All I've got to say is thank goodness the MS Ride is in June this year and not May… because if it was, I probably would have to relegate myself to doing the 30 mile route. Let's see, a little more than a month and a half to whip myself into shape to do the metric century — doable, I hope. It's not like I've been sedentary all winter, I've been riding Cass a lot, so my cardiovascular fitness should be a little higher than couch potato level.

So! First ride of the season was last (last) Sunday, as I was away in Utah visiting my parents for the past week. I'm having a bit of an issue plotting out routes that won't destroy my knees with steep hills, which means much of North Arlington, McLean, and Potomac (all which have great biking) are out for a few weeks. Similarly, I've decided that I need to be cautious of where in South Arlington I go, because the drivers there are generally not as mindful as the ones above Route 50 are. DC is limited to weekends, and I've found the risk of getting doored goes up by about 60%. Plus that whole biker getting run over by a garbage truck last year… yeah.

That being said, I think I'm going to actually have to relegate myself to using some of the bike trails until I'm strong enough to tackle the leg 'n lung burners near the barn in Potomac. (Probably might want to stay off River Road if I don't want to get humiliated by the local racers that train there, too. )

Anyway, I managed to plot out a route that worked pretty well — fairly low traffic, not too too many turns, and I only got lost disoriented once. Not a killer workout, but good enough to get the legs workin' again. (And remind me I need to clean my chain.) I think I got around 14-15 miles on my cyclometer thanks to some missed turns, but hey, who cares… I went biking!

The 2009 MS Ride is being held at the beginