At least there wasn't poison ivy.

Coming off the high of the recital, Alyssa and I set out to to do a long ride the C&O Canal Towpath. The C&O is a completely flat ride, so I knew we'd be able to log some miles on it with relative ease. We started in Brunswick, MD and rode in the direction of DC, figuring we'd turn around when we reached 25 miles so we could get in 50 miles.

The ride started out fine. It was bumpier than a regular road ride and I had some concerns about the path being muddy with all the rain we've had this summer, but it turned out to be fairly dry. Because of where we started and the direction we were heading, there weren't a ton of people out. We passed several people in the opposite direction, but it took us a while to encounter anyone heading in the same direction we were. We came up behind a trail master at one point and ended up passing him and his riding companion. We kept a nice pace, but at no time were we flying.

Around the fifth or sixth mile, we came up behind a couple who were riding next to each other. This would be fine if there weren't any other cyclists around, but there we were behind them. They knew we were behind them, too, but the man made no move to get over. In short, he was kind of a jerk. But, not wanting to seem impatient or rude, Alyssa and I slowed down and stayed behind them for a bit before we finally couldn't take it anymore and called out, "On your left!" and rang our bells. Well, Alyssa rang her bell. I honked my horn. Safely around them, we picked up the pace to about 12MPH and were really making time. However, I found myself getting ridiculously hungry so we pulled off to the side of the path and enjoyed some peanuts and cookies. While we snacked, the couple passed us. Alyssa and I lamented that we'd probably have to pass this clueless couple again and finished up our snacks. With little exertion, we caught up to the couple. Yet again, the man was riding next to the woman and giving no indication that he intended to get over. It was very, very annoying.

I have this thing about inconveniencing other people. I hate it. I go out of my way to make things easier for everyone. It's just my nature. And, honestly, I'm a novice rider, but I would never ride so cluelessly. There are cycling rules, but there are also just common-sense, human kindness rules. This guy clearly did not care about either type of rule. Had I been the woman, I would have called out to my companion that he needed to get his tail over so people could go by, but she clearly didn't see the need.

Alyssa and I - again not wanting to look like impatient jerks - pedaled slowly behind them. Alyssa rode a good 50-60 feet back and I was another 15-20 feet behind her, so there was plenty of space between all of us. As I looked to my left, I noticed a pair of sunglasses on the trail. I had just enough time to think "Oh, someone lost their glasses" before I computed that Alyssa had slammed on her brakes and had come to a very quick stop. I realized that I was going to slam into her. Hard. As I slammed into her, of course I knew I was going to fall off my bike. Again.

We've been watching the Tour de France and I had just asked Alyssa how the riders manage to unclip from their pedals so quickly when they get into accidents. Alyssa explained that the cycling shoes were meant to come undone upon impact, sort of the way ski boots work, so it just happened without them having to think about it. Having never gone skiing in my life, I had to take her word for it, but knowing how hard it was to get unclipped during my previous falls, I was dubious.

I shouldn't have been. Alyssa knows her stuff. I hit her so hard that my feet snapped right out of my pedals! I didn't even have to think about it. I was a little bit relieved, actually, as I hit the ground like a sack of flour, that at least I wouldn't be falling while attached to my bike. It definitely fell on me, but falling without the bike feels much better than falling with it. I lay on the ground for a few seconds, moaning and cussing like a sailor, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.

As I stood up, I realized that the clueless woman in front of us had gone back behind me to pick up her sunglasses. She said not one word to either of us as she retrieved them from the path. She just calmly picked them up, walked back toward her bike, and started her ride back up. She had just caused a bike accident over her $5 pair of sunglasses and she acted like she had nothing to do with it. Nope, just gonna pick up her glasses and get back to riding. See ya, suckers!

Alyssa and I were both stunned by her behavior. Had the situation been reversed, I would have been falling all over myself to make sure that the person was ok - even if I didn't think it was my fault! Even if, technically, the accident wasn't her fault, I still think it's just the decent thing to do to show some compassion and concern for a fellow cyclist. Of course, we tried to rationalize her behavior. Maybe she didn't speak English. Maybe she was embarrassed. Maybe she has no concept of propriety. I don't know. Frankly, it was stunning.

It is only with a little bit of shame that I report both Alyssa and I yelled down the trail to the woman. Alyssa said "I hope your sunglasses are ok! I'd hate for anything to have happened to them. We're fine - thanks for checking!", while I pathetically stood and cried and yelled who knows what. A runner came by while Alyssa was yelling and assumed we were yelling at him, to which Alyssa said, "NO, you're fine runner dude!" If I hadn't been in pain, it would have been pretty funny. And, as is my default reaction, I was angry. I reached into my jersey pocket to find that our digital camera was broken. The lens was permanently stuck out. We've had it for a couple of years and it has done a yeoman's job, so its demise was particularly upsetting. It was the perfect size for putting in my pocket or my jersey. RIP, Casio Exilim. You will be missed.

After assessing my bumps and bruises and determining nothing was broken, we decided we should turn back around. I was in pain and unbelievably angry. I think had we continued on the path and come across that couple, I would have had a hard time not shoving her off of her bike. I know that's awful.

