An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

From the title of this post, "First Century", the reader may be expecting a missive about the death of Caeser Augustus and the succession of Tiberius, or perhaps something about the Han Dynasty. But no, it's about a bike ride. The short version: Friday, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little bike ride. So I biked to the end of the road. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd bike to the end of the town. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd just bike all the way to Purcellville. Yes, that's dialog from Forest Gump, edited to change running to biking, but it pretty well fits. Really, here's how it went: Since last year's catastrophe I've been working to build up my cycling endurance (I would love to build up my speed too, but that seems to be a lost cause). A few weeks ago I hit a major milestone when I rode a metric century: 100 km, or roughly 62 miles. Shortly after that I was talking with a friend about cycling during...