Tag: Tour Easy

At Least the Day Was Warm

60 degrees. Ok. Tailwind. Ok. November 24. No way.

Yesss

I took off from work with shorts on in late November. I felt like James Bond meeting Pussy Galore.

I arrived at the Dyke Marsh boardwalk. Mr. Sun was greeting me. I stopped to take his picture with Big Nellie. Say “Cheese.”

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The rest of the ride was effortless. Why can’t we bottle this?

The ride home began with a scare of sorts. I made it almost all the way from my office to the Mount Vernon Trail on Lynn Street. The bike lane disappears on the last 100 yards of Lynn. A block Honda CRV pulls up behind me and the driver honks his horn. Apparently this poor soul thought that the deed to his car came with a deed to the road. It was simply too nice out to put up with his nonsense so I nonchalantly gave him the finger. He pulled along side me and I could see him yelling at me from within the car. I couldn’t hear him so I mouthed “Buck Cough” or words that rhyme with that. He showed me how manly he was my zooming off toward Key Bridge.  You can’t ruin my bike commute Honda man.

The ride home was pretty awesome. I managed to avoid ninja after ninja. You could probably make a pretty good video game of Bike Commute: Ninja Kill. The rest of the ride was fine except for the bike with the headlight set on vaporize. I really like how bike light technology has advanced but some of these lights are way more bright than necessary. I do hope my retinas recover for the morning ride to work.

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.

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September by the Numbers

I made a pretty good show of it in September on my three bikes. Yes, three. The Mule, my now ancient Specialized Sequoia, came out of the shed for an epic bike commute on the last Friday of the month. I finally got around to using the bike valet at Nationals Park. It was my first commute on the Mule since late May. I mostly rode Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent, to work and Little Nellie, my Bike Friday New World Tourist, for events. Here’s how it stacked up.

19 commutes for 573.5 miles. 16 were on Big Nellie.

3 event rides all on Little Nellie including an abbreviated 46-mile ride at Indian Head, Maryland with Ultrarunnergirl. Next came the 50 States Ride with the rookies. The last ride was my first full Backroads Century, again with Ultrarunnergirl.

Total miles for the month was 793.

Many thanks to all those folks who rode with me, or waved as they sped past me on my rides to work or during events. I may be fat but I’m slow. Extra thanks to Ultrarunnergirl who endured my company for nearly 150 miles. And extra, extra thanks to the 50-States rookies and the official rookie support team. And to Mike Ross and Lisa Eaker who make riding to the rest stop at their house the highlight of the ride.

Hail Rootchopper!

So far this year, I’ve ridden to work 127 times. My total commuting mileage is 3661. Including all other rides, I’ve gone 5,996.5 miles.

July by the Numbers

After my 1000-mile June, I backed off a bit in July. I rode to work 18 times. The only times I didn’t ride to work were days I took off or worked from home. My parking space at work must have cobwebs on it.

Other than a half-mile spin on The Mule to check out its new drivetrain, all my riding was on Little Nellie, my Bike Friday New World Tourist, and Big Nellie, my Easy Racers Tour Easy recumbent.  I rode Little Nellie for 16 commutes (including one where I rode from work to Nationals Park). Big Nellie picked up the other two rides to work.

My long ride for the month was Big Nellie’s 111 mile ride to Purcelville and back.

Total mileage for the month was 746 miles. About 2/3rds of which was on Little Nellie which pretty much tells me that my back will tolerate big miles on its little tires.

Off the bike I finally started doing some hiking. The Billy Goat A trail is only about 3.5 miles but it proved to be brutally hard on an oppressively hot and humid day. I did the Billy Goat B and C trails, a total of at least six miles. It was a much more enjoyable hike. I really like doing these hikes as a thing unto itself and as a break from all the biking I do. I need to further investigate the trails in the woods of Great Falls as well as the Rock Creek Park trails which I am ashamed to admit I’ve never hiked.

For the year I have racked up 91 commutes, 41 on Little Nellie, 24 on Big Nellie and 27 on The Mule. I’ve ridden 4,544 miles, a little under 650 miles per month.

 

June by the Numbers

It was a big month. 

How big was it?

1,110.5 miles that’s how big. 582 miles were from bike commuting, the rest from weekend rides.

I started out the month riding Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent for several days in a row, including five commutes. The rest of my rides, including 14 more commutes, were on Little Nellie, my New World Tourist. My long ride was 117.5 miles in a week that fell 0.5 miles short of 300 miles. 

My total mileage for the first half of the year is 3,798.5, including 2,163 miles riding to and from work 74 times. Even though I didn’t ride The Mule this month, my mileage is spread pretty evenly across my three bikes. 

I feel like I should drink a shower beer now.

July by the Numbers

July is one of the peak bike riding months of the year and Big Nellie and I took good advantage of it. For the month I rode 858.5 miles, all but 39 of it on Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent. The other 39 miles were on The Mule, my Specialized Sequoia. Little Nellie, my Bike Friday New World Tourist, took the month off.

I commuted to work 20 times, 19 on Big Nellie. My total commuting mileage was 565 miles. That’s about 22 gallons of gas or $55+ in my pocket. The rest of the miles were fun rides on the weekend, a total of 260.5 miles. The longest ride was my 109.5 mile ride on Big Nellie to Haute Dogs and Fries in Purcellville.

For the year, I’ve ridden 4,184.5 miles and 100 commutes.

