Tell Tale Signs

The tell tale sign of Christmas is the arrival of Christmas decorations. There’s a house down the street from me that lit up, albeit in purple, one of its trees in October. I’ve seen outdoor trees on display elsewhere. Then there was that Corona Beer Christmas ad on TV last night. Nothing says Christmas like beer that tastes like skunk pee.

The tell tale sign that the good weather days are behind us is a cold, rainy day. I grew up in upstate New York when cold rainy days were the norm in October and November. There’s no way to sugar coat it, cold rainy days suck. Unless you have the right clothing.

I have the right clothing. (You knew I was going to say that, didn’t you?)

So out I went at 7:10 on Little Nellie. I was quite comfortable under my Marmot Precip rain gear. Over the weekend I bought some neoprene covers for the front of my shoes. Somewhat unexpectedly they kept my shoes dry. I dug out my old Novara (the REI house brand) rain gloves. These suckers are long, they go well up my forearm and have a cinching cord in the wrist. The rain was even kind enough not to turn into a deluge for the commute. My only problem was seeing. Water on my glasses made navigation a bit of an annoyance. Lucky for me, there was hardly anybody else on the Mount Vernon Trail.

Tonight I expected less of the same, the rain having supposedly moved through the area. A brisk tailwind made the ride a, forgive the expression, breeze. It wasn’t a breeze for a bike commuter on the boardwalk at the TR Bridge. He was coming down from the bridge when he hit his brakes to avoid a turning cyclist. Thud. He was down on his side in a split second. He popped up and started walking his bike. He said he was okay so I pedaled homeward. It was seriously dark the whole way. In Belle Haven Park I saw two lights in the leaves next to the trail. Next thing I knew a racoon was running across the trail in front of me. He bounded up onto a tree trunk and scurried up the tree. The rest of the ride home involved not falling on the wet leaves. I succeeded.

Tomorrow is a whole ‘nother story. The forecast is calling for temperatures in the low to mid 20s with strong headwinds. This is the kind of weather we get in late January. I am prepared to wear everything I’ve got for the ride. I’m going all Charlie Brown. If I fall off my bike, I’ll just lie there on the ground like a felled tree.

Or I’ll drive.

Let’s Play Thermonuclear Bike Commute

I was having a pretty good go of things today. The ride in was a tad chilly but entirely comfortable. The Mule didn’t complain a bit. The ride home was going okay when I came upon beaucoup police and fire activity on South Union Street in Old Town. My photo makes it look like a thermonuclear event but I am pretty sure it wasn’t. I didn’t glow or anything like that as I rode past. Seriously, I hope the activity wasn’t the result of a pedestrian or cyclist being hit by a car.

Coffeeneuring with George Washington Foodcourt

I waited to long to go on my bike ride today. You see, last night I attended a bike poster art thing called Artcrank in DC. There were bike themed posters on display. They were very creative. As it turns out, my favorite was from Friday Coffee Club member Aaron. His poster was called No Bad Day and it showed a bike rider in silouette, half riding in foul weather and half in fair. It reminded me of my running days. My wife would look out the window and say, the weather sucks. My response would invariably there is no bad weather for a run. And out I would go.

The real highlight of the Artcrank event was the fact that there were 20 or 30 #bikedc people I knew there. (No way I’m naming names since I would surely leave some out.) And I met several people who I hope to see again soon. I’d say the first edition of Artcrank DC was a big, big success.

Aaron, is a year round, indefatigable bike commuter. He commuted in Minneapolis which is either badass or insane. Or, actually, both. We were talking with beer cans in their cozies in our hands when he mentioned that the cozies make excellent toe warmers for winter cycling. This is either badass or insane, but it is an economical (actually free) alternative to the stupid toes covers I bought a couple of years ago. They lasted all of two weeks before shredding.

I put them on today but it wasn’t cold enough to make a difference. I’ll get another chance soon enough. (There is of course the possibility that Aaron was putting me on. I am unshamable, however.)

My ride today was my sixth coffeeneuring ride. I decided to roll down to Mount Vernon and check out the food court. I’ll bet you didn’t know George Washington invented the food court. He was badass, too. On the way I took a lap around Fort Hunt Park. The trees in the park were a little past peak but they still impressed with their bold colors.

