Hunter Mill Road

When I bike north and west, which I almost always do, I pass Hunter Mill Road, so named because "a grist mill and sawmill named for George W. Hunter, Sr., who acquired it in 1831" was located there.

I assume you know what a sawmill is. And I assume that you, like I, don't know what a grist mill is. Or didn't. Now you do: "A gristmill or is a building in which grain is ground into flour . . ."

On second thought, I know what a sawmill is, but I'm having trouble picturing how an ox-powered sawmill might have worked. Can you envision it?

Down to the second decimal

Last Thursday I biked 22.27 miles.

".27? Are you telling me you can measure your ride down to the second decimal?"

I can now.

If your bike speedometer -- excuse me, your bike cyclocomputer -- is acting up, even after aligning the magnets and changing the battery, try scraping the contact points with a nail file.

Mine hasn't worked this good in years!

Zen

I'll try, but I have to say I don't expect it to work:

Work on your mind! Hills are our friends - they slow us down and let us center. Who needs yoga for better breathing when we're hill climbing?!

http://www.bikevirginia.org/2009/planningGuide/preparationTips.htm

(It's not the slowing down part that bothers me; I always go slow. And I don't mind breathing hard. What gets to me is the pain in the thighs. And I don't think any amount of positive thinking is going to make that go away.)

I have no pity . . .

. . . for anyone stupid enough to get on a bike between Columbus Day and Easter without a pair of gloves in his pocket. He deserves to have his hands freeze. Even if he is me. As he was yesterday.

Larkins Law

Heading out on my bike today, leaves were blowing staright toward me; coming home an hour later, same thing. Irrefutable confirmation of Larkins' Law: When biking, all winds are headwinds.

Caution

If you decide to bike down the W&OD bike trail and turn left at 16th St. to go up to Our Lady Queen of Peace (say, to pick up an RE book for your granddaughter), be forewarned that that left turn takes you onto a brutal hill. Downshift early and a lot (earlier and a lot more than I did), otherwise you'll be walking your bike up that hill.

Math problem

A man mounts his bike on the W&OD bike trail in Vienna at mile marker 11.5. He pedals to mile marker 44.5 (the end of the trail) in Purcellville. He then pedals back to mile marker 11.5. How many miles did the man travel?

Extra credit: Why would anyone do such a thing?

When you're right, you're right

While biking this morning (40 miles, thanks for asking), I stopped at a rest area for water and I greeted another rider: "Wonderful morning, isn't it?" His reply: "Ain't nothin' better than this, not even work."

RoadID

My wonderful wife is always concerned about my health and safety. Recently she asked if she could buy a RoadID for me to wear while biking. I said OK, but then got to thinking: What if I just type up some information that I want people to know when they find me by the side of the road some day; I can slip it into a luggage tag holder and hang it on a piece of cord and wear it around my neck. All the benefits of RoadID and none of the cost. And so it was done.

Click the image for a larger view.

PS In case you're too lazy to click the picture for a larger view, this side of the tag gives my name and the names and phone numbers of my wife and daughter. The other side gives my doctor's name and phone number, my meds, blood type, and allergies (none), and states that I'm an organ donor.

Intimations of Mortality . . . or, Lines Composed Above CarMax

So I'm out biking this morning and I feel this twinge in my knee. (My right knee, for the record, in case I ever need to report it to a doctor.)

It only lasted a minute or two, and wasn't really painful, but it was enough to get my attention -- enough to get me to think: "I'm not going to be able to do this forever. Any day now, God's going to say 'That's enough fun for him,' and just that quick I'm going to move from my golden years into my sunset years."

(Again for the record: I'm not ready.)

So I get to thinking that this is something I can blog about. And wouldn't "Intimations of Mortality" be a clever title?

I ride a little farther and along the side of the trail I see some scraggly bushes with brilliant yellow flowers. "What a coincidence," I think, remembering that I read somewhere that daisies were Chaucer's favorite flowers. "Here I am channeling Wordsworth and I get hit in the face with a reminder of [someone who is widely considered to be] another of Britain's greatest poets." And then I wonder: "Are they really daisies, those beautiful golden flowers? Wait a minute. Golden? 'Golden daffodils.' I'll bet they're daffodils. More Wordsworth! How great is that?!"

Not so great. Turns out they were daisies after all. (The web really is a great research tool.)

So I ride some more and (finally!) reach the overpass at Route 28, my usual turnaround point. And as I'm swigging some water on the overpass, looking down on CarMax, I notice shards of white glass and grey plastic on the route 28 exit ramp. And again, I'm reminded of mortality.

