortlieb panniers.

Once back at the ranch I gave The Tank a look over to see how the salt and sand and brine was treating its chain. The chain had rust spots along the side plates so it was past due for some new lube. I took the bike onto the back patio operating theater and successfully made things right.

While I was working on the bike, the air conditioner kicked on. The inside temperature and humidity felt like June. It was a muggy 80F degrees outside when I finished my chores. Dang.

Riding 2023

When I was recovering from pulmonary embolisms in early 2018, my friend Katie B. sent me a t-shirt that said “Never Underestimate an Old Man with a Bicycle.” This year, during which I turned 68, proved her right.

I rode 11,532 miles this year, my second most ever. As usual, I put the most mileage, 4,630, on The Mule, my touring bike. The other three bikes shared the rest of the burden nearly evenly. This was quite a surprise because I had all but stopped riding Little Nellie, my small-wheeled folding travel bike. Riding it even for just a handful of miles just killed my back. So, as a last resort before selling it, I switched the bike from drop bars to more upright H-bars. The improvement was incredible. I ended up riding 2,155 miles on it.

The conversion and a ton of other work including new hand-made wheels for The Mule and Little Nellie were done by the folks at Bikes at Vienna. I give my special thanks to Daniel, Tim, and Beth for keeping me rolling all year.

The year featured my 11th long-distance tour. I rode a 2,653-mile loop from DC to Bar Harbor to Erie, PA and back home. I did a bit of walking here and there but I did myself proud for the most part. There was one memorable hill in downstate New York. I took one look at the beast and I dismounted and started walking. It was laughably steep. I made it through an intense hour-long thunder storm in Ontario and a code purple air quality day in Erie, PA without harm. Oddly, the hardest part of the whole trip was pushing my loaded bike up and down the detour of the Paw Paw Tunnel on the C&O Canal. I used Warmshowers more on this trip than ever before. I had many great hosts but special recognition goes to Katie and Tom Huntington in Newcastle, Maine who put up with me for two nights, one going up the coast, the other down.

My longest mileage month was June, 1,702 miles, all of which was on tour. The shortest months were February and December at 730 and 749 miles, respectively.

I rode the 50 States and Cider Rides with a splendid group of folks. Special thanks to Michael, Chris, Monica, Sara, and Domitille who rode both with me. I also did the Great Pumpkin Ride solo (and picked up my umpteenth long-sleeve technical shirt in the process). I ended the event year by participating in the Ride for Your Life, which raised awareness about the scourge of traffic violence in the DC area. Kevin, Jacob, Bryan, Lili, Annette, and Nina joined the 50 States posse. Katja, Timothee, Miguel, and Lisa rode with us on the Cider Ride. Annette, Shira, Leslie, Jeanne, and Monica did the Ride for Your Life Event.

After over two decades of membership, I upped my game and became a lifetime member of the Adventure Cycling Association. If I had known I’d have been bike touring for so many years, I would have saved myself a bunch of annual membership dues and become I lifetime member long ago. My loss is Adventure Cycling’s gain.

And as always, here’s where my bike odometers stood at the end of the year. Total mileage on all four is 176,944.

End of Year Odometer Readings: Clockwise from top left: Big Nellie, Little Nellie, The Mule, The Tank.

We’re safe now, I hope

It is said that bad things happen in threes. You hear about some famous person dying and within days two more follow. It’s creepy.

About two weeks ago, my friend Ed, co-founder of Friday Coffee Club, was out riding with some randonneuring friends when he was hit by a driver. According to Ed, it was a glancing blow of sorts. It actually sounded like my collision many years ago. Unfortunately for Ed, unlike slowpoke me, he was going 23 miles per hour when he collided with the stop-sign runner, who left the scene of the crash without stopping. Ed has some significant injuries. I saw him yesterday at Friday Coffee Club. (No, he didn’t ride there.). He looks good if you ignore the bruising, the arm immobilizer, or the back brace.

