Today on my ride home from work, the odometer on Deets, my Surly Cross Check hit 1,647 miles. That’s no big deal. I rode 8 more miles to home then added up all the miles from the odometers on my four bikes: 100,008 miles. I started this little project 25 years ago. I think I could use a shower beer right about now.
I rode to work and went to the baseball game last night. On the way home I managed to avoid running across (quite literally) a homeless person splayed across the access path to the Case Bridge trail. Somewhere just shy of the Olympic drunk slalom that is Old Town on a Saturday night, Little Nellie’s odometer turned 17,000 miles.
The next milestone will be in a week to ten days. I’ve been working on it for 25 years. Stay tuned.
Big Nellie is my Easy Racers Tour Easy recumbent. I bought her in 2001 or 2002 when I thought The Mule was on its last legs. (At the moment, The Mule is laughing in the shed with over 41,000 miles on its odometer.)
So today, with trumpets blaring as I rode between the scenic warehouses of Old Town Alexandria, Big Nellie turned 40,000 miles. She was quite impressed with herself. On to the next milestone later this week or early next week. Stay tuned.
A few days ago The Mule’s odometer tripped past 40,000 miles. Today, Big Nellie passed 39,000 miles. I bought Big Nellie, an Easy Racers Tour Easy recumbent, in the early 2000s. For several years I rode it exclusively, including three bike tours. Then a nerve probl
em cropped up in my left foot. This was a Morton’s neuroma and felt like a nail going through my left foot. Once that was more or less under control, a different nerve problem cropped up in my right foot, it went numb when I rode Big Nellie. I do exercises to control this condition every other day.
Now that both problems seem to under control, I can ride Big Nellie again. Riding a recumbent may look geeky but it a blast. A passing MAMIL made a sarcastic remark to me tonight as I rode home. I didn’t say anything back. I feel sorry for him. He doesn’t know what he’s missing.
I read the other day that some fitness experts say it is a bad idea to keep track or your workouts. What balderdash.
I like numbers. By keeping track of my workouts I learned a lot. I learned that after 400 miles, running shoes (at least the ones I wore back in the day) that looked like they were in good shape lost the cushioning in their midsoles. If you rotated your shoes, they’d last a lot longer. And if you felt sore and listless, there was a good chance you hadn’t taken a day off recently. Finally, I found out that for me running 60 miles a week gave me the same or better running performance as running 70 miles per week.
You can get carried away. I became obsessed with running 3,000 miles in a year. Let me tell you the last month was a bitch. But I made it in the last week of December.
When I switched to bicycling, I had to figure out what was worth keeping track of. I counted the number of commutes each year, which bike I rode, how far I rode, and any other incidental information. I was a much more intense rider in the early years. Now I really don’t care much about the stats. But every so often a big one hits and it’s cause for celebration.
The odometer on The Mule hit 40,000 miles on my ride home from work
. I have had this bike since 1991 so I’ve been averaging 1,600 miles per year on it. In the beginning, I rode a Trek 1200 for a few years. I sold that and rode The Mule exclusively until the early 2000s when I bought Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent. I then started using The Mule as my back up bike. I bought Little Nellie and The Mule was ridden even less. And my Cross Check was added to the stable last summer. Somewhere along the line, I came full circle and The Mule became my go-to commuter once again. All together, not counting the Trek, I have about 96,000 miles on bikes since 1991. That’s 3,840 miles per year over 25 years.
The Mule has taken me to work hundreds of times and carried me on two bike tours. It’s slow, it’s weighs a ton, but it won’t die (knock wood). All that remains of the original bike are the frame and fork, the seat post, the cranks, and the rear rack.
So it gave me a sense of satisfaction to write 40,000 in my training diary today. I was 2 miles from work on the Mount Vernon Trail when 39,999 gave way. I had a strong tail wind.
The Mule goes to my local bike shop for some TLC. The pedals feel crunchy, oil refuses to stay on the chain, the handlebar is bent and plastic bits have broken off the brake levers (both from a crash last winter). It’ll cost some $$$ but maybe I’ll get another 40,000 miles out of this bike.
MG over at Chasing Mailboxes recently decided to put in as surge of running to get to 1,000 miles for the year. I thought this was not such a great idea because it reminded me of my running days when I discovered what I called junk miles. Junk miles are miles you run for reasons other than fitness. I wanted to run 3,000 miles one year (I biked a whole lot less in those days). So I was running lots of 70 mile weeks. Do the math. Mostly this meant that I spent a lot of time nursing injuries. After the year was over, I discovered that 60 miles per week worked every bit as well so I dumped about 10 junk miles off the weekly running schedule.
So what does this have to do with biking? Shortly after commenting to MG about the concept of junk miles, I noticed that I had about 900 miles on the odometer of my Cross Check. Hypocrisy be damned, I went for it.
After many miles of riding flat neighborhood streets I decided to put the 100-mile challenge to better use. I started seeking out hills. I hate hills. So I tackled Oxon Hill (twice), Mason Hill near my home (twice today), Beacon Hill (once is plenty), and assorted other hills leading from the GW Parkway near the river up the hill that runs roughly parallel.
To my surprise, I actually got better. Even today when I forgot to take my asthma medicine. Of course, I had help. El Nino and climate change have conspired to bring us unseasonably warm weather with generally light winds.
After doing my hills, I headed up the Mount Vernon Trail. On Union Street in Old Town Alexandria I came upon an old friend who I hadn’t seen in nearly a decade. I could tell because he was cycling with his son who was now 13. The last time I saw the boy he was a rugrat.