Weird.

Last night at 11:00, three deer were on our front lawn.

Postscript:

• Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
• Daffodils
• Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour July 13, 1798

Riddle

Q: What has two wheels and is cute as a button?
A: A bike with Abby on top!

Congratulations, Abby!

My Mastercard commercial

A new bike: $649.
A son-in-law who can make the old bike good as new: Priceless!

Where'd that come from?

This morning was positively autumnal --cool, overcast, breezy. I'd like to continue biking when the weather turns colder, but this morning makes me wonder whether I'll be up to it. Certainly, I've got to look for a pair of gloves.

Your bike speedometer

Excuse me, your "cyclocomputer." If it's not working properly even after replacing the battery, try cleaning off the magnet (attached to the wheel) and the sensor (attached to the fork) and making sure that they are properly aligned.

Worked for me.

Frustration

Frustration is a bike speedometer -- excuse me, "cyclocomputer" -- that quits working properly after only about 5 days.

Fortunately, mine didn't start acting up until after I got a chance to measure the distance (12.55 miles) from our front door out to Sully Road, Rte. 28. For the last couple weeks, this has been where I've usually biked to. (Because I take a slightly different route home -- up into Reston Town Center to drink some water, eat some peanut butter crackers, and read a little bit, and, when I'm almost home, an extra couple blocks to avoid a hill that I don't even like to walk up -- the round trip clocks in at 25.5 miles.)

Happiness

Happiness is a bike tire that doesn't go flat.

Happiness is a new battery for the bike's speedometer. Excuse me, the bike's "cyclocomputer."

Happiness is riding 29 miles finishing a 29-mile ride on a day when your legs felt so heavy you almost didn't even leave the house. (Happiness is not getting to the turnaround point of your 29-mile bike ride, where you're going to sit and rest for 20 minutes, and discovering that you left the novel you intended to read -- Nabokov, The real life of Sebastian Knight -- at home.)

I biked to Baltimore yesterday

Well, not to Baltimore. As far as Baltimore.

I pedaled out the W&OD bike trail to mile marker 36.5 (a little west of Leesburg). Since our house is about halfway between mile markers 11 and 12, that makes a trip of 25 miles in each direction. Google tells me that the distance from our house to Baltimore's Inner Harbor is just half a mile more than that.

Bike safety

When you slow down so much that your progress is nearly imperceptible -- say because you're looking around to see where George could have got to or to see whether there's a gate in that fence over there -- it's a good idea to take your shoes out of your toe clips.

It's a really good idea.

I claim victory . . .

. . . over the accursed devils that have been punching holes in the tube on the back wheel of my bike. Twelve days ago I went to the bike store and bought a new tire -- even though mechanics at three different stores had failed to find anything wrong with my old tire. The result? No flats! Twelve days isn't very long, I know, and I may be jinxing myself by claiming victory, but this is the longest I gone without a flat all summer. And I have reason to think that those accursed devils may have found something else to keep themselves busy. The last mechanic to look at my bike did so on Friday, the 18th. On Monday the 21st, he got clipped by a car while he was biking to work and he came away with a fractured wrist. Coincidence? Hah!

Mad dogs and Englishmen and me

I took three walks in the midday sun this past week.

Tuesday, my wonderful wife agreed to walk with me along the C&O canal from Old Angler's Inn to the Great Falls Visitor Center, a distance of just about 2 miles each way. It's a wonderfully beautiful place. But it was pretty darned hot, I have to admit.

Thursday, I biked out to Reston. As I was about to head home, I realized that my tire was flat. Again. I must have had a dozen flats in the last month. Well, there was nothing for it this time but to drop the bike off at a nearby shop and hike my way home. That's close to 8 miles, again in the middle of the day, and with temperatures again in the 90s.

Friday, leery of another flat, I decided to bike close to home. I wouldn't go more than a mile or two in any direction. Well, I guess I went 3. The tire was fine after 1 mile. And it was fine after 2 miles. After 3 miles, however, not. Still, this wound up being much the shortest walk I did during the week, and it was several hours earlier that the other walks. This time I was dragging a bike along, however.

Postscript: Three different bike shops have now failed to figure out what's causing the flats. And I've spent a pretty good sum on labor, tubes, and CO2 cartridges. Today I spent some more money and put a new tire on. We'll see whether that helps. If not, I guess the next step is to take the bike to the dump.