About a week later, Ricky was riding to Friday Coffee Club. It was a lovely near-winter morning when he decided to take a spin around the Tidal Basin, the pool of water ringed by Washington’s famous cherry trees. These trees have stout low hanging limbs. It being that time of year when the sunlight strikes from a low angle, the limbs were backlit, rendering them invisible. Ricky hit one hard. He came away with facial lacerations and a broken nose. He drove to Friday Coffee Club yesterday. He’s doing okay. (You should see the other guy.) He and Ed made quite the couple.

Today I learned that Jeanne, a friend who I see at every riding event in DC, had a “freak bike accident” over Thanksgiving. She broke her back and is recovering at home in a back brace. She’s an incredibly upbeat person so I know she’ll weather this, but it will be a few months before she’s back on her bike.

So yesterday I was riding to Friday Coffee Club. I crossed 17th Street NW at Constitution Avenue in a crosswalk with the walk sign illuminated. A dump truck driver made a right turn right in front of me. As he lumbered past, I could see that the driver was holding his cell phone up to his face. I guess it wasn’t my time to die.

So thanks to Ed, Ricky, and Jeanne’s for using up the three bad things. It would’ve sucked if I were the fourth.

Get well you three. Stay safe. Have a merry. Have a happy new year. Let’s hope it’s a good one without any fear.

December 2023

Riding

This was a month to back off a bit. I managed to ride 749 miles or about 24 miles per day, less than half of my daily mileage on my summer tour. The cold weather makes riding my normal 30 miles feel like an ordeal. My outdoor rides ranged from 30 to 32 miles. I rode 110 miles on Big Nellie indoors. Most of the outdoor miles were on The Tank, my Surly CrossCheck. I did ride The Mule a couple of days but Little Nellie took the month off.

I reached 11,000 miles for the year on December 9.

Riding The Tank has been a struggle this year. It seems slow and heavy and hard on my legs. Once I reached 28,000 miles on its odometer on December 22, I put it away for a few days. In addition to my dissatisfaction with the ride quality of this bike, I had been experiencing a marked increase in back pain accompanied by worrisome neck, shoulder, and arm aches. A two-mile stroll (with cane) through Georgetown last week left me with even more pain. And, despite doing all kinds of physical therapy exercises for months, my back was stooped like never before. I seemed destined to return to the dreaded medical merry-go-round.

On a whim, I compared the saddle height on The Tank to that on The Mule, my touring bike that fits like a glove. The Tank’s saddle was more than a half inch higher. I must have raised the saddle earlier in the year. Why? I have no idea.

Anyway, I lowered the seat by a half inch or so and went for a spin. Bingo. Suddenly the bike fit me nearly perfectly. My mechanics were much better; my speed jumped by ten percent or so with less effort. The handlebars were still a little higher than on The Mule so I paid a visit to my local bike store where I bought some thin, 2.5-millimeter, spacers. I used them to drop my bars 5 millimeters. Dang. Locked and loaded. I finished the year with three 30-mile rides. My back feels much better and my neck, shoulder, and arm pain are nearly gone. Thank god I didn’t go to the doctor. It would have been a total waste of time.

Watching

Minari – A Korean family buys a farm in Arkansas. Nominated for all sorts of awards. Korean cast was outstanding including a little boy played by Alan Kim. They overshadowed a stellar performance by Will Patton as a religious nut who is the family’s farmhand.

Top Gun – Maverick. Another movie we skipped a few years ago. I’m not a big Tom Cruise fan but he’s far better in this than in the earlier movie. The plot is predictable but the editing and sound and visuals make for a fine action movie.

Interstellar. A Christopher Nolan film I missed when it was released nine years ago. Matthew McConaughey at his best. The rest of the cast, other than McKenzie Foy as his daughter and Michael Caine as an aging scientist, left me a bit flat. The story is filled with sci fi bafflegab and impossibilities but it was still very entertaining.

Yogi Berra – It Ain’t Over. A documentary about Yankee catcher Yogi Berra. One of the most highly decorated athletes of the century. He was short and funny looking. And he was famously a malaprop machine. History treated him like a clown, but he was anything but. He earned more professional championship rings than any athlete in the 20th century, including Bill Russell. (Russ has nine NBA championships, two NCAA championships, and a gold medal. Don’t at me.) And virtually everyone who appears on screen says he was a phenomenally decent human being.