Further down river on the Mount Vernon Trail I came upon a brand new bridge. This is really quite nice and was much needed. Thank you, National Park Service.

Just past the bridge I came upon a boat parked at the river bank behind some yellow tape. It could have been the S.S. Minnow, but maybe not.

The food court was ‘Merica. Burgers and fries and pizza and other things that didn’t make my nose too happy. I bought a decaf coffee and a soft pretzel. The pre-ride coffee I made with my new coffee maker was more better by far. The soft pretzel was salty and took up sufficient space in my digestive tract that it might be classified as actual food.

The ride home along the river was lovely. It had warmed up a bit while I was decaffeinating and so it was quite comfortable.

Back at home I had a chain lube party with my three favorite bikes. They are my favorites because they are the only three I have.

Coffeeneruing Rap Sheet

Place: Mount Vernon estate food court at the end of the Mount Vernon Trail

Drink: House decaf as bland as coffee gets

Miles: 13

Observation: There used to be a Starbucks in the foodcourt but now it’s just generic weak joe. The coffeeneuring pickings sure are few and far between in SE Fairfax County. The ride, however, is pretty darn nice.

Deer, Sticker, and Regulars

Yesterday dawned with a nip in the air. Wait. Who am I kidding? It was downright cold. cold. Fortunately, it was the first day of standard time so the rising sun had warmed things up a bit before I left the house. I took my winter route, which shaves about a mile off my commute by riding diagonally across the Hollin Hall neighborhood rather than around it. Even with the warmer air, my face was covered in tears as my eyes rebelled against the cold wind.

With apologies to the late George Carlin (is that as opposed to the early George Carlin?) , the forecast for the evening commute was DARK. Dang. I nearly steered off the bike path a couple of times. And the headlights in my eyes from the cars travelling north on the GW Parkway weren’t a whole lot of fun either. Then there was the rider who came up behind me with a flashing death ray mounted on his bike.

Dark. Solar flare. Dark. Solar flare. Dark. Solar flare.

It’s always helpful to have burned out retinas when commuting at night.

South of Old Town, a young deer jumped out of the trailside shrubs and bounded across my path. In all my years of bike commuting I have only once hit a critter. It was a squirrel whose tail buzzed the spokes of my front wheel. The squirrel survived the encounter. I think making contact with a deer might not turn out so well for me.

I noticed recently that the “I voted” sticker on my helmet was weathered. Lucky for me, today is Election Day. I rode Big Nellie to my polling place and picked up a new one. (It’s always fun to ride my humongous recumbent to the polling place. It’s like saying, “I ride a lounge chair and I vote!”) Oh, and I voted. I wonder if more people would vote if they gave out pumpkin spice lattes or cheesecake.

The ride to work was not as cold as yesterday but the tears in my eyes were back. The tears might have something to do with the fact that I hit 34 miles per hour bombing down the hill from Park Terrace Drive. Weeee.

As I ride in these days I am monitoring the progress of a pregnant runner. She started showing a couple of weeks ago. Lately she’s been walking a bit. Today she had on a Purdue sweatshirt. I forgot that under my vest I had a Butler t-shirt. Who’s yur kawledge?

Another new regular on the trail is Smiling New Mom. She runs southward as I ride north, pushing a superduper pram with a near-toddler inside. Mornin’ Mom. The kid is so cute.

Today’s calvalcade of trail users also included Hoppy Guy, the Three Step Runner, Nancy “2 Sheds” Duley, and CAL. Hoppy Guy is a runner with a bad knee. Three Step Runner is a woman who runs three paces then walks then runs three paces, etc. Nancy “2 Sheds” Duley is a #fridaycoffeeclub irregular who bike commutes when she telecommutes. She is a confused soul. CAL is a sixty something man who wears a University of California shirt. Or maybe he has amnesia and wears his name on his shirt in case he forgets who he is.

For two days in a row no drivers tried to kill me in Rosslyn. There is a great disturbance in the force.

The ride home was peaceful. I was not threatened by any ruminants. I think they must have been at the polls.

Sunrise – Dyke Marsh

The boardwalk over Dyke Marsh was slippery from rain and fallen leaves. Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent, has a skewed weight distribution making it prone to having the front wheel slide out. When I saw the sunrise over the hills of Prince Georges County, Maryland I risked a crash and very slowly braked to a stop. Yeah, it was worth it.

