An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

I have a goal for 2015 of getting back into road biking. While I hate to wade into a sport with more sectarian schisms than Iraq and see no reason to spend as much on a bike as I did on my first three cars combined (which can easily be done once you venture into the land of carbon fiber construction and shift-by-wire derailleurs), the fact of the matter - as Cyndi points out - is that there are a lot of places to explore in the world that aren't on the water. I got an start on my 2015 riding by doing the Arlington Loop today. After spending the morning of what was forecast to be the last day of a late December warm spell doing chores and paperwork I decided I just needed to get out and take advantage of the weather. It took me a while to get everything together: bike tires inflated, proper clothing, proper layering for the weather, helmet, phone, various braces in case my knee or foot gave out. Finally I headed out the door, and as I did it started raining. Fortunately the moder...

There's a section in the book The Boys in the Boat, a book about the U.S. 1936 Olympic crew team,where author Daniel James describes George Pocock's switch from Spanish cedar to western red cedar as a shell-building material. In fact, he waxes rhapsodic about the wood, describing it as "a kind of wonder wood" that is "light and buoyant", "easy to shape", "strong but flexible", "highly resistant to rot" with a "lovely scent". It was exactly this section which played when I switched the audio book version on in my car on the way home from Indian Head. I smiled, my arm resting on the western red cedar paddle I had just used on the day's kayak outing and had carved myself earlier this year. As I listened I felt a particularly strong connection to the words of the book and to the long-departed Pocock himself. The kayak launch could use some maintenance Tall Tom and I took advantage of some splendid December weathe...