Tag: volunteering

Any Road to the PNW – Pre-tour Anxiety

Construction, Fires, Floods, and Lions

I can’t sleep. All I can think about is the cascade of things that are going wrong with my bike tour and I haven’t even left home yet. From past experience I know that I have to go all mindful and concentrate on the here and now. This will be easier once I am rolling.

The route I am taking keeps changing and troubles keep arising. First I was worried about road construction on the route west from Missoula Montana. Next I discovered that the passes to the central Cascades in Oregon are compromised from last years wildfires. (Can’t wait for this years. Derp.) Then I found out that the route down the Columbia River gorge to Portland Oregon is partially closed because of more forest fires. This would force me to ride along the Washington State side of the river, missing Multnomah Falls in the process. For the last few days torrential rains have been wiping out the 185-mile C & O Canal towpath from near DC to near Williamsport, at Mile 100. Needless to day, the free camping sites are probably a mess too. This morning I learned that a mountain lion killed a mountain biker about 30 miles east of Seattle.

That’s right fires, floods, and lions. Whose idea was this anyway?

The Packing List

So I have busied myself making a packing list. Here’s what I am bringing.

Camping

  • Two-person tent
  • Lightweight sleeping bag
  • Silk sleeping bag liner
  • Pillow
  • Bear bag (for keeping carnivores away from my food)
  • Carbiner and nylon rope (to hang the bag)
  • Toilet paper
  • Utensils
  • Ear plugs
  • Sleep mask (for hostels)

Personal

  • Prescription sunglasses
  • Shaving cream
  • Razor
  • Toothbrush
  • Floss
  • Medicine
    • Maintenance inhalers (4) (Asthma)
    • Rescue inhalers (1) (Asthma)
    • Eye drops (glaucoma)
    • Aspirin (blood clots)
    • Ibuprofen
    • Nighttime Ibuprofen
  • Sunscreen
  • Ear plugs
  • Chamois cream
  • Back up prescription glasses
  • Book (maybe 2. Probably ancient Tom Wolfe paperbacks)
  • Passport (for going into Canada or boarding a flight if I lose my other ID)

Clothes

  • Bike shorts (3)
  • Technical bike shirts (3)
  • Cotton t-shirt
  • Off -bike shorts
  • Belt
  • Technical underwear for either on or off bike
  • Socks (3)
  • Bike shoes
  • 1 old t-shirt to use as a rag after it gets worn
  • Floppy hat
  • Teva sandals
  • Rain pants
  • Rain jacket
  • Sunsleeves

Electronics

  • iPhone
  • iPhone cable and charger
  • iPhone earphones
  • Small back up battery
  • Head light
  • Head light charger
  • Taillight belt
  • Taillight belt charger
  • Camera
  • Camera charging cable

Bike Gear

  • The Mule (1991 Specialized Sequoia touring bike)
  • Water bottles (2)
  • Extra water bottle in pannier
  • Four Ortlieb roll top panniers (2 small for the front, 2 large for the rear)
  • Ortlieb medium handlebar bad with map case
  • Bicycling gloves
  • Multitool
  • Tire levers
  • Tubes (3)
  • Folding spare tire
  • Valve adapter
  • Topeak RoadMorph Pump
  • Lube
  • Lock
  • Cables
  • Zip ties
  • Duct tape

Other

  • Adventure Cycling Association Maps (14)
  • Rudi’s route to Little Orleans (A cue sheet to circumvent most of the C&O Canal. A very hilly route that I hope not to use.)
  • Trail mix
  • Energy bars/fruit

The new stuff for this tour is underlined. As you can see I have already crossed out a few items. I wouldn’t know what to do with a cable if I had to do a roadside repair so there’s no point in bringing them. And other than the fact that I can take pictures while riding, the camera is kind of useless. I can use my iPhone for photos, and it will force me to stop to take the pictures which is not a bad thing.

The Route

Whether I like it or not, the route is changing as I type. My current thinking is that instead of riding the canal directly west from DC, I use roads to get me about 100 to 110 miles upriver. So on day one will be spent riding on the roads to Fredrick Maryland. I’ll stay in a hotel. This replaces my first C&O Canal day. Day two will involve riding roads west from Fredrick picking up the Canal and the Western Maryland Rail Trail either at Williamsport or beyond and overnighting in Hancock Maryland at mile 125. (The bike shop has a bunkhouse with showers and WiFi and such.) Day three will be 60 miles of mud to Cumberland assuming the the trail is open. If not, the pooch is screwed. But I’ll mix my metaphors and blow up that bridge when I get to it.