Coffee and Contrabands

I haven’t ridden in four days. I was away on a business trip Wednesday through Friday. I brought my Bike Friday and intended to ride it after work on Fridat but, alas, twas raining so I just drove home. Yesterday was rainy and cold. Not very inviting biking weather. By evening I was getting irritable, which is a sure thing when I don’t get enough exercise.

So despite feeling really not into it, I jumped on Little Nellie and headed out for a short ride. I took the Mount Vernon Trail to Old Town. The trail was covered in wet leaves so I was extra careful to avoid sudden moves. On Union Street in Old Town I stopped at a stop sign so that a huge SUV coming from my left could (a) not yield to me and (b) roll through its stop sign. Bikes are obviously the problem.

A few blocks further north, I saw a dad and his toddler son get out of an SUV on the opposite side of the street. The little boy had on a plastic green army helmet under a hoodie. As dad turned to close his car door, little boy bolted across the street directly in front of me. I said, “Whoa, dude!” Dad turned around and said, “Sorry.” You might want to keep you “sorries” for mom when you get your kid killed through your negligence, dad.

I rode up King Street in search of coffee. There are about a dozen coffee places to choose from. I made it all the way to the Metro station and turned around. I settled for Dunkin’ Donuts or Dunks as friend of the blog @lkono calls it. (We used to call it Drunkin’ Donuts because most of its late night customers in Providence were piss drunk.) If you ever lived in Massacusetts or Rhode Island you’d know that there are more Dunkin Donuts than traffic lights. In my 11 years in Boston and Providence I must have gone to Dunks 200 of 300 times. I really liked the coffee and minchies. Not anymore. It just tastes funky to me now. The coffee cake muffin I had wasn’t bad though.

On the way home, I stopped at the Freeman’s Cemetery. This cemetery is actually a memorial to a cemetery that was established in 1864 for the runaway slaves who found their way to Union-occupied Alexandria during the Civil War. The Contrabands (as the were originally called on a account of their legal status as property) lived in squalor. Many succumbed to smallpox. Over 1,700 were laid to rest in this cemetery. Over the years the cemetery was repeatedly disturbed by road building and other ventures. The last venture was a Mobil gas station. When the Woodrow Wilson Bridge was replaced, the gas station was removed and a cemetery was restored as a memorial.

Some pix of the cemetery can be found on my Flickr page

Cofffeeneuring Scorecard

Date: October 12

Location: Dunks on King Street near the Metro station in Old Town, Alexandria

Drink: House brew with coffee cake muffin. The muffin was way better than the coffee.

Observation: Dunkin Donuts used to be my default coffee shop when I was in school. What the hell do students know about coffee, anyway?

Miles: 18.5

Coffeeneuring in Car Hell

The fourth annual coffeeneuring challenge is upon us. This challenge entails riding your bike to coffee shops on the weekends and meeting rules that only a randonneur would love. I wasn’t going to do it this year but I had a Sunday to burn and a gift certificate to a new coffee shop burning a whole in my saddle bag.

To me rolling out to get a cup of coffee seems kind of silly since I have a perfectly good coffee maker in my kitchen. So I combined today’s coffee trek with some errands. I started with a ride to the hardware store for some bird seed. Little Nellie, my New Wrold Tourist with little wheels, does a terrifc job of carrying the unbalanced load without making me feel like I’m going to tip over.

Once the seeds were off loaded at home, I turned around and rode the Mount Vernon Trail to Old Town to use an ATM. I could have done this at the Safeway near home but I needed some therapy miles. Call it bikescendental meditation. My brain shuts off, I sing songs badly, I look at the egrets and herons. All is calm.

After ATMing, I headed off to the coffee shop on Telegraph Road south of the beltway. I rode over to the Eisenhower Valley (why does this invoke tanks in my mind) and used the nifty newish trail over the beltway at Telegraph. It drops you right smack dab in the middle of a spaghetti bowl of ramps and traffic lanes going every which way. This being Sunday traffic was light. Riding this on a weekday would take nerves of steel. This sort of road pattern is what I call Car Hell. Car Hell is why Fairfax County is a bike hostile community.