Oh, and Alyssa was fine. Neither of us is exactly sure what I hit when I slammed into her, but she was fine. She doesn't have a mark on her or her bike.

I'll close this with two pictures, taken with my camera phone. You know, because that dumb woman caused me to break my real camera.

The bruise, 4 days later. I can assure you the bruise is very large, as I have gigantic thighs:




Alyssa tightened my seat in the parking lot before we left. She was tightening it since it was loosened from the last time I fell. Unfortunately, she now has to tighten it again as my fall loosened it once more.




This weekend we're riding from the Grosvenor Metro station into DC. I can't wait to report back on that one.

Two Covered Bridges, Multiple Scabs

It's been so long since I've written, I bet you thought I'd given up, eh? O ye of little faith!

The weather has been, again, fairly abysmal. It seems like every time we have an abundance of time, the rain comes with it. Despite this, we have managed to get in some riding. Ok, Alyssa rides just about every day. I'm not quite that good about getting on the bike, but I'm working on it.

Last Saturday morning, we did an almost 13 mile ride up around Thurmont, MD with our friends Whitney & Araminta. Well, Whitney was able to ride. Araminta's bike was not working correctly, so she operated the sag wagon. This mostly involved keeping traffic flowing around us and blasting music to help with motivation. She did a stellar job!

Whitney was responsible for mapping out the route for us and it was a really nice ride. We got to see two of three covered bridges located in Frederick County, the Roddy Creek and the Loy's Station. Even if we hadn't gotten to see the bridges, the ride itself was beautiful.









I surprised myself by really going after one of the hills we encountered. I guess I figured I'd rather get the hill over with than prolong the agony. And I didn't want to lose my steam and fall over. Why would I fall over, you ask?

Because I was wearing these shoes for the first time with my new bike and its clipless pedals. I was a bit apprehensive about wearing cycling shoes because I was convinced I would constantly forget to clip out of the pedals and fall over all the time, but I figured I needed to suck it up and go for it. To my surprise and delight, I found myself enjoying clipping in during our ride. At least until I fell. That falling thing? Not a lot of fun. Alyssa assured me that falling a couple of times is just a rite of passage, so I didn't feel like too much of a loser. I think I did so gloriously and spectacularly, with lots of profanity.

We didn't take a picture of me lying on the ground after the first fall, but I did make sure to take a picture of my banged up hand. You just don't realize how much you bend your hand until it's excruciating to do so. I know it doesn't look like much, but it didn't tickle, that's for sure. The falling itself was a fairly zen moment. Time slowed down and I knew I wasn't going to be able to unclip in time. Once I started tipping, I just resigned myself to it. I knew it was going to hurt, but thought maybe flopping would lessen the impact. I can't say that it did, but the pain of landing on the ground was worse than I imagined it would feel as I contemplated it on my way down.





Then, because I like to enhance my misery, I fell again. This time I really don't know what happened. My left knee was the first part to hit the ground. I made Alyssa take a picture of me lamenting this awful occurrence, but only after she moved my bike from the road. After all, I can get hit by a car, but not my bike.





A week later, I'm mostly healed. I've been picking the scabs on my hands because that's just how I do and the knee is still kinda weird looking, but I'm no worse for the wear. I'm hoping falling will be a rare occurrence, or at least that I don't break anything until after the Challenge.

After we completed our ride, Whitney & Araminta drove us down to the Country Kitchen to eat a delicious breakfast. Alyssa had toast, bacon & eggs and half of my pancakes because she has a tapeworm. Araminta invited us to try some of her Scrapple, as we had never tried it before. I will try just about anything once, so I took a bite. Verdict? Not really my thing. I'll stick to sausage or bacon. Mmm, bacon.

One Covered Bridge Loop...minus the covered bridge

We got up early on Saturday morning to do a 17 mile ride known as the One Covered Bridge Loop. Presumably, this means we would have seen one covered bridge. This ended up not being the case because we missed a turn, but we had a great ride anyway! We started out from our house right at 7:30AM, so there were few people on the road at that hour. We passed a few other cyclists and joggers on our ride, but not too many. Even though we counted this as a training ride, we weren't trying to set any speed records, so we stopped and took pictures and enjoyed the scenery. Frederick County farmland is beautiful and, thankfully, wasn't all that smelly during our ride.

I'm totally getting some sporty sunglasses so I can stop wearing my fashiony ones. The funny thing is I used to only have sport sunglasses, but, uh, I broke all of them.




The lovely Frederick County countryside




I really enjoy the weird things I see when I'm on my bike. This time, the weird thing I saw was an old man using a metal detector on an elementary school playground. As this is an area with a lot of history, chances are the old man was searching for old bullets and other Civil War artifacts. However, I like to amuse myself by thinking that he was actually prospecting for a 1st grader's lunch money.

I finally busted out last year's birthday present from Alyssa: my Garmin Forerunner 305. It's an all-round awesome device and I loved being able to look down to my wrist and see how far we'd gone and just how fast we were going. Or how slow. Ok, how slowly I was going. I won't share that data here since it will make us look terribly pathetic, but once we get some less embarrassing times, I'll share those.

Forerunner, y'all!




Alyssa in her Team Fatty gear




Lying down in the grass/tick patch




We were on our way home when I spotted this turtle in the middle of the road. It's not a road with constant traffic, but there's enough where the turtle could have gotten smashed. So, I picked up up, avoided getting turtle pee on me, and put it across the road. I just hope I put it in the direction it wanted to go.




Alyssa and I are keeping our fingers crossed that we get to do this ride when we're in New York for her granny's birthday this weekend. I'll let you know!

Ride of Silence

On Wednesday night, Alyssa and I participated in the Ride of Silence. This was part of a worldwide ride in honor of cyclists who have been killed or injured while cycling on public roads. The whole ride was conducted at a slow pace, paying special attention to the rules of the road and using only hand signals with the other riders.

Alyssa and I rode to a middle school that's about 1.5 miles from our house to meet the other riders. Our ride leader went over the rules of the ride and read a statement about why we were doing it before turning it over to all of us for introductions. Some people on the ride had lost friends in bike accidents, so they mentioned that with their introductions.

I was a little self-conscious starting out. This was my first group ride and these were cycling people. Alyssa is a cycling person.





You know who I'm talking about. With the exception of one other woman, they were all in their cycling jerseys and their spandex and their pedal clips.





I rolled up in my t-shirt, cargo shorts, and sneakers looking like a total n00b. I might end up being a cycling person one day, but I'm not there yet. I should say, though, that everyone was very nice.

Once we started riding, I loosened up and enjoyed myself. The ride was actually very relaxing. There is usually so much noise and chatter in my everyday life that being absolutely quiet for an hour and a half was a welcome deviation. We rode all over downtown Frederick and the immediate outskirts of downtown at a nice pace. I was getting a little worried toward the end of the ride because it took a little longer than expected due to stop lights and traffic, so it was getting to the point where I didn't want to be out on the road on a bike. Alyssa has lights all over her bike, but I don't yet. Fortunately, we ended the ride while it was still light enough for us to haul ass home.

So, that's my first group ride! I'll write later about the training ride we did this morning.

Sunday in Pictures & Bike to Work Day

Because I am determined to document this process fully, I took pictures of our bike ride on Sunday. Well, I took pictures before we left and then at the halfway point when we stopped and I complained about the wind. Sadly, I wasn't able to snag a picture of the little girls flying past me in the grass, but I'm sure there will be other humiliating moments I can capture for posterity.

Oh! First, let me just say this: I have transitioned back to the tiny seat. About a year ago, Alyssa got me a fat girl seat because she thought it would encourage me to ride more, but that clearly didn't happen. Then Alyssa told me the tiny seat would be more comfortable on a long ride than my fat girl seat and last week she changed it out for me. I took a picture.





I thought about going seatless, but then thought better of it.




Sunday ride time! Notice how Alyssa looks happy as she walks out of the house with her bike. Sadly, this is not a facial expression that came naturally to me before our ride.




My default expression was more like this.




Or this.




Honestly, what is she smiling about?




In other news, I rode my bike to work today as a participant of Bike to Work Day. Alyssa has been encouraging me to ride to work for years now, but I was very apprehensive about this because I am afraid of weekday car traffic. However, with all of this cycling I'm supposed to be doing, I figured this would be the day to start. I began the day by riding to the downtown train station with Alyssa to pick up our swag: a t-shirt, water bottle and a flashing light. We hadn't been there 3 minutes when Alyssa found out she had won something in the raffle! I, of course, never win anything, so I took off back home to pack up my bag to get going to work while Alyssa headed off to the bus station on her bike like she does every day.

After I got loaded up, I took off on my bike and, I have to say, it was pretty enjoyable. I was blessed with lighter than usual car and bus traffic today because the public schools were on a two hour delay, so I was able to ride on the road with minimal worry about being run over. I got to work in a little less than 20 minutes, only a little longer than it takes me to drive. I was sweaty and had helmet head by the time I walked into the office, but, honestly, I don't look so stylin' on my best days, so it's kind of a wash. I remembered to put deodorant in my bag and I liberally reapplied that, but I didn't remember a brush, so my hair kept its "brushed with a wagon wheel" look all day long. In a strange way, it actually made my hair look a bit nicer.

Like my friend Jenn who rode her bike to work for the first time today, I, too, was struck by the realization that Bike to Work Day actually meant I had to ride from work. Complicating matters was the fact that I needed to run by the paint store before they closed at 5pm. I ended up leaving work about 10 minutes early to make sure I'd have plenty of time and it worked out perfectly. I walked into the paint store at 4:40, got another can of stain for our doors, and was on my merry way. The employees asked me if I had biked to work today and I told them, yes, I had. They praised me for it, which was unexpected, but nice.

Not a bad first bike commute! Due to the sweat factor in the warmer months, I don't know that I really want to make it an everyday thing, but I would definitely be open to doing it more regularly.