It Must Be the Week for Crashes

 My friend John led another long bike ride this past week. I recently wrote about John's craziness as a ride leader, and so I was marveling at how perfect this ride was. He has pre-ridden the route so we knew where we were going. We were riding the surprisingly good trails through Prince Georges County, headed to Lake Needwood. The weather was perfect. Yeah, we got stopped a little short of our goal by a downed tree which blocked the path, but no matter - we were all having a good time. And then Jim went down.

We were on the Northwest Branch Trail, ducking under East-West Highway. The trail runs alongside a creek, and the whole thing descends to get under the road, so you speed up a bit from the downhill. Going under the road, the trail is narrow, with a railing on one side and a wall on the other. Somehow Jim misjudged it. I think he hit the railing, or he just have lost his balance. In any case, his bike went down and he hit the ground hard. I was behind him and saw it happen, and the way he hit the ground I thought he might have been seriously injured. Jim is, after all, one of the older riders in a senior citizen bike group - an octogenarian, he only this year switched to riding an ebike. He ain't young, but he's tough!

Crash location (courtesy of Google Maps)

The rest of us gathered around him. I implored him to stay still and not move but, ornery old bird that he is, after a few minutes he got up, and we saw that his face was bloody, his glasses were trashed, and one eye was already swollen shut. He was soon up and walking around, ignoring my request that he sit down, or at least lean on the railing. He had said he felt a little dizzy, and I was worried that he might take another fall. fortunately, he seemed generally OK, and the bleeding was superficial and stopped quickly.

Bike crash victim

Anyway, the next thing we had to do was to figure out how to get him out of there. As I mentioned, we were right at the crossing of a major road. Another cyclist and I scrambled up the embankment and could see that we were maybe a quarter mile from a shopping center (and a Metro stop, it turns out). We considered getting Jim and his bike up to the road and walking him to the Metro stop and having someone escort him home, but decided that was a bad idea. We would call 911.

Jim's Apple Watch was ahead of us. It had detected the crash and had dialed 911 for him. This is a nice feature (and it works!), except that even under the best of circumstances it's hard to have a conversation on a watch (sorry, Dick Tracy), and that problem is even worse when you're distracted from just having crashed and are surrounded by cyclists asking if you're all right. Jim was having an unproductive conversation with the 911 dispatcher via his watch. We hung up and called 911 from a cell phone. To their credit, they immediately correlated our call with the incident report they had received from the Apple Watch. To our dismay, it was hard for them to figure out where to send help, since we didn't have a street address. "The Northwest Branch Trail, right where it crosses under East West Highway" is actually a very precise location, but apparently not the kind of location specification they're used to dealing with. We saw an ambulance go by on East West Highway, but it didn't stop. Eventually, a pair of cops found us and they communicated with the ambulance to guide it to our location.

Since Jim was able to walk, he went on foot (holding onto one of the cops for support) about 500 ft. to where the ambulance had stopped. Then they put him on the stretcher, loaded him in, and took off to the ER. The cops took his bike. Jim had called his son, who was on his way to meet him at the ER. At that point, the remaining group members cycled back to the start. We heard from Jim later; he did get a couple of stitches in his face, but was otherwise OK. I'm certain we'll see him back out on his bike soon!

That was Tuesday's crash. Thursday's crash was something I saw only from a distance, but it was strangely enjoyable. Regular readers of this blog know that I'm not a fan of rowers. They're the most inconsiderate river users, with an attitude that they own the river and that everyone else has to get out of their way - after all, you can't expect them to ever yield to you since they're facing backwards and can't see where they're going. Also, for the last few years the Washington-Liberty HS rowing team has been launching from the same dock my kayak group uses. This isn't usually a problem, but for the past few weeks they're been having some sort of Learn to Row program and have been clogging up the dock just when we want to use it - the previous week we had cooled our heels for 20 minutes waiting for a bunch of novice rowers to get out and haul the shells up off the dock. So, I admit to having schadenfreude over rowers' mishaps.