After waiting three minutes for a traffic light, I headed south on Telegraph. The shoulder comes and goes so taking the lane is the only option. People were driving their cars responsible though so it was not an entirely unpleasant experience. Telegraph wends through a hilly area. There was one hill I had to climb (right after Climbhill Rd., I kid you not) and I made it without breathing hard.

A fun downhill led to a left hand turn (always fun) into a strip mall (planned American retail blight). There I found the Grounded Coffee Shop.

I locked Little Nellie to a street sign because, this being Car Hell, there was no bike parking to be found.

Inside I found a very pleasant, kid friendly place (toys and games were placed on shelves and a Lego pit was off to one side). A young man was playing guitar and singing songs for tips.The customers ranged in age from 1 to 70. A student did homework on a laptop.

I ordered tomato soup with chicken and orzo, a banana, and a 16-ounce house coffee (dark roast from the Congo). This being the first crisp fall weekend day in these parts, the warmth of the soup and coffee alone would have made me happy, but they were both top notch. (The banana lacked a certain je ne said quoi, but it is an essential bike food.)

The ride home involved South Kings Highway which included one whopper of a hill. The road has a paved shoulder that comes and goes. And when it goes it just drops off in an way that would mean a trip to the ER. Way to go VDOT!

I managed the hill with the forebearance of some drivers. When confronted with the next, steeper hill bailed out and took side streets until I popped out at US 1 and the entrance to the Hybla Valley strip mall farm. That this monstrosity was actually planned by someone is simply astounding. Fearlessly, Little Nellie took on the mass of cars and we made it through somehow. In fact, in about 5 minutes I was turning onto Parkers Lane using the turn lane and ironically not 30 yards from the spot where my wife was mowed down (actually thrown in the air) by an ex-con driving an SUV, when a driver honked at me. I wasn’t in her way. I wasn’t doing anything illegal. My offense was I was not in a car. Some people need remedial driver’s ed.

So I arrived home unscathed from my first coffeeneuring adventure. Here are some stats:

Date: October 5.

Place: Grounded Coffee Shop, 6919 Telegraph Avenue, Alexandria VA. http://www.groundedcoffeeshop.com

Drink: Congo dark roast, most delicious. Also, pretty darn good tomato chicken and orzo soup.

Observation: Grounded Coffee is a real find. I have $6+ left on my gift certificate and look forward to going back. I’l probably drive though because it’s located in Car Hell.

Miles:19.5

From Dawn to Midnight – Another Day in #Bikedc

Friday means only one thing: Friday Coffee Club. Unfortunately, late September means DARK. I left before 7 am with my Light and Motion Stella light strapped to my helmet. This is my fourth season using the Stella. It seems to work just as well as when I bought it too. Light and Motion makes good stuff.

Since I was going to the night game at Nationals Park, I rode The Mule which has conventional pedals. This way I didn’t have to wear shoes with cleats. It was my first commute on The Mule in at least three months. It felt totally weird soon I was dialed in.

The ride in was uneventful. Your usual beautiful spin along the Potomac River. Over the river on the 14th Street Bridge, through the tourists at the Washington Monument, up the 15th Street cycletrack, and across the Pennsylvania Avenue plaza in front of the White House.

The tables outside Swings were packed with #bikeDc folks, including to my delight Elizabeth who rode the 50 States Ride with me this year. It’s always great to see new people at Friday Coffee Club.

Ellizabeth at the near head of the table presides over Friday Coffee Club

Ed, Mary, and I had made a date to attend the night game at Nationals Park. I paid Ed for my ticket and rode off to work resplendent in my Anthony Rendon Number 6 Nats shirt.

At 5 I was out of work like a rocket. This would likely be my last game of the year. I rode along the river to the 14th Street bridge, through East Potomac Park, over the Case Bridge to L’Enfant Promenade, then wound my way to I street and its smooth pavement and clearly marked bike lanes. Signs directed me straight to the bike valet at the ballpark. What a great idea.

Bike Valet - No Car, No Worries — Bike Valet – No Car, No Worries

I ate what passed for dinner and took my seat. Ed and Mary arrived a bit late. They were delayed because they needed to get their gear ready to drive to the Seagull Century on the Eastern Shore of Maryland before dawn on Saturday.