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. This movie took tons of awards including the Academy Award for Best Performance with a Butt Plug. Also, people with hot dog fingers, a sword fight with dildos, an all powerful everything bagel, and sentient rocks. How many hallucinogens did the filmmakers take when writing and directing this thing?

Air. The story of how Nike, a running shoe company, signed Michael Jordan. It’s funny. Interesting. Great cast. Matt Damon is the new Tom Hanks. Viola Davis rocks. Jason Bateman is terrific. Ben Affleck is quite good as the head of Nike. And he directed.

Nyad. A very entertaining movie about a self absorbed jerk who swims from Cuba to Key West at the tender age of 64. As good as Annette Benning was as Diana Nyad, Jodie Foster was even better as her coach and friend. I am not a big fan of either actress but I’d be shocked if they don’t both get nominated for Academy Awards.

Big Adam Bikes – This is an Instagram daily journal of a young man who rode the TransAm this year. It’s funny and brings back a lot of memories. Adam Bigelow doesn’t leave out the tedium, the bad weather, and the dogs. And the headwinds – forget about that nonsense about getting tailies going west to east. You get a pretty good idea of what it’s like to ride from the Oregon coast to Yorktown.

The Crown – We watched the final six episodes over the course of three nights. How odd that of all the characters in the story, Camilla Parker-Bowles came across best. In the end, the Queen is humanized although I have to say of the four women who played Elizabeth over 68 episodes, I found Imelda Staunton the least appealing. (There’s a new actress who plays the not yet queen as a young woman. She looks remarkably like a young Claire Foy.)

Death on the Nile – I’m not a big Agatha Christie fan and this movie did nothing to change my mind. An impressive cast but not one memorable performance. Dull. If you’re going to watch a Kenneth Branagh film there are many others worth your time.

The Big Dig – This nine-hour podcast covers the biggest urban traffic project in US history. The Big Dig involved burying the Central Artery, an elevated highway built in the late 1940s. The highway design predated the interstate highway system. It was characterized by narrow lanes and more miles of on and off ramps than roadway miles. To get on the thing you had to drive like a maniac which may explain why Boston drivers are such Massholes. The Central Artery was a daily nightmare for drivers and it ruined the city, separating the North End and South Boston from the rest of the city. The Big Dig also included building a new tunnel to Logan Airport, a much needed addition. In the first episode I learned how an inner loop highway that cut through Cambridge, Jamaica Plain, and Roxbury was on the drawing boards. A grassroots effort stopped the project, but not before acres of Roxbury were levelled. (I drove a cab in Boston in the mid-seventies and always wondered why there were so many empty lots in Roxbury. Now I know why.) The same sort of thing happened in DC where I-66 would have cut the city in half if not for local opposition. The Big Dig took over 20 years to design and build and cost billions more than planned. Although the podcast doesn’t mention it, the Big Dig was not unlike another big dig, the Panama Canal, in terms of its complexity, cost, political intrigue, and length of time to completion.

Reading

The Path between the Seas. David McCullough’s award-winning account of the building of the Panama Canal. As with many of his tomes, the amount of information in this one boggles the mind. Not only was the canal an engineering feat that rivalled Project Apollo, the effort also included the early use of electricity for industrial purposes and pathbreaking epidemiological work. It cost over $300 million and tens of thousands of lives, mostly those of unskilled black workers from the West Indies.

A Truck Full of Money by Tracy Kidder. This is the story of Paul English, a working class kid in Boston who eventually made $120 million (hence the title) from the online travel company he founded called Kayak.com. The book oddly dovetails with two other Kidder books: Mountains beyond Mountains and Rough Sleepers and seems like a fitting companion to Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine.

Mornings on Horseback. After reading about Theodore Roosevelt’s involvement with the Panama Canal in the book above, I decided to read this biographical book, again by David McCullough, about TR’s upbringing. (The book ends well before he becomes president.) A chapter of the book deals with his three years of on and off adventures in North Dakota and eastern Montana. I rode through this area on my 2018 bike trip and was curious about his times there.

