On the road again
The distance between my front door and my office door--the distance between Fairfax Circle and Dupont Circle--is 20.91 miles. Today I covered that distance in 2 hours, 1 minute, 41 seconds.
I didn’t walk up any hills, though I found myself grabbing for the granny gear more than my pride would like me to admit. There is nothing glorious about struggling uphill at 6 mph--especially when you can remember the days that you went up the same hill at 12 mph.
It was a glorious spring day--not a cloud in the sky, light breeze, not too cool, not too hot. A great day for an experiment!
I was able to get to the W&OD in Vienna via Tapawingo Road. The W&OD/Tapawingo “intersection,” such as it is, is a mulch path with steps cut into it. Thankfully, I was alert enough to see the steps as I was coming, and slow enough to dismount and carry the bike before I did anything foolish. At 5’10“, 245 lbs. (I vastly overreported my weight here in an earlier entry), riding down steps would be foolhardy, if only because I would completely trash my only good set of wheels. One must be careful, after all.
Once on the W&OD, I was able to sail along at a more comfortable pace. I rolled through Vienna, then Falls Church, then Arlington. Somewhere in Arlington, someone had tagged the trail with green spray-paint-- a rough arrow, pointing east towards DC, and ‘WORK“ written underneath it. I laughed. At Four Mile Run, I started looking for the intersection with the Custis Trail, which would take me to Rosslyn and the Key Bridge.
The Custis Trail signage is a little tough to spot, especially if you’ve never been there before, and it’s entirely possible for the novice to get thoroughly confused and end up in Shirlington instead of Washington. It tracks I-66 through Arlington until Rosslyn; grades are a little erratic, and at one point there is actually a switchback (!). Sightlines are less than ideal, and even if I had it in me to ride faster, I didn’t feel like wrecking on a bit of asphalt that I didn’t really know yet.
Anyway, I got to the Key Bridge and crossed it without incident, passing a woman who was on the bike for what looked like the very first time--she was wobbling all over everywhere. Over the river, laughing, watching the boats row by and looking up at Georgetown U’s menacing gray Gothic Revival towers. Join M Street on the far side, and ride right into a Saturday afternoon traffic jam. All the trendy people were thick on the pavements, carrying their designer clothes in designer bags. I hopped into the main lane of traffic and all my old London street-fighting instincts kicked in: I was cutting and thrusting and overtaking cars on the left. In a crowded city, the bicycle is as fast or faster than the cars. While I wouldn’t condone playing in traffic as such, it is really satisfying to be able to zip through and negotiate jams quickly and easily. Definite grin-inducer.
I climb up a cross street--29th?--up towards P, and turn right towards Dupont Circle. Stop and go traffic, no turn on right. Little league game in progress at Rock Creek Park. The circle is thronging with people--DC101 apparently organized the Capital City Pub Crawl, and everybody’s walking around the circle, either wasted, or on the way. Duck down 19th, lock the bike up at the office, put my key in the door, walk downstairs and fill my water bottle.
I get back outside, get on my bike, and take it onto the metro at Farragut West---a portage that lasts all the way until Vienna Metro. While I feel great, I know better than to push myself too hard at this point in my preparation. I ride back home. I’ll get my miles up slowly.
Some thoughts.
Two hours to get to the office isn’t all that bad, considering my current total lack of fitness. Granted, there’s probably a massive net elevation loss which was helping me out, and I’m never going to be a randonneur at this rate, but suddenly commuting by bike at least one way a few times a week looks feasible. I’d have to get out of the house by about 6:00 AM to be sure of getting to work in enough time to shower & change, and leave the office after 7:00 PM, when I can get the bike on the metro.
I really don’t give a damn how long I spent in what heart rate range today--I don’t have an HRM, and I really don’t want one right now. The HRM is fine when I’m in the gym--yeah, I’ve been doing some gym work after work this past week, too--but having to be ”plugged in“ would completely kill my pleasure in riding. I had been looking forward to today (and dreading it, too) all week. On the bike, I measure my progress in distances, times, sensations--the things I see, the places I go, the things I am able to do that I wasn’t able to do before. Riding for me is about getting back into the realm of the possible: I remember what it felt like to leave the county under my own power for the first time; how it felt to be fast. I remember one ride with a friend and his brother-in-law, when the brother-in-law remarked ”gee. He’s fast.“
So in the words of Eddy ”the Cannibal“ Merckx--a man who hated losing almost as much as he hated vowels-- the only thing left to do is ”ride your bike, ride your bike, ride your bike.“
I didn’t walk up any hills, though I found myself grabbing for the granny gear more than my pride would like me to admit. There is nothing glorious about struggling uphill at 6 mph--especially when you can remember the days that you went up the same hill at 12 mph.
