I woke up with the sun… and the frogs (seriously… all night with the croaking? Or whatever you call it?) ready for the last leg of the mini-tour. I had decided to cross the Potomac at White’s Ferry using the nifty private cable ferry… 2 bucks and a couple minutes of aquatic traversing:

The campsite I stayed at the night before was just around the bend above. As I was rolling off, the guy who was sharing the other side of it with me was getting ready to kayak the rest of the way to DC. Lots of ways to find adventure…

Once on the other side of the river, I was able to bike a few more miles into Leesburg and grab a nice breakfast at a local diner. I had about 40 more miles to ride, and I wanted to beat the rain. I chose the Washington & Old Dominon trail, otherwise known locally as the W&OD, pronounced (unfortunately) “wad” – not kidding.

Not  a great experience. In fact, I don’t think I like the W&OD all that much. There’s not much shade, and because the trail is paved there’s a fair number of racer types who are more concerned about making their times than sharing the trail. It’s not everyone (far from it – I get along just fine with bikers of all stripes), just enough “Lances” to make the ride less enjoyable.

Next time I’ll take a little mud, some more shade, and a lot more solitude on the C&O.

Final tally for the day… 44.9 miles total. Total for the weekend, about 120 miles (roughly the distance from DC home to the cabin). Feeling pretty good about next month… the big hills are tougher fully loaded, but that’s what they make low gears for, right?

Today was a little humid for my taste, but mild by summer standards (please do not remind me it’s spring… My weather nerds taught me a cool term called meteorological summer). I rode from my campsite to Brunswick,MD and had a good encounter and two meh encounters.

Good – a gorgeous heron that didn’t mind a close up:

Bad… A flat rear tire (by far my least favorite to change)) and then my entire rear rack falling off the bike… 2 miles apart… 2.5 miles from Brunswick. Dude.

About 45 minutes delayed, I nabbed lunch at the spectacularly cool Beans in the Belfry:

I had a much easier 20 mile ride back to tonight’s campsite near White’s Ferry. My neighbor is a kayaker:

And I just saw a deer saunter by his tent. Very cool.

So, figure about 60ish muddy miles, maybe 5 on a slowly flattening tire (yes it was that muddy I didn’t notice!). Not bad. Tomorrow I cross the Potomac into Leesburg for breakfast, then take the W&OD back home. I’ll confess, with the muddy surface and occasional downed trees blocking today, I’ll happily take pavement tomorrow!

It’s amazing how fast you can get away from a city… DC in particular… by bike. After dropping off my dog Louis for a weekend with his number one fan (I’m not kidding – he has one) I was a 90 minute ride of 20ish miles to a gorgeous riverside campground. How often do we fritter away 90 minutes and it gets us no place interesting or rejuvenating?

Also nice here tonight, but sadly unphotographable – the fireflies.

After a week of solid work, I’m ready to get back on my bike to get in some miles and test some new gear. This past Sunday, I tried one of the more challenging rides in the region (“The Blueridge Challenge“) complete with an 8% grade hill. It compares favorably to some of the bigger hills I hit in Oregon and California, and while I wouldn’t say it was easy, it built my confidence up for the ride. I even rode it pretty fast considering.

This would make Leggett Hill easier… or it would set Northern California aflame. Maybe both.

I appreciate that it is both “unstable” and “mental” according to the (slightly mental and unstable) rider…

h/t to Wonkblog

UPDATE: I take it back… I want this bike instead.

Although I’ve been slogging away on details for the big fall adventure, I’m trying to keep my eyes on the bike touring adventure coming up in July as well. The problem has been actually getting on my frieking bike. The weather the last few weeks has been a bad combo of cold and wet, and neither of those two things gets me excited to get on a bike. Throw in the extra time planning the tour and the impending 6 week absence of Kimberly in France… well, biking has been more theoretical than actual.

That should change soon… we’re in a dry spell with highs in the 80s, meaning temps at dawn are more 50s than 30s. I’m hoping to do a 30 miler Friday and maybe an overnight this weekend.

The work/ride extravaganza is a kickoff for my new theory… I should be able to work and tour at the same time. I have the connectivity, the desire and the job(s) that (largely) can make this work. So, the grand experiment takes the form of a 21 day ride from Portland to San Francisco, with 16 riding days and 5 zero-mile work days. Here’s how it’s looking:

1. PDX – Keening Creek
2. Pacific City
3. – work day –
4. Bev Beach or bike shop hostel (Newport)
5. – work day –
6. Honeyman
7. Sunset Bay
8. Humbug Mountain
9. Harris Beach (Brookings)*
10. – work day –
11. Elk Prairie
12. Eel River RV Park (Fortuna)
13. – work day –
14. Ave of Giants
15. Standish-Hickey
16. MacKerricher Beach (Fort Bragg)
17. – work day –
18. Manchester Beach
19. Bodega Dunes
20. Samuel P Taylor
21. SF

* If I’m feeling good and the light is with me, day 9 could add another 25 miles (pretty flat ones too) across the state border and to campgrounds in Crescent City, CA. I can do the work day from there and tackle the big hills right out of town on a shorter day to Elk Prairie on Day 11.

This route follows the standard camping posts in “the book” (aka Bicycling the Pacific Coast Highway, the tome you see in a lot of panniers and handlebar bags on the ride). I’ve ridden every mile of this route… just not all at once. I intend to finally conquer this with the extra time I have, plus relax into it a bit with the off days.

Quick gear update… some readers had been asking about the brake converter for the Goblin. Well, it finally arrived. I hope to install it on my Marin (the never discussed black converted MTB that wallows at my cabin begging to be used from time to time) and see how it feels riding a 700c wheel on the front and a 26″ wheel on the back. My guess is I won’t notice. If that’s the case, come July I’ll fly out to Portland with my 700c dynohub wheel, the usb gizmo that takes the juice from the dynohub and makes it 5v/USB, a front fender and the brake converter. A little surgery on the Goblin, and we should be good to go… with green juice.

Ok, now I’m starting to get geeked up for the ride…

As long as the weather is decent (sprinkling is ok, rain is a cancel) I try to do my Great Falls ride every other day during weekday mornings as soon as there’s light by 6:30am. Not only is it a good training ride, I never seem to get bored by it. Part of it is the visually stunning rapids and falls at my breakfast midpoint:

The other great part – the surprises. I truly regret not being fast enough with my iPhone to capture the image of the bald eagle that glided along my left shoulder over the canal on my way back. I’m not much of a bird person, but bald eagles are so impressive in flight up close. I hadn’t seen a live bald eagle until I lived out west, and now I’m truly happy that there’s at least one that lives within 15 miles of where I live in DC. Considering bald eagles were a threatened species until relatively recently, that’s very cool.

My favorite weather nerds (a term I use endearingly) have a post up about biking in the DC heat, as we’re getting an early taste of it the last couple of days. I happen to hate the high heat… I call them “heat index rides” – not endearingly. The comment section is interesting… people giving their answers to the question, “do you prefer cool or hot weather for rides?” Worth reading the different takes and tips!

This morning was my first morning ride to Great Falls of the year. It’s my go-to ride because it’s about 31 miles round trip and can easily fit from sunrise until I need to get productive in other things. Here’s the view from this morning (turn on the sound to hear the awesome rush of the Potomac River).

I love this ride in particular because there are few, if any, people at the lookout when I’m there. It’s awash with humanity the rest of the time, so it’s nice to have the falls to myself.