On the Street by Bill Cunningham. Cunningham was a fashion photographer of sorts for the New York Times and other publications. He chronicled the art of fashion, mostly as it appeared on the streets of New York and Paris over four decades from the 1970s to the 2000s. I often have wondered who wears those weird outfits you see in fashion magazines. The answer is New Yorkers and Parisians. Cunningham traveled the city on his beat up three-speed bicycle. His photos of people walking to work in Manhattan after a big snow storm brought back oh so many miserable winter days in Boston. The book made me all the more appreciative of amateur photographers Joe Flood and Mary Gersema, two friends of mine who have an fine eye for life in DC.

The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose. This whodunit is the follow up to Prose’s The Maid. Molly the maid solves another murder in the hotel where she works. Molly’s a bid of an odd duck but she’s a good egg and has an eye and an ear for detail. After two months of nonfiction, this novel was a fun read to end the year on.

Top Ten for 2023

Once again it’s time to take stock in stuff that happened over the last 12 months. Here we go in no particular order.

The Boy Comes Home – After four years, our son came home from Thailand for a visit. We rode bikes and went to baseball games and hung out. During his travels, he also managed to see West Virginia, Indiana, Chicago, Montana, New York City, and Romania. Go figure. It seems impossible that he is 32 and living on the other side of the world. If you ever want to learn to scuba dive in Thailand, he’s your man.
Cold, Rain, Hills, Smoke, Mud – Bike Tour 2023 – I’ve never ridden in Maine but I’ve been to Oklahoma. Okay, I’ve never ridden in Oklahoma either, but the line worked for Hoyt Axton. After the southern half of the Adventure Cycling Atlantic Coast Route by riding from DC to Key West in 2017, I decided to finish the route by riding from DC to Bar Harbor, Maine. Rather than re-trace my steps down the coast, I made a big loop from DC to Bar Harbor to Lake Ontario to Niagara Falls to Erie, PA to Pittsburgh to DC. The first month was cold and wet and brutally hilly. I managed to avoid the smoke from Canadian wildfires until Erie, PA where I rode in Code Purple air with an N95 mask on. No problem. I rode in a foreign country for the first time, riding along the Niagara River in stormy Ontario. The final push on the C&O, which was supposed to be the easy part, featured slogging through miles and miles of thick mud and a brutal hike over a mountain to bypass the closed Paw Paw tunnel.
Bike Events – I rode five bike events this year. The Washington Area Bicyclists Association changed the name of its May ride from the Spring Fling to the Bike How You Like Ride. I rode the Spring Fling a few years ago and it was brutal. I swore I wouldn’t do it again. Fool that I am, I learned the morning of the ride that the BHYLR was the same course. Oof. Somehow it was easier this time. In September, I rode the 50 States Ride for the 15th time with a splendid posse. The route took us all over DC clockwise for the first time but we still had to contend with a brutal climb through the Palisades to Cathedral Heights. In October, I rode the Great Pumpkin Ride in the Virginia Piedmont for the umpteenth time. This time I brought my own snacks and rode it solo nonstop. The weather was perfect and avoiding long lines at the pit stops cut my time by nearly two hours. In November, I rode the Cider Ride with most of my 50 States posse. On this year’s ride one member of the posse rode all 60 miles on little more than water, a slice of apple pie, and a stalk of celery. Incroyable! Later that month I rode the Bike for Your Life event. The point of the ride was to raise awareness of the problem of traffic violence in our area. We passed four ghost bikes (indicating where a driver killed a cyclist) before ending at the ghost bike of a five-year old girl.
Big Nellie Hits 50,000 Miles – It’s been over 20 years but persistence paid off as Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent, finally broke the 50,000 mile barrier. (This does not count the hundreds of miles ridden on the bike indoors during the winter months.)
Little Nellie and The Tank Re-born – I had all but stopped riding Little Nellie, my Bike Friday New World Tourist, because of the intense lower back pain I experienced after even short rides. I decided to swap out the drop handlebars for more upright H bars. It made a world of difference and I ended up riding the bike over 2,000 miles this year. In late December I was ready to get rid of The Tank, my Surly CrossCheck. Riding it gave me weeks of intense nerve pain in my back, arms, shoulders, and neck. Then I made seemingly minor adjustments to the seat and handlebar height. The bike now goes considerably faster with less effort and my nerve problems have all but disappeared. With a few twists of an allen key and some headset spacers, I saved a bike and avoided the medical merry-go-round for the winter.
50th High School Reunion – I attended my 50th high school reunion. My high school classmates are so old! During the trip, I visited with family and did a bike ride with my brother Jim on the new rail trail that runs from the Hudson River to the village of Voorheesville west of Albany. I also managed to check out the Walkway over the Hudson in Poughkeepsie, the home of Franklin Roosevelt in Hyde Park, the graves of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in Hyde Park and of Chester A. Arthur near Albany, and my parents’ and my brother Mike’s graves. I also found the weathered tombstone of my great grandfather Sylvester.
King Lear at Shakespeare Theater – My wife, daughter, and I saw a mind blowing performance of Patrick Page as King Lear, He stole the show when we saw him as Iago in Othello many years ago but his Lear was next level stuff. From the second he stepped onto the stage we were gobsmacked. It helped that we were in the second row.
The Mule Gets Some TLC – I took The Mule into the bike doctor for a physical and found out that, among many other things, the rims had multiple cracks in them. The new rims were right as rain after my summer bike tour. Later in the year, after years of frustration over rear brake rubbing issues, I finally forked over the big bucks and had an expensive brake installed. It works great.
Crowded House – My favorite band from the Antipodes was supposed to play DC in September 2022 but the drummer injured his back. I can relate. The concert was rescheduled for March and was worth the wait. Liam Finn, a band member, opened the night with a frenetic solo performance. The main event was terrific, marred only by two drunken idiots who sat in the row behind us and talked loudly through most of the songs.
Museum of African American History – I finally got to see this amazing new Smithsonian museum. We spent hours in the place and only saw half the exhibits, mostly about slavery, Jim Crow, and civil rights. I need to go back to see the rest, most of which is likely to be more upbeat.
And one more for Nigel Tufnel: In January I became a lifetime member of the Adventure Cycling Association. Without ACA maps and advice, I’d never have done so much touring or had so much fun. I should have done this years ago (and saved 20 years worth of annual membership fees) but I didn’t think I’d ever do this much touring.

Top Ten of 2016

As is so often the case, my top ten list goes to 11. Hey, it’s my blog and I make the rules.

Yooper for a Week
After 11 years I finally did another solo bike tour. I drove 13+ hours to Ludington Michigan. After a ferry ride across Lake Michigan, I rode The Mule fully loaded with gear into the north woods of Wisconsin. On July 4, I had breakfast in Freedom. After a few days I turned east and crossed the UP, the upper peninsula of Michigan. After the UP, I visited car-free Mackinac Island on a quiet Sunday morning. Other than a two-hour scary thunderstorm and three hilly days of headwinds near the end of the tour, the weather could not have been better. And I managed three ferry rides without getting sick. I rode 832 miles in 11 days. It was a wonderful combination of hard work and rolling meditation. I proved to myself that even at 60 years old I still got it. Okay, maybe not all of it but enough of it to get the job done. I can’t wait to do another.

An Eventful Spring
Prior to my tour I warmed up my legs by riding some bike events. I kicked the year off with the Vasa Ride, co-sponsored by the Washington Area Bicyclists Association and the Swedish embassy. It was a bit of a disappointment because this is normally a social ride but I rode it alone and didn’t do much socializing at the embassy reception afterwards. Next came the Five Boro ride in New York City. The Five Boro Ride has always been on my to do list but conflicted with work, parenting responsibilities, and personal lethargy. I convinced Paul to join me (with Amy along for moral support). Paul and I rode the 40+ mile ride in a cold rain at the start of May. It wasn’t all that much fun, but touring Manhattan the day before in splendid weather with the wonderful guidance of my BU friend Susan made up for riding the Brooklyn Queens Expressway in a driving rain.

At the end of May, I rode the new DC Bike Ride. Not to be outdone by NYC, we had cold rain for that one too.

Scary Night
In May, I woke up in the middle of the night with severe chest pains. After a few hours of increasing pain, Mrs. RC called for an ambulance. The ride to the hospital ½ mile away took 20 minutes but I was well taken care of. What I feared was a heart attack turned out to be a respiratory infection. Fortunately, a nebulizer treatment in the ER and antibiotics fixed me up over the next week. An earworm of the Neil Finn song Anytime played for days. “I could go at anytime. There’s nothing safe about this life.” Words to live by.

At the end of the week, I dragged myself out of bed and rode my bike on Bike to Work Day. I was still under the weather but I now know I can ride to work with one lung tied behind my back.

Pulling Beers Like a Boss
I have been lax in volunteering at local bike events, basically forever. This year, with my respiratory problems more or less behind me, I volunteered at the Tour de Fat in DC. This is a fundraiser for bike advocacy groups (WABA being one of many) and I was determined to help out. It rained. It was cold-ish. I pulled beers nonstop for two hours. Instead of hanging around for the rest of the day, I went home and went to bed. (Every party has a pooper that’s why we invited you.) Next year I hope to be around to volunteer again. And to socialize afterward.

Call Me Lars
Our daughter finished up her year abroad with a semester in Sweden. A few days after Tour de Fat, Mrs. Rootchopper and I flew over and toured parts of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland. It was an exhausting two weeks and fun to re-visit Copenhagen after over 15 years. Although I was in bicycle heaven for most of the trip, I didn’t ride at all. If you ask me what my favorite place was my answer would be “Yes.”

Ain’t Baseball Great
I went to 19 Nats games this year. The last time I went to this many games was when I lived in Boston. I rode my bike to about 15 games. How convenient of them to locate the ballpark 16 miles from home. As a bonus, it was great seeing so many friends at the bike valet before and after the games. The rest of the games involved driving the kids, including my niece Irene for one game. One exhausting game lasted 16 innings and the good guys won on a walk-off home run. I even managed to see two playoff games. Despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that the Nats lost their last game of the season, I can’t wait until April!

Fall Bike Frenzy
In the fall I did the Indian Head, Backroads, and Seagull Centuries (100 miles each), the 44-mile Great Pumpkin Ride (with Paul, Amy, and Jody), the 53-mile Cider Ride and, for the eighth time, the 62-mile 50 States Ride. I was already on fumes near the end of this madness, when an old friend asked me to ride with her to Harpers Ferry and back over two days. Given the fact that I had a colonoscopy (with the associated fasting and anesthesia) two days before we would have left, I declined. One ambulance ride a year is plenty.

Deets Provides a Surly Surge
A year ago I bought a new bike, a Surly Cross Check. Mostly, it hung on a hook in my shed, used only for the occasional weekend ride. This summer I started commuting on it. What a great commuter bike it is. I also did all my fall events on it. I named it Deets after the scout in the miniseries Lonesome Dove. Deets was said to be “cheerful in all weathers, never shirked a task, splendid behavior.” My Deets served me well until his back tire exploded on the way to work. Aye god, Woodrow.

Hiking Light
Unlike last year, I didn’t get much hiking done this year. I did the Billy Goat B and C trails on New Years Day which is becoming something of a tradition. Realizing that I-66 cuts right across the Appalachian Trail, I hiked it north (Manassas Gap) and south (Trumbo Hollow) of the highway. I also headed out to Shenandoah National Park to hike the Hogback Mountain trail. In late November I hiked the Potomac Highlands Trail from Turkey Run Park to the American Legion Bridge and back. A surprisingly nice hike so close to DC. Just before the year ended I did a meandering hike in Great Falls Park in Maryland.

Living Small
We had our wood floors redone in the spring. We hired a couple of amazing movers to relocate all our belongings from the top two floors down to the family room and basement where we lived among the piles of stuff for two weeks. It was quite a project. The floors turned out great. I came to realize that most of the crap that I have accumulated over the course of 25+ years in a house, I can live without.

Going Long
Coincident with my 61st birthday, my four bikes gave me a big present. I’ve been keeping track of the mileage on my bikes for 25 years and with an empty nest surge in recent years I finally made it to 100,000 miles. I also set my one-year personal mileage record of 8,167 miles.

That’s it for 2016. No mas. Thanks for reading. I am taking 2017 one day at a time. Love this life. It’s the only one you get.

Biking on Drugs

What a beautiful day. The weather that is. My back not so much.

After dawdling over the newspaper and eating some a muscle relaxant and an NSAID, I decided to go for a short, gentle bike ride on Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent.

I loosely planned to check out some bald eagle nests along the Mount Vernon Trail, maybe grab some lunch in Old Town Alexandria and head back home.

Getting started hurt. A slight hill near home hurt. Then I loosened up and Big Nellie and I were cruising. My first stop was the nest in Fort Hunt Park. I spotted it from the MVT. In a few days as the trees leaf out, it will be very hard to find. There were no eagles about so I took a picture and then made a note of the landmarks nearby so that I can find the nest again.

I started up again. Ow. Once underway the pain subsided. I took the trail with all its curves and bridges and ups and downs all the way to the Morningside nest. The new bridges on the trail along this stretch are a terrific improvement over the cheap ones they replaced.

At the Morningside nest I struck up a conversation with a photographer. It turns out that she is the same photographer that told me where the Fort Hunt Park nest is last summer. She’s a real bald eagle addict. She told me that both the Fort Hunt and the Morningside nests have eaglets. Three other nests, one along Spout Run in North Arlington, one south of Mount Vernon on Ferry Landing Road and the one at the Belle Haven country club, have been abandoned by bald eagles. The Belle Haven nest has been taken over by ospreys. She was going to Alaska for a cruise this summer. I mentioned that she’d be seeing a ton of bald eagles on her trip. She mentioned that she will be stopping in Haines. I told her to stop at the museum and say high to Rachel, one of my #bikedc friends who will be working there this summer.

After our talk, I headed north to Old Town. The traffic on the trail was pretty busy. The usual asshat MAMILs (middle aged men in lycra) were indulging their athletic fantasies by riding way too fast. One woman walker yelled at a close passing cyclist to slow down. He had it coming.

Under the Woodrow Wilson Bridge two little boys were showing off their bicycling skills for their moms. The rode their itty bitty two wheelers in tight circles, all the while having a blast.

I rode through Old Town. Not yet hungry I decided to ride over to Del Ray to see if any food looked good. All the restaurants along Mount Vernon Boulevard had people eating outdoors. I was tempted by a couple of Mexican places but rode on.

I kept heading north through Arlandria, Crystal City, and Long Bridge Park, past the vast Pentagon parking lots and into DC across the Memorial Bridge. The tourists were out in droves. I resisted the urge to run them over.

On a whim I made my way to Carpe Diem, the little used bookstore that Rachel had been working in. I had a specific book in mind but,alas, it was too old and obscure.

Next up was a side trip to Mount Vernon Square to check out the building that collapsed the other day. Only a few years ago, the streets of this neighborhood were lined with two and three story buildings. Now, most of them are gone, replaced by modern mixed use buildings. The streets were alive with young adults milling about. The collapsed building and the ones next to it looked utterly out of place among all the new buildings, one of which housed a “gentleman’s club.”

Having satisfied my curiosity I worked my way back to Virginia. During my time in DC I saw literally dozens of women walking the streets carry yoga mats. You could make a decent living selling yoga mats around here.

Once in Virginia I turned south on the MVT. Normally on such a nice day, the trail is packed with runners, bladers, cyclists, and walkers. Today it was crowded but not enough to slow me down. South of the airport I saw a women on skates heading toward me. These weren’t rollerblades or traditional roller skates. Instead they had big skateboard style wheels, four to a skate. Must be a new thing.

Many of the cyclists were riding CaBi bikeshare bikes. In Old Town and for the next couple of miles I got stuck behind three groups of Bike and Roll customers riding their rental bikes south. The first two clusters of renta-riders had about ten people in them. Under the Wilson Bridge I encountered a line of close to 20 bikes. They were going slowly and Big Nellie (and my back) were feeling fine so I passed them in one go. This never happens, by the way.

The last three miles were a bit of a slog. I think my muscle relaxant was wearing off, but I made it home without any pain. The walk into the house reminded me of my back woes. I look like an 80-year old with osteoporosis.

So my little jaunt lasted 39 miles. Success through chemistry.

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