We launched without incident (the rowers weren't there, thank goodness) and headed up the river. As we passed under Memorial Bridge we noticed four eight-person crew shells racing down the river alongside Roosevelt Island. They were moving fast, with coaches on motor launches egging them on - clearly they were racing each other. But there was a problem in that there was a motorboat anchored just off of the south end of Roosevelt Island, right in their path. Now, the coaches should have noticed this and directed the rowers to turn left. I think the presence of the obstacle should have been clear to them as they passed under Roosevelt Bridge, at least 1,000 feet - roughly three football fields - in advance. But they didn't react. Instead, they kept egging the rowers on, and only very belatedly switched to yelling at the rowers to change course. Unfortunately, a sixty foot long, eight person crew shell does not turn on a dime. The last thing I heard the coaches yell was, "Don't Hit the Boat! Don't Hit the Boat!" Then we saw one of the shells stop abruptly as it, well, hit the boat (the other shells continued the race).

Fortunately, the hit didn't seem (or sound) hard. The shell didn't flip over or sink. No one wound up in the water. The coach's launch was right there to help. I'm guessing that the power boat wound up with nothing more than a scratch. But it was very satisfying to see the river lice screw up in a way which was so obvious that even they couldn't deny their screw-up.

So, have fun, but be careful out there!

 

John's Crazy Bike Rides

I'm active in a bike group which is part of Arlington's 55+ program. I started to have free time during the pandemic, and about the same time grudgingly began to accept that I am in the 55+ age category. I went looking for things to do and found this group, which at the time was barely alive. The previous generation of ride leaders had stepped away and of course the pandemic was a giant monkey wrench. I volunteered to be a ride leader, a process which involved a shocking amount of bureaucracy (background check, resume, application), and for a while, I was the only ride leader! Over time, my friends John and Clare (with whom I went biking in Portugal) pretty much took over leadership of the group, though I'm still part of the leadership group. Clare is very good at the mechanics - getting the ride calendar to the county on time so it can be published in the rec booklet, making sure ride leaders show up, etc. John does the hands-on ride leading, and even organizes alternative plans such as coffee or lunch for bad weather days when rides get cancelled.

John's a really good guy, but not always very detail-oriented. Truth be told, he can be what my grandmother would have called farchadat (פֿאַרטשאַדעט), a Yiddish word meaning confused, clueless, or generally out of it. 

The normal 55+ rides are about 20-25 miles long and generally stay mostly on trails. John decided he wanted, on alternate weeks, to organize a series of more challenging rides of about 40 miles. Let me tell you about a the two longer rides John has hosted so far. Let's start with the first, from Columbia Island Marina to Lake Artemesia in PG County. 

I had an early optometrist appointment that day, so I showed up at the marina just in the nick of time with my eyes still dilated from the eye exam. I was wearing those goofy free sunglasses they give you when you have an eye exam. Actually, the pair they gave me was a little higher quality than the cardboard sunglasses you sometimes get and looked almost like something you might actually wear on purpose. Given that I was joining riders in their 60's, 70's and 80's, no one was phased by my oversized, old-folks style wraparound shades. Even with them everything was kind of bright and blurry.

Groovy post-eye exam shades

Besides not being able to see right, my other problem was that as I pulled my bike out I discovered that one of my tires felt soft - not really flat, but squishy. I didn't have time to change the tube, but decided I would pump it up and see if it held air. Maybe I could get through the ride. I mentioned this issue to John.

Five minutes later we were all gathered near the marina building. I was down on one knee pumping air into my tire when John announced, "it looks like everyone's ready - let's go!" and the group took off. I swear, I think that man never healed from some long-ago head injury. I quickly pumped a little more air into the tire, packed up my pump, and chased after the group - I caught them in the middle of the 14th Street Bridge. It was a sizable group of about a dozen riders, and John rode in his usual style - running red lights or passing through lights that were changing, without thinking about whether the whole group would make it through. I'll add that John hadn't distributed the route, so it was important that the group stay together. Also, he hadn't designated a "sweep" (a person who rides in the back of the group to handle any stragglers or other issues). Since I was already at the rear and generally knew the route (John and I had test ridden it a few weeks earlier), I decided to sweep the ride.