Of course, all this riding takes its toll on my bikes. As I write this, Big Nellie is in dry dock at Bikes at Vienna. She’s getting a new cassette, new chain, new rear tire, new fork, and new cables. I hope to have her back in a week or so to get ready for the fall riding season.

Bugs, Bikes, and ‘Toes

I spent the weekend feeding bugs in West Virginia. It was Mrs. Rootchopper’s family reunion and ten bazillion bugs showed up to keep us all company. I had to take several blood breaks. That’s what you call going indoors to clean the blood off your legs from all the bug bites.

Monday was yet another swampy day. The ride isn’t bad but once you stop you sweat uncontrollably. When I arrived back home, I harvested three days worth of tomatoes from my runaway roma tomato plant.  Prodigious, prolific, preposterous. I must have picked 30 tomatoes. My frequent riding buddy and Friday Coffee Clubber, Lisa, claimed this week’s crop so I agreed to meet her this morning to hand over the goods.

Tomato Fever!!!

I headed off for DC hoping to stay upright lest my pannier become filled with marinara sauce. The ride in was pretty normal until I passed Old Town Alexandria. Then traffic picked up and up and up. By the time I had cleared National Airport, the bikes were stretched out all the way to the 14th Street bridge. If this keeps up, there going to have to widen the Mount Vernon Trail to four lanes. (Wouldn’t that be cool!!)

I rode over the bridge to DC and stopped at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial and Official Tomato Rendezvous Point. Lisa showed up a few minutes later. I handed her the big bag o’ toes and she stashed them in her pannier. I felt like a smuggler.

I rode back over the bridge. The crosswind on the bridge made for honest work but, boy, was it refreshing. It masked the humidity until I arrived at the office.

The winds increased during the day and I had a strong breeze blowing from the northwest pushing me all the way home in the evening. It was one of those days that I wish I had the fairing on Big Nellie. I could have sailed home – not that I am complaining about a tailwind.

The two little detours on the Mount Vernon Trail south of Dyke Marsh have given me an excuse to leave the trail early and climb a big hill on Park Terrace Drive. Riding up hill on a recumbent requires big lungs, a super fast pedaling cadence, and patience. I managed to avoid dropping below three miles per hour tonight. I really should take Big Nellie out to Mount Weather or Sugarloaf for a real uphill spin fest some day.

When I arrived home I was greeted by several thousand tiger mosquitos. They feasted on my legs as I picked yet another dozen roma tomatoes. Friend of the blog, Kirstin is getting the next shipment.

Gone Benting

Several years ago, my doctor decided that my cholesterol was too high, so he put me on Lipitor. Before doing so, he spent about 1/2 hour warning me about all the rare side effects, which included nerve problems in the hands and feet. After about a month on the drug, I developed a nasty nerve problem called a Morton’s neuroma in my left foot. It could have been a coincidence, but I wasn’t taking any chances. My doctor tried several different drugs of the same type (statins), but the nerve pain came back.

The pain was worst when I rode Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent, in my Keen sandals. So I chucked the sandals. The problem persisted. I went to a podiatrist and had a series of rather painful injections to calm the nerve. These injections helped some but made my foot numb. I bought a couple of remedies off the Internet that look pretty goofy. (One’s a big foam donut I put on my ankle when I sleep. Another is a rubbery thing that separates my toes. Wearing them looks as dorky as one of those cones you see on dogs after they’ve had a procedure at the vet.) They worked okay but they are not a cure.

Over the course of the last few years, I’d ride my recumbent sporadically, but had to rely on my two upright bikes, The Mule and Little Nellie, for most of my miles. A switch from toe clips to oversized PowerGrips allowed me to move my foot around on the pedal. Still the pain kept coming back.

This year, I decided to try riding with my new Teva open-toed sandals and the PowerGrips. The pain still comes back but it is tolerable. I have put well over 1,000 miles on Big Nellie this year and have ridden it for all but one short ride this past month.

(I have thought about buying some Sidi cycling shoes but this would require switching to clipless pedals which I am no fan of.)

Another change I made was involuntary. My fairing, a Lexan windshield, broke. This was probably a good thing since I couldn’t see through it for all the scratches I had put in it. Without the fairing, the weight distribution of Big Nellie is different: the front end is lighter. The steering is a bit twitchier which can be interesting. And the lack of a fairing allows for a cooling breeze, as Jonathan Winters used to say, all over my body. It’s like having a new bike. Without the fairing, I give up a couple of miles per hour on my morning hill descent but it’s worth it. (33 miles per hour is fast enough at 7 a.m.) I’ll get another fairing when the temperatures drop this fall.

One thing that’s interesting about recumbents is that you use your leg muscles differently than on a conventional bike. The more you ride a bent, the more efficient your pedaling gets. After all this bent riding, I can feel a big difference. After about 2 miles of warm up, hills don’t much bother my legs. I just get into a rhythm and spin my butt off. Don’t get me wrong; I’m still slow but you won’t hear much huffing and puffing from me.

The best thing about recumbents is that you can ride them all day and your back, neck and shoulders don’t ache. (In fact, if I am having any back problems, riding my recumbent actually acts as physical therapy.) Last Saturday, I rode 109 miles. My legs were tired but the rest of me felt just fine.

So for the next couple of months, you’ll see me out benting. I’ll be the guy on the big black rolling lawn chair with the wind up his shorts and a smile on his face.