As we were talking, a co-worker of mine ran past. He’s pretty fast. Every time I see a runner with good form I feel a twinge of jealousy.
After the chat I did a loop north to Four Mile Run and back to my neighborhood.
I pulled into the driveway to record this picture:
Mission accomplished.
See you next year….
For the first two years after buying this bike, it made my back ache. I finally got it dialed in and it’s been a blast to ride ever since. It’s now 8 years old and tonight it crossed the 16,000 mark on the way home. One of these days I’m going to put it on a plane and go somewhere with it. In the meantime, the little wheels make me feel like I did when I was a kid.
Big Nellie is my Tour Easy recumbent. I bought it somewhat reluctantly in the fall of 2003. I had wanted to buy a conventional touring bike to supplement what I have come to call The Mule, my 1991 Specialized Sequoia. I couldn’t find any touring bikes to test ride so, with my gimpy back, I decided to test ride recumbents. The Tour Easy was the clear winner. I have since ridden it to north central Indiana, across New York state, and on hundreds of bike rides around the DMV. Today, we reached 38,000 miles. 
I still have The Mule. Its odometer recently hit 37,000 miles. Little Nellie, my Bike Friday New World Tourist, is a baby with nearly 14,500 miles.
I am planning on going on a tour in a couple of weeks. I will probably take The Mule, unless I can get my act together and buy a new bike before then.
Something is terribly wrong. For the second day in a row, I looked forward to riding to work in sub-freezing temperatures. This morning I left well before daybreak to arrive at Friday Coffee Club at a reasonable time. I was mighty cold for the first mile but warmed up and settled into a rhythm following the white circle that my headlight makes. It’s a bit like following the bouncing ball from those old sing-a-longs on TV from before the dawn of time.
The roads and trails appeared to have an ever-so-thin patina of ice on them but I only slipped once and that was on a patch of slush that I decided to ride through. The patches of ice on the trail that were there yesterday morning were gone taking away those moments of indecision and nail biting (nail biting while riding with lobster gloves on is an art, let me tell you). I crossed over the Potomac River on the 14th Street Bridge which is actually named for a man (no his name is not 14th Street) on the Air Florida plane that crashed into the icy river on takeoff some 33 years ago. He gave up the rescue line so that others could be saved. He ended up at the bottom of the river.
I digress. The river had frozen into sheets of ice that had buckled. They overlapped haphazardly. So I took a picture.
On the DC side the curb cuts and other smooth bits of sidewalk looked like sheets of ice but my tires held their line. I made my way to Swings House of Caffeine unimpeded by big metal things. Just before arriving Aaron pulled up alongside me on his massive cargo bike. I think he is overcompensating for something.
At Swings cyclists were just beginning to arrive. I can’t remember the last time I arrived so early. Last year at this time I recall arriving and being part of a grumpy quintet of frozen male bike commuters. Not today. Within 20 minutes there were more than 20 bicycle commuters, including six or seven women. Nobody, male or female, seemed the least bit grumpy. Except perhaps for Aaron, but, as I said, he has issues.
The ride to work involved the usual re-crossing of the river on the TR Bridge. A gaggle of geese took off from the river and began to form a V as they passed overhead. One lone goose remained on a small sheet of ice in midstream. I wonder if his feet were frozen to the ice.
When I left the office it was 20 degrees warmer and I had a tailwind. By contrast with the morning it felt like July. I was tempted to pull over and bask in the sun but thought better of it.
When I arrived home, I checked the odometer on The Mule. It said this:
As Indiana Jones said, “It’s not the age, it’s the mileage.”
Today marks the bike commute with the least amount of daylight. As someone who is vitamin D deficient, I say, “Enough already.” I could do without the cold weather too, but, alas, that promises to get worse before it gets better. Curious to find out how the other half lives, I checked the temperature in Buenos Aires at noon today. 93 degrees (Feels like 104). Suffer, Argentina.
I rode to Friday Coffee Club talking to myself the entire way. I am a chatty person. The folks with the white coats didn’t catch me. At Swings House of Caffeine, there was a decent sized crowd. Felkerino brought cupcakes and @BobbiShaftoe bought Christmas cookies. I do believe there is a conspiracy afoot to undo all my good eating habits of late. For the record, I had one cupcake.
Bob “Don’t Call Me Rachel” Cannon was disappointed that I was not wearing the earrings I won at the WABA Christmas party. For the record, I am not an earring kind of guy.
@arlingtonrider brought Mac with her. Mac has been bike commuting for two months and is very enthusiastic. She fit right in with the hapless gang of two wheeled loonies.
On the way to work I checked the odometer on Little Nellie.
I never, ever thought I’d ride this bike so much.
Yesterday, I weighed 203 at the doctor’s office. I suspect a vast right wing conspiracy. So I weighed myself nekkid at work. 200! Mendoza line. Basically my trick is to avoid eating crap. Seems to be working. The last time I was under 200 pounds my son was an infant. He now towers over me.
I can’t say I was looking forward to the ride home. I was tired. My back was achy. Once I got on the bike though it all worked out. It was such a lovely ride. The monuments were all lit up. The view never gets old. The car traffic was light so I didn’t have to fight the headlights all the way home.
One life, some bicycles. A million possibilities, zero clue!
Information and news from David Goodrich, author of A Hole in the Wind.
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