The game was a romp for the visiting team but we had a good time hanging out and talking baseball and bikes. At about 11, game over (Marlins 15, Nats 7) I hopped on The Mule for the ride home. The air was dry and calm with temperatures in the mid 60s. Once I cleared the area near the ballpark, the roads were all but empty. I calmly rode the 18 or 19 miles home. Best bike commute ever!

I walked in the house at 12:38, 18 hours after I left.

Alexandria – A Bicycle Ambivalent City

I am not one to get involved in bicycle advocacy. I am not good at it and feel uncomfortable doing it. Every once in a while I go to a meeting and speak my mind. Tonight on the way home from work I met two bike advocates from the Alexandria Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. They were handing out materials along the Mount Vernon Trail just north of Old Town.

They gave me a couple of handouts. One was a plea to cyclists not to blow through stop signs in Old Town. I whole hearted agree with this, although I do think that Old Town overuses stops signs which invites cyclists and drivers to disregard them much as drivers once tuned out the national 55-mile-per-hour speed limit. A few yield signs would not harm pedestrian safety.

Speaking of yield, the handouts would have been more credible if they had not spelled yield as YEILD (in caps). Ugh.

The handouts also suggest using Royal Street as a north/south route through Old Town to avoid congestion. When I head north to work in the morning, I avoid Royal Street for a number of reasons:

To get to South Royal, I have to make a sharp left turn after some bollards at the base of a hill to go under the Wilson Bridge. Also, I have to avoid curbs that are excessively large and perform no apparent useful purpose. In the dark or shade, they are hard to see.
Once I cross under the Wilson Bridge I have to ride up on the sidewalk to follow the trail around a security gate. The sidewalk has a bollard in it, because “In Bollards We Trust” is the official motto of the Wilson Bridge design team.
After the bollard the trail goes back to the street via a curb cut. In the morning this is the end of the drop off line for St. Mary of the Holy SUV School. Kids are getting out of cars, carline helpers are directing them and the SUVs> It’s just a recipe for somebody getting nailed.
Once I clear that mess and get on South Royal I have to deal with a back up of SUVs (and a few mnivans and BMWs). The drivers are in a hurry to get to work and are spread all over the street making biking unsafe. (Not to put too fine a point on it but whoever thought this was a good idea is an idiot.)
The alternative on Union Street involves no sharp turn after the bollards allowing me to maintain speed from the downhill.
The ride under the bridge and over to Union Street is pretty and one of the nicest stretches of the Mount Vernon Trail.
Unlike Royal Street, Union has no traffic, no traffic lights, and only a handful of stop signs. (It does have the occassional speeding car but Alexandria police can’t be bothered with cars in Old Town for some reason.)
You get to see the river and sunrises and the occassional famous person.

In the evening Union vs. Royal is a toss up. On the weekends I prefer Royal because King and Union can be a mess of humanity.

I tried to use the interactive map the city provides for comments but it was not very useful. A good try but no cigar. I tried to send ABPAC an email but alas gmail says the email address they provided me is no good. (Update Sept. 18: my email finally did go through. I have no idea what the problem was. If you have a comment, pet peeve or praise, send it to ABPAC or the city government. They hear from grabby Old Town residents all the time. I am sure they’d love to hear from you.)

Alexandrians who don’t ride bicycles don’t get the concept of riding for basic transportation. They just don’t. And the city officials still don’t. Here are two simple examples. In the 400 block of North Union, homeowners often park their cars perpendicular to the curb so that other parkers do not block their driveways. Sometimes these perpendicular cars block the sidewalk. More often they obstruct the bike lane cause cyclists to merge with car traffic that is not expected them. I have never (and I am talking about over 20 years) seen a ticket on one of these cars. This tells the homeowners that the city condones obstructing the bike lane; that bicycles are second-class.

Approaching 406 South Union Street — Approaching 406 North Union Street

In the 200 block of North Union Street is one of the first sharrows in the city. It is placed on the right of the road, directing cyclists into parked cars. You’d think that after ten years the city would get rid of it. I like to think of it as a monument to Alexandria’s official ambivalence to cycling.

For these reasons and more I think the League of American Cyclist should take away Alexandria’s Bicycle Friendly City award and replace it with its first Bicycle Ambivalent City Award.