John is also guilty of my least favorite rider leader behavior, which is that when he stops for a break, he waits until the back of the ride catches up and then immediately takes off again. In doing that, the faster, stronger riders get breaks, while the slower riders never get a chance to stop. By the time we got to Bladensburg some of the people in the back were already slowing down (including, inexplicably, one guy on an eBike), and I mentioned to John that he should pause long enough to give the riders at the back a chance to rest as well. From then on, every time we'd stop he'd ask me if they had rested enough - not to be a jerk, but just because he really didn't seem able to gauge the idea of giving the riders in the back a rest break.

We made it to Lake Artemesia without problems and did a quick lap around the lake. My bike tire was still holding air. Here's another thing about John - he likes to go out for lunch at the end of a ride, which means that he doesn't like long rest stops along the way (see the previous paragraph). A lot of ride leaders, having reached the ride's destination, would take a snack and water break before heading back but John just continued on to start the trip back. The folks at the back got slower and slower. Finally, I was tailing a woman who was doing about eight miles per hour. She wasn't struggling or upset; I guess her legs were just getting worn out and she slowed wayyy down. I was glad that I was sweeping, because otherwise she would have been all by herself and would have gotten totally lost - a couple of times I had to correct her when she made wrong turns. 

Anyway, eventually we all made it back as far as the Wharf, where about half the group stopped for lunch at the Falafel, Inc. (I'm ambivalent about this place because of the decor at some of their locations) while the rest continued over the bridge back to our starting place. Overall, a successful ride, but maybe a little much for one of our riders (to her credit, she wrote a very nice email to the county saying she enjoyed the ride and praising John's leadership and my support for her along the way).

Which brings us to John's next long ride, to Lake Needwood in Montgomery County. Unlike the Lake Artemesia ride, John hadn't pre-ridden this one and so all of us were on a journey of exploration. I was actually kind of happy to have a little unknown adventure, as this week I was supposed to have been on my annual week-long kayak camping trip, which is usually a week full of fun unknowns. Unfortunately, this year's trip fizzled when just about everyone dropped out, and once it was down to just the Hungarian and me we decided we didn't have critical mass and cancelled.

Anyway, we headed north from Pierce Mill in DC. Not as many people showed up this time: it was down to just the 55+ ride leaders (John, Clare, Gordon, Roy, and me) plus a couple of additional stalwarts. The beginning of the ride was easy - trails we've ridden many times before. But then it got rougher. Not crazy, but bumpy, skinny trails which wound through a bunch of Montgomery County community parks - not exactly the promised bucolic scenery. When we were still about seven miles from Lake Needham one of our riders decided he had had enough of having his bones rattled by the root heaves and turned back (this was the same guy who disappeared from one of my earlier trips - at least this time he told us he was going to turn back!). The rest of us soldiered on, switching back and forth multiple times between Beach Drive (smooth pavement, but lots of cars and no shoulder or bike lane) and the trail (bumpy, bumpy, bumpy). 

Noy again ...

Early in the trip, our first planned break, at a playground known as Candy Cane City, was thwarted because the park was fenced off for construction, and a few times we had to stop and figure out where we were going or correct for wrong turns because the trail system was confusing. When we hit yet another closed trail somewhere in Rockville, we decided to abandon our goal of reaching Lake Needwood and instead head to nearby coffee shop for a break (when Clare is along on rides, John is more inclined to take breaks). The trail took us to close to the shopping center where the coffee shop is located, but there was no bike-friendly way to cover the last 1/2 mile or so. We just gritted our teeth and rode our bikes on the 40 MPH, multi-lane road, hoping that we wouldn't be run down by traffic.  Even worse was riding the same stretch on the way back. It didn't make sense to cross the road and ride with traffic, as with multiple lanes of traffic we wouldn't have been able to get back to the correct side of the road to catch the trail. So, instead we waited for a break in the oncoming cars and then rode the wrong direction down a 40 MPH road for a half mile to get back to the bike trail. Again, we lucked out and no one ran us down.

The ride home was less eventful. We were retracing our steps and so didn't have to stop quite so much to figure out where we were going, and we rode on the road a bunch to avoid the worst sections of the trail. This route probably won't stay in our repertoire, but trying new things is always good. Best of all, no one was whiny or complainy about the suboptimal ride - even the guy who turned back just went off and did it without making a fuss about it. Alright, we weren't far from home - but it was a nice exploration of new places with a good group with a mindset for adventure.