Category Cycling
The Ride: Ah, September!
Whenever I talk about DC weather with people who aren’t don’t live here, we inevitably get stuck on the summers: Why on earth would anyone consciously choose to live in a place where you regularly get temperatures in the upper 90s with 85 percent (or higher) humidity? What a swamp! Yes, DC was built on a swamp, […]
The Ride: You mean the hike?
What to do the morning after your neighborhood is socked by a derecho? Go on a long bike ride, of course. Because what better way to express solidarity with your 1.5 million neighbors who are struggling without power than to venture forth into the heat and humidity with a bike and a couple of bottles of fast-warming Gatorade […]
The Ride: Perfect Weather
Lest you think that “cycling” is just a scheme for hurtling about on a metal contraption through a series of crashes, bloody legs and general misanthropy, I would like to say that I just finished a fifty-mile ride through northern Virginia without a single incident — I did not crash, cut myself or even hate anyone. […]
The Ride: Physics Experiment
Based on the chart below, can you guess what happened at approximately two miles into my ride this morning? That’s right, I learned that you can use your left buttock as a break pad to go from 35mph to a full stop. So now I can cross that off the list of things to try. I can […]
The Ride: Approaching 100
I did two rides this weekend: One early-ish yesterday morning, when the weather was perfect; another this afternoon after church, when the weather was horribly hot and humid. Each ride was a little over 47 miles, so my total weekend mileage was about 95 miles. Fortunately, the cramping from last week didn’t return. And the […]
The Ride: Not all roses
You know that bit from the Teddy Bears’ Picnic song, where it says “It’s lovely out in the woods today, but safer to stay at home”? Well, I kind of wish I’d gotten a similar warning before this morning’s ride. Not that I was in any great danger (although I did end up bleeding), it’s […]
Memorial Day Weekend — Out and Back
Remember those capricious gods of work and weather? Well, I must have done something right, because this weekend is going to be awesome: Three full days of hot, sunny, summery weather and nary a trace of work that can’t wait until normal life starts again on Tuesday. I kicked things off this morning with a […]
Today’s Ride
I learned my lesson about good-weather weekend bike rides a couple of weeks ago: If I wanted to be able to ride without having to weave through half the population of Washington DC in various stages of physical exertion, I need to hit the road early. So this morning, at what felt like the crack of dawn, […]
Downpour
What’s more fun than going fast on a bike? Going fast on a bike in the pouring rain. The week so far has been wet and dreary, and there’s no break in the forecast until the weekend. So when the skies cleared this evening, I ducked out of work and to get in a quick ride before the clouds […]
Tired Legs (despite and because of the weather)
It’s a perfect spring night. After a gloriously warm and sunny day, the evening has cooled to a comfortable chill, without a trace of wind. I’m sitting on my balcony surrounded by flowers, listening to Prokofiev’s ballet score to Cendrillon, and enjoying the enforced immobility that comes with very tired legs. I spent some time this weekend out on the […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 