Cannonball Ride

• Father's Day present #1: Hearing David leave for work at 4 AM
• Father's Day present #2: Hearing Ted leave for work at 6 AM.
• Father's Day present #3: A nice bike ride with the NOVA Casual Bike Group (CBG) meetup.

With cycling as with many things I find myself between categories. I'm too slow to ride with "serious" cycling groups, but can do distances longer than the "casual" bike groups. The CBG Beginner rides are about the right pace for me, but too short in distance. Sunday I decided to join the CBG on a Civil War-themed ride. I biked from home to the Shirlington meeting point, turning the official 16 mile official ride into a 26 miler.

The first thing I noticed on my arrival is a lot of straight bar, hybrid bikes and that, refreshingly, not everyone was in twee Lycra outfits. The group turned out to be a mix, from an older couple with electrified bikes (they dropped out partway) to some folks in full fig.

The second thing I noticed was that of the twenty people on the ride, about fifteen were women. Was it because it was Father's Day? Do women not celebrate Father's Day? Was it because guys would never sign up for a ride advertised as "Beginner"? Who knows ...

Anyway, we headed out from Shirlington down along Four Mile Run. We connected to the Mt. Vernon trail and followed the river south into Old Town Alexandria. Our first stop was the Freedmen's and Contrabands Cemetery. During the Civil War freed slaves fled across Union lines to seek safety. Unfortunately, they found mostly squalor in refugee camps. The Freedmen's Cemetery was the final resting place of many of these poor folks who wound up in Alexandria, along with Union soldiers from Colored units. After the war the place was neglected and desecrated - a gas station and an office building were built on parts of it, and people mined clay from its western end, disturbing many graves. Only recently was the cemetery restored and, through the use of underground sensing, hundreds of graves were remarked.

Checking Out Freedman's and Contrabands' Cemetary

From there we continued to the Alexandria National Cemetery. Yes, another cemetery to remind us of our mortality on the holiday. This Cemetery was established early in the Civil War, frankly before the government had any idea of just how much burial space they were going to need. The 5 acre cemetery filled up quickly and is today largely unknown.

Alexandria National Cemetery

Our final stop was Fort Ward, which was part of the Union defensive line around Washington. At the outset of the war the Union Army occupied Alexandria and Arlington to provide a buffer around Washington. Ft. Ward was built after the Union defeat at First Manassas, when there was considerable fear that a Confederate attack on Washington was imminent. Today the area is a pretty park.

Group Photo at Ft. Ward

Getting to Ft. Ward involved a significant climb (forts tend to be on the high ground) - which I'm happy to report I made without a problem. As a result, the ride back through Fairlington to Shirlington was mostly a nice downhill run.

I didn't stick around to socialize after the ride; I just grabbed a quick iced latte at Peet's and did one more climb - the five miles back uphill home.