Today’s Fun

My anxiety woke me up at 5 a.m. I have to ride 45 miles round trip to Vienna Virginia to return Bike to Work Day materials. I had volunteered to staff a pit stop 1 1/2 miles from my house. What I didn’t know was that I was responsible for picking up and dropping off Bike to Work Day materials for the Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling (FABB), our suburban advocacy group, 23 miles away. This easy volunteering effort ballooned from a 3 hour commitment to about 12 hours. Suffice it to say, I’ll choose my volunteering events more carefully next time. On the plus side, I get to do a shake down ride on The Mule.

When I get home, I’ll watch the Nats game, do some laundry, and go a concert in DC. Hopefully, I can sleep in tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

Volunteering for Ducks

It rained all day here in DC. I knew I was volunteering at WABA tonight so I didn’t bother to go out in the gloom and wet. At around 4 pm I headed to DC in rain jacket and pants. It was only about 62 degrees. i warmed up in a half mile. The ride was not half bad except for the 10 minute wait for a school bus to unload grade school kids in a downpour. I was okay with them taking their time but some of the kids went back on the bus to fetch things they had forgot. Must not kill.

I took the 15th Street cycletrack about 10 blocks north. The cycletrack is supposed to encourage bike commuters but I find it really unnerving especially when visibility is impaired by rain. I lived. End of story.

I arrived at WABA world headquarters. Volunteers were already at work at 6 pm. We were helping WABA staff get ready for Saturday’s 50 States Ride. (As of this writing the ride is not sold out but it probably will in the next day or two.)  I spent the first 90 minutes moving stuff out of storage to staging areas for the pit stops. Tables, banners, food, pens, zip ties, id labels for people staffing the stops, scissors, tape, binder clips, tents, a cooler, powdered sports drink, etc. When that had run its course, I helped put together the 12-page cue sheets. The 50 States Ride route is notoriously complicated. It’s part of the fun.

Image may contain: 3 people, people smiling, people sitting and indoor
Volunteers Hard at Work

If you are doing the ride, you’ll be stopping a lot. Don’t get frustrated. Go Just with it. Say hello to the people at the stop light or stop sign. The secret sauce of the 50 States Ride is that it is a social event that even introverts will love.

After a couple of hours, the evening’s activities came to a close. Cue sheets were still being run off the office printer. I suspect someone will be feeding it paper for another hour or so.

I rode home in the rain. It was dark. I was concerned about visibility so I wore a bright yellow belt that lit up from within.  I also had my Stella headlight blazing away. With raindrops on my glasses I couldn’t see very well but drivers would have to be blind not to see me. My wet glasses made it extremely hard to see when I was facing headlights. So I rode very slowly. The ride home took nearly 2 hours.

 

Friday Mind Dump

  • I changed my password to “Retire” at work. Then the system wouldn’t accept it. I had to change it to something else. I am not making this up.
  • A bike rider on the Mount Vernon Trail approached me from the rear and yelled “Walker up!” Seriously.
  • When I hit 60, my muscle strength noticably deteriorated. The remedy is to drink more wine. You won’t get any stronger, but you won’t care either.
  • I am doing my taxes this weekend. This is slightly more fun that having a colonoscopy.
  • I just failed at doing both the Sudoku and the Washington Post crossword. If my tax return says I get a $42,000 refund, I suspect I’ll be 3 for 3.
  • I am technically part of the investor class because I am old and have a retirement account. The fact that the stock market is up 10 percent since the election is both deeply disturbing and rewarding. I may have to boycott my retirement.
  • I am also fixing a toilet this weekend. This is the limit of my homeowner skills. Also, there will be cussing.
  • I need to put new siding on my shed. I did it before with my son. It’s not hard but the sheets of fake wood product are heavy. Does anybody want to help? I can offer pizza and beer. Contact me in April when the Nats are out of town.
  • Why in the world would you tell someone that you read their Facebook page when you haven’t commented or “liked” anything on it in over 2 years? If you’re going to tell a white lie, at least make it one that’s not so obviously verifiable.
  • I have under-volunteered my entire adult life. So I signed up to be a volunteer at the Vasa Ride in March. I also plan on signing up to volunteer for the Tour de Fat again. If you are in DC in mid-March and want to find out what warm blueberry soup tastes like you should ride the Vasa Ride. Here’s the link:

