An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

I don’t participate in a lot of organized bike rides because most of them are too darn long and fast. Plus, if you want to know a secret, I’m not that jazzed about riding for the sake of riding. However, I do like the “social” rides, which are more about fun than miles. Last weekend I went on a Doughnut Ride, organized as part of Freezing Saddles . I will say this about the bike community – they’re much better about organizing events around food (and drink) than the paddling community. Despite the oft-quoted (and stupid, IMHO) slogan of “we paddle to eat”, in fact, most of my kayaking meals are at the level of canned tuna eaten sitting on a driftwood log on a muddy beach. I guess the water vs. land thing is the root of it - it’s easy to organize bike rides around restaurants. In contrast, many of my kayak trips start and end at desolate boat ramps miles from any food except for maybe a creepy general store staffed by an extra from Deliverance, and there aren’t many brew pubs to vi...

I've got a problem right now in that my home and my office are separated by fifty traffic-clogged miles of highway. Fortunately I don't have to go to my office every day, but on the days when I do I try to avoid coming home during rush hour, because it adds half an hour and a lot of stress to the ride. Some days I've just worked late. Others I've run on the track at Ft. Detrick (I find running on a track really boring). Unfortunately we're not allowed to use the gym on post (I even tried to scam my way in once - to no avail). One idea with which I've been experimenting is bike riding - however my initial experiments weren't too successful. Actually, my first ride  (in the morning, before work) wasn't bad. I started right near Ft. Detrick and rode out from there, past the EPA Superfund site of Area B and up toward Gambrills State Park. I had mapped out a loop ride. The problem is that I was riding my junker bike and the route turned out to be longer ...