I think progress in Alexandria will continue to be slow and sometimes frustrating but I applaud Randy and Erin for their efforts today. I really do. If you want to help, you can check out the city’s bike ped plan at http://www.alexandriava.gov/pedbikeplan or atttend the public meeting at the Minnie Howard School Library ay 3801 West Braddock Road on September 30 at 7 pm. Ironically, the school is located in one of the least bike friendly parts of town.

Now We’re Getting Somewhere – Taking a Mulligan

I needed a grease injector to service my pedals. It’s a bit of a mess trying to do it with a baby medicine injector. Not enough oomph in the lilttle plastic plunger.

My local bike store doesn’t sell them but Performance does. I could have ordered it online but that would have taken away a prefectly good excuse to ride over to their Springfield store. A couple of weeks ago, friend of the blog, bike commuter, and Friday Coffee Club devotee Reba told me that Mulligan Road was now open.

Mulligan Road is the new road that connects US 1 with Telegraph Road near Fort Belvoir. Woodlawn Road used to serve this purpose but the military closed it for security reasons after the 9/11 attacks. Traffic has been a mess ever since. In true Washington area style it only took 13 years to fix the problem.

The road seems to have been recently renamed, Jeff Todd Way. Jeff Todd was a local businessman who was very active in the community. He died in a car crash in 2011.

Whatever the name, it was time to check out the road on two wheels. Big Nellie got the call. I stepped out of the house and was smacked by searing heat. Labor Day may be the first day of meteorological autumn but somebody forgot to tell the weather gods.

To get to the new road, you ride the Mount Vernon Trail to the end at Mount Vernon. Then you keep going down the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway all the way to US 1. At US 1 you’ll see a mess of road construction which will soon be cleared up. Cross US 1 and you are are on the old Mulligan Road. It has been moved a bit to the south and widened. (The old entrance to Woodlawn Plantation has been removed. Access is now available from US to the south. Good luck with that if you are on a bike.)

In a half mile you come to Pole Road. This used to be the end of the line for Mulligan Road, but not anymore. A new road winds up (and I do mean up) through Fort Belvoir. It’s a four lane highway with a 40 mile per hour speed limit. The road isn’t quite done yet. For one thing it needs another layer of asphalt to make the road bed even with the concrete edge of the road. The right lane seems extra wide which I hope means there will be a bike lane.

Up, up, up. Put me in the zoo.

After cresting the hill, you get a nice reward descending through broad curves until you start to ride up again to Telegraph Road. Telegraph is a bit of a mess heading south. The hill you just came down now goes back up, and then some. There’s no bike lane (yet) so it’s just you and the constant flow of impatient drivers yearning to get to I-95 and go absolutely nowhere.

Just before the crest of the hill there is a sign saying “End of Bike Lane” which suggests that maybe there is supposed to be one. Not 30 yards later a new bike lane begins. Signage is not VDOT’s strong suit. This bike lane continues all the way to US 1 south of Fort Belvoir. I turned right at Beulah Road expecting to do battle with heavy car traffic but to my surprise I was given a bike lane of my very own. Yay! It continued all the way through Kingstowne to the Franconia Springfield Parkway. (It wasn’t actually my own. It was used by a man driving a car while messing with his smartphone. He kept weaving all over the road. I caught up to him at a red light and yelled at him to put the damned thing away before he killed somebody.)

I could have taken a side path all the way to Performance but the wide paved shoulder on the Parkway was too nice to pass up.

Mission accomplished thanks to the folks behind the Fairfax County Comprehensive Bicycle Plan.

The ride back was more better because the other side of Telegraph was in much better shape including an on-road bike lane. I turned right onto Mulligan/Todd and saw a wide side trail. I do hope this is not going to replace on on-road bike lane because the right lane is extra wide and can easily accomodate a bike lane.

Ever notice how the ride back seems so much faster once you know where the roads go? I flew down the long hill on Mulligan and zoomed right across Pole Road without so much as recognizing it.

Mulligan/Jeff Todd will be finished soon. I have sent a note to Adventure Cycling so that they may consider adding it to their Atlantic Coast route.

I took a whole bunch of pix so you can see for yourself over on my Flickr page.

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