http://www.waba.org/events/rides/vasa-ride/

  • I actually saw the Vasa at the Vasa museum on my trip to Sweden a coudscn4954ple of years ago. The Vasa was an immense, ornate wooden warship that set said off the coast of Stockholm, Sweden. To show off it’s fire power, on its
    maiden voyage, all her guns were brought to one side of the ship. The weight of the guns caused the Vasa flop over and sink. The picture only shows the very upper part of the ship. The keel is a couple of floors below where I am standing.

Day Game after a Night Game

When baseball players get old, manager often rest them when a day game follows a night game. The Nationals did not rest their oldest player and I followed suit. Both decisions worked out pretty well.

On Friday I rode to work as usual. I had not been to the first two games of the Nationals home stand because they were against the Orioles and Orioles fans are obnoxious. On Friday, the Colorado Rockies came to town so I decided to ride to the game after work.

Just after parking my bike at the bike valet, I ran into Klarence. After about a 20 minute talk it became clear that Klarence seems to have won the happiness lottery. Seeing someone like this reminds me of Dave Stoller’s dad in Breaking Away: “I didn’t want you to be this miserable. A little bit’s all I asked for.” There’s not a little bit of miserable in Klarence these days. Way to go, Klarence.

We split up on the way to our seats. Klarence, as usual, went to the cheap seats. I somehow managed to find a (relatively) inexpensive seat on the Club level behind home plate about 1/3rd of the way up in the stands. The concourse behind the seats is enclosed and air conditioned. I didn’t make much use of the posh concourse because it was breezy out, but the food selections are pretty decent.

I sat in a folding chair with a big padded seat. I had to keep my eyes on the game because foul balls could come shooting back at any time. Eek. (Only one did and missed my row by 40 feet. It’s way more dangerous out in left field where rockets come booming in when pitchers get tired.)

The game was fun. The home team won. I got to ride home in the dark which is one of my favorite things. On the way home. I saw two lights ahead in the dark. A young deer was standing next to the trail paralyzed by my headlight. A few minutes later I saw another set of lights. This time the critter ran off before I could id it.

For some silly reason, I stayed up to almost 3 am.

At 8:30 I crawled out of bed. Groggy. By 10:30 I was back on my bike headed for Nats Park for a 1 pm game. Without adequate sleep I was a zombie on the bike. Deets did his best to keep me moving forward but the headwind was not floating my boat one bit.

My seats this day were out in left field. For most of the game I sat in the hot sun. I spent far more on fluids (soda and water, no beer) than my seat. A woman a few rows in front of me disappeared for an inning. She came back in different clothes. After about three hours, shadows from the first base side of the ball park brought cooling comfort.

The game was actually not all that exciting until the Nationals rallied in the bottom of the 9th. The player who had the game tying hit was the oldest player on the field who should have taken the day off. So props to the Nats left fielder Jason Werth for making an old bike commuting fan happy. (When he came out to play left field after his big hit, all the fans in my section gave him a standing ovation. He subtly pointed at us and nodded in appreciation.)

One way to tell how hot it was is to look at the picture below. Nearly all the fans in direct sunlight in the grandstand behind center and right field had evacuated. The game went into extra innings. They never got any shade. I suspect most of them had left anyway.

The Nationals lost the game in 11 innings. The ride home was surprisingly enjoyable. I am proud to say that despite having ample reasons to do so, I did not cuss out a single Lance Mamilot. I did not say the f-word once to the tourists who blocked the entire width of the trail despite obviously impeding cyclists going in both directions. (Maybe they came there from the outfield grandstand and their brains were fried.)

Even though I hydrated like a camel, I woke up dehydrated. So no bike for me today. I will drive into DC to scout out parking for the 50 States Ride in two weeks. (It’s sold out but you can still participate for free by signing up to be a pit stop volunteer here or a course ride marshal here.)  After my recon work, I will go over to Atlas Brew Works for the #bikedc fundraiser. I don’t plan on drinking but it will be a good chance to reconnect with #bikedc people after having been out of touch for most of the summer. Cheers.