It was a glorious spring day--not a cloud in the sky, light breeze, not too cool, not too hot. A great day for an experiment!
I was able to get to the W&OD in Vienna via Tapawingo Road. The W&OD/Tapawingo “intersection,” such as it is, is a mulch path with steps cut into it. Thankfully, I was alert enough to see the steps as I was coming, and slow enough to dismount and carry the bike before I did anything foolish. At 5’10“, 245 lbs. (I vastly overreported my weight here in an earlier entry), riding down steps would be foolhardy, if only because I would completely trash my only good set of wheels. One must be careful, after all.
Once on the W&OD, I was able to sail along at a more comfortable pace. I rolled through Vienna, then Falls Church, then Arlington. Somewhere in Arlington, someone had tagged the trail with green spray-paint-- a rough arrow, pointing east towards DC, and ‘WORK“ written underneath it. I laughed. At Four Mile Run, I started looking for the intersection with the Custis Trail, which would take me to Rosslyn and the Key Bridge.
The Custis Trail signage is a little tough to spot, especially if you’ve never been there before, and it’s entirely possible for the novice to get thoroughly confused and end up in Shirlington instead of Washington. It tracks I-66 through Arlington until Rosslyn; grades are a little erratic, and at one point there is actually a switchback (!). Sightlines are less than ideal, and even if I had it in me to ride faster, I didn’t feel like wrecking on a bit of asphalt that I didn’t really know yet.
Anyway, I got to the Key Bridge and crossed it without incident, passing a woman who was on the bike for what looked like the very first time--she was wobbling all over everywhere. Over the river, laughing, watching the boats row by and looking up at Georgetown U’s menacing gray Gothic Revival towers. Join M Street on the far side, and ride right into a Saturday afternoon traffic jam. All the trendy people were thick on the pavements, carrying their designer clothes in designer bags. I hopped into the main lane of traffic and all my old London street-fighting instincts kicked in: I was cutting and thrusting and overtaking cars on the left. In a crowded city, the bicycle is as fast or faster than the cars. While I wouldn’t condone playing in traffic as such, it is really satisfying to be able to zip through and negotiate jams quickly and easily. Definite grin-inducer.
I climb up a cross street--29th?--up towards P, and turn right towards Dupont Circle. Stop and go traffic, no turn on right. Little league game in progress at Rock Creek Park. The circle is thronging with people--DC101 apparently organized the Capital City Pub Crawl, and everybody’s walking around the circle, either wasted, or on the way. Duck down 19th, lock the bike up at the office, put my key in the door, walk downstairs and fill my water bottle.
I get back outside, get on my bike, and take it onto the metro at Farragut West---a portage that lasts all the way until Vienna Metro. While I feel great, I know better than to push myself too hard at this point in my preparation. I ride back home. I’ll get my miles up slowly.
Some thoughts.
Two hours to get to the office isn’t all that bad, considering my current total lack of fitness. Granted, there’s probably a massive net elevation loss which was helping me out, and I’m never going to be a randonneur at this rate, but suddenly commuting by bike at least one way a few times a week looks feasible. I’d have to get out of the house by about 6:00 AM to be sure of getting to work in enough time to shower & change, and leave the office after 7:00 PM, when I can get the bike on the metro.
I really don’t give a damn how long I spent in what heart rate range today--I don’t have an HRM, and I really don’t want one right now. The HRM is fine when I’m in the gym--yeah, I’ve been doing some gym work after work this past week, too--but having to be ”plugged in“ would completely kill my pleasure in riding. I had been looking forward to today (and dreading it, too) all week. On the bike, I measure my progress in distances, times, sensations--the things I see, the places I go, the things I am able to do that I wasn’t able to do before. Riding for me is about getting back into the realm of the possible: I remember what it felt like to leave the county under my own power for the first time; how it felt to be fast. I remember one ride with a friend and his brother-in-law, when the brother-in-law remarked ”gee. He’s fast.“
So in the words of Eddy ”the Cannibal“ Merckx--a man who hated losing almost as much as he hated vowels-- the only thing left to do is ”ride your bike, ride your bike, ride your bike.“