6.20.2005
ride up Rock Creek Trail
distance: oh I don't know, about 10-12 miles, that's still my hourly hybrid rate...
time: 1 hr riding, 4 minutes resting
Today I decided to head north along Rock Creek, jumping onto the trail at the same spot (just over the P street bridge). The big public secret about DC is that it's all downhill from Maryland to Virginia, so after a while it's hard to ride only north-south loops in good conscience. Or rather, I save those for my days of rest.
This time I followed the trail up past the zoo, past Pierce Mill, and up Beach Drive a couple of miles. As I was just getting started I passed a woman on a bike with saddlebags and a backpack; I directed her to the not-very-well-marked path and didn't think too much more about it. On the way back down (having turned around, taken a break on a tree stump, and cruised downhill) I passed her again at the start of Beach Drive. Chatting with her there, it turned out that she's biking the whole country, having started at "the Alabama-Florida line" on May 16th. I didn't catch her name, but she told me she's on a personal mission and is praying for people. So if you see her between here and Niagra, or swinging west through Montana, give her my regards.
The Rock Creek Trail is nice in the middle of a week day, when there's no one around and the woods are quiet. It's never nice coming back up from that trail, though, as the only way back to civilization is up one of your choice of whomping big hills. Being a creek, you see, it's firmly in a valley. Today I chose my favorite the whomping big hills, Adams Mill Road. About that route I have only this to say: why put a speed bump at the top of a hill roughly akin to the trail to Machu Picchu? Why, god, why? It bears saying that I did not, in fact, fall off my bike on the speed bump. Nor did I splat a kid, which is presumably what the speed bump is there to prevent. So, good job, speed bump! If you weren't there, I would have flown through that crosswalk! Ok, right, enough about the speed bump.
The rest of the ride home was uneventful. Also, I did not scrape my knee carrying the bike into the house today.
time: 1 hr riding, 4 minutes resting
Today I decided to head north along Rock Creek, jumping onto the trail at the same spot (just over the P street bridge). The big public secret about DC is that it's all downhill from Maryland to Virginia, so after a while it's hard to ride only north-south loops in good conscience. Or rather, I save those for my days of rest.
This time I followed the trail up past the zoo, past Pierce Mill, and up Beach Drive a couple of miles. As I was just getting started I passed a woman on a bike with saddlebags and a backpack; I directed her to the not-very-well-marked path and didn't think too much more about it. On the way back down (having turned around, taken a break on a tree stump, and cruised downhill) I passed her again at the start of Beach Drive. Chatting with her there, it turned out that she's biking the whole country, having started at "the Alabama-Florida line" on May 16th. I didn't catch her name, but she told me she's on a personal mission and is praying for people. So if you see her between here and Niagra, or swinging west through Montana, give her my regards.
The Rock Creek Trail is nice in the middle of a week day, when there's no one around and the woods are quiet. It's never nice coming back up from that trail, though, as the only way back to civilization is up one of your choice of whomping big hills. Being a creek, you see, it's firmly in a valley. Today I chose my favorite the whomping big hills, Adams Mill Road. About that route I have only this to say: why put a speed bump at the top of a hill roughly akin to the trail to Machu Picchu? Why, god, why? It bears saying that I did not, in fact, fall off my bike on the speed bump. Nor did I splat a kid, which is presumably what the speed bump is there to prevent. So, good job, speed bump! If you weren't there, I would have flown through that crosswalk! Ok, right, enough about the speed bump.
The rest of the ride home was uneventful. Also, I did not scrape my knee carrying the bike into the house today.
