Regular readers of this blog know that this year’s adventure
is cycling. I biked through the winter as a participant in the Washington Area
Bicyclist Association’s “Freezing Saddles” cchallenge. I even won a prize in
the contest: some green coffee beans as part of “Bruno’s Coffee Challenge”, one
of the “Side Bets and Pointless Prizes”. I thought I had a shot at the prize
for most states biked in during the contest, but my achievement of nine states
was outdone by someone else’s thirteen L.
Now Valerie has joined the cycling adventure! She recently
gritted her teeth and bought herself a recumbent trike. Valerie has a big
hesitation about spending money on herself for this sort of thing, a feeling I
do not share for either her or myself. Recumbent bikes are a cool option for
people who don’t want or can’t tolerate the pressure of sitting on a traditional
bike seat, or who just like riding something unusual and different. Recumbent
trikes are kind of the ultimate in unusual and different (well, other than maybe
unicycles or velocipedes). They’re also very easy on aging bodies. Along those
lines, I have noticed that the magazine ad for a local “active adult” community
prominently features a silver-haired guy on a trike very similar to Valerie’s.
They also happen to be a blast to ride. They’re kind of the Miata of bicycles.
Miatas aren’t super fast, but being small and low to the ground and, they feel
fast and are fun to drive hard and throw around. Likewise, the ‘bent trike
feels fast even sitting still and has such a low center of gravity (and three
wheels!) that you can be ride in a pretty nuts fashion with it. Unfortunately
for me, Valerie has hers set for her height, which means I probably couldn’t
even pedal it, let alone go berserk with it.
We’ve done a few rides so far – limited by an unusually cold
spring and busy schedules. For a first ride we started at Bluemont Park and
rode the connector trail to the Wilson Boulevard/George Mason McDonald’s, where
we took a break for coffee and iced tea – and took our place among the geezers
who hand out there and socialize (we were the only geezers with bikes). On our
second ride we went to the same destination, but started from home. Valerie
even muscled her way up the hill from the W&OD trail to our house!
Our third ride was something more special – we parked at
Columbia Island and biked across the 14th St. Bridge to see the
Cherry Blossoms. We set out early and were at the Tidal Basin a little before 8
AM, at which point it was already teeming with people and getting more crowded
by the minute. Valerie’s preference was to ride her bike all the way around
rather than locking up the bikes and walking. It turned out to be quite a feat
to get all the way around the Tidal Basin by bike. It certainly helped to have
a trike, on which you can stand still. It was too crowded for me to ride; I
walked my bike all the way around. Valerie impressively bulldozed her way
through the crowd, using her “teacher voice” to essentially order people out of
her way and persisting in making continuous, if very slow, progress. I lost her
in the crowd at one point, but we eventually met up near the Roosevelt
Memorial. From there we stayed together back to Columbia Island.
When we arrived back at the marina the place was teeming
with kayakers. Two Meetup groups were having their Cherry Blossom paddle. I felt a little pang of jealously, even though
I had done a Cherry Blossom paddle just two days earlier and had just biked to
the blossoms.
The best part of the outing is that Valerie submitted a photo of her on
her trike in front of the blossoms to the trike manufacturer’s web site
and won a t-shirt!
More adventures to come …
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