An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

Three things you should know about my commute. Number 1: It stinks. Number 2: There are a number of nice biking opportunities along my usual route home. Number 3: It stinks less when I take advantage of the cycling opportunities and allow rush hour traffic to abate before I attempt the crossing from Maryland to Virginia. Last Tuesday I had an opening of time between work and a jazz jam I was attending in Tysons Corner - the perfect opportunity to take the new bike for its maiden ride. I took my usual rush hour route down Piney Meetinghouse Road, which takes me right by the park on the Maryland side of Great Falls. At the park I changed into my decidedly non-cyclist riding clothes: a regular t-shirt and a fleece sweatshirt on top paired with quick-dry adventure shorts borrowed from my kayaking wardrobe concealing my bike shorts. No adorable matching jerseys and socks for me, thank you very much, and no twee little cap. I did, of course, wear a helmet. Sorry. Even i...

I've been shopping for a bike and have been amazed and maybe a little horrified at how the categories and sub-categories of bikes have multiplied since the days when you had either a "three speed" or a "ten speed". Touring bikes. Relaxed touring bikes. Cyclocross. Gravel. Cargo. Fat tire. Racing. Mountain. Hybrid. Etc. Etc. Etc. You practically need a Linnean classification system for the damn things.  With the help of expert advice from my friend Cyndi I identified the species I wanted to purchase as roadus gravellus , known colloquially as the "gravel" or "adventure" bike. Able to handle road riding almost like a touring bike, but also some rougher terrain like gravel roads and paths like the C&O canal trail. Very similar to roadus cyclocrossus , but with bigger tire clearance and a more touring friendly frame geometry. After doing some test riding I was about to pull the trigger on the purchase of a Raleigh Tamland ...

I have written about SK102 in past years and so I won't write a long post here. I'll just mention that this year's event was unusually cold and rainy. I remember last year perspiring on a warm and sunny Friday as I set up my tent. In contrast, this year I brought my down jacket along and made good use of it Friday night - the temps got down into the high 30's overnight! Actually, Friday afternoon was quite pleasant and I had a chance to go out and do some rolling practice; it remained pleasant for the Friday night paddle. It was later in the evening that the temperatures began to plummet. After the paddle folks hung out and socialized for a bit, but as the cold set in we all retreated to our tents. Not being an "early to bed" type, I stayed up and wrote a blog post on my iPad about a recent cycling adventure before I turned  in. Friday Night Paddle (Ron Tucker's photo)  After a cold night Saturday morning was, of course, chilly. I assisted Ed Schil...

I had a busy day on Saturday - running a race and then kayaking. At 8:30 AM I participated in the Fairlington 5K, our monthly 5K race. I told myself I was going to take it really easy since I knew I was going kayaking right afterward, but we were there with our friends Gail and Chris and I guess competitiveness got the better of me and I wound up pushing it a little bit. I wound up running the race in 29:30, which is actually my best time of our monthly 5K series. I still finished three minutes behind Chris :( Valerie turned in a personal best as well of 47:57. It wasn't that long ago that she had a goal of breaking an hour - I'm quite proud of the times she's turning in these days! At the completion of the race I headed over to Columbia Island Marina, where I was leading a Cherry Blossom trip for Chesapeake Paddlers Association. The marina was quite busy. There were three groups launching around the same time: us, Deke's Meetup, and a canoe club from Harrisburg, PA...

It was one of those perfect spring days. Warm, sunny, and super-enticing after a cold, awful winter . Th kind of day when you just have to blow off your responsibilities and head for the hills. I drove out to Shenandoah National Park early Monday morning. Stopped at the ranger station and paid my fifteen dollars (fifteen dollars!). Made a joke with the ranger, "OK, I'll pay you the $15 but in return you have to not tell anyone that I'm here today instead of at work." The woman sits by herself in a booth all day. You'd think she'd at least crack a smile when a visitor attempted to make conversation, even in the form of a lame joke. Nope. Shtum. Anyway ... I cruised down Skyline Drive to mile 19, passing along the way a large number of cyclists, many of whom appeared to be part of a group (they all had the same triangular rear reflector and all looked to be senior citizens). Since I'm in the proces of shopping for a bike myself I kept a lid on my usual...

It's been a bad winter for paddling: bitterly cold weather which froze not only small and mid-size rivers like the Potomac but even the Chesapeake Bay - a rarity. I wound up not paddling (except in the pool) for January, February and most of March - almost three months of no paddling. That's the longest I've gone without hitting the water in years. On 3/22 Tom and I finally made it out. Arriving at Columbia Island, we bumped into Peter F. Peter recently had back surgery and so will be off the water for a while. I think he was just stir crazy from the winter (as are we all) and went out for a drive to hang out by the water. The three of us chatted for a while and then Tom and I suited up and launched. We creaked our way up the Boundary Channel and the river to Three Sisters. The boat ramp had been surprisingly busy, but we had the river pretty much to ourselves.  An uneventful outing, except for the fact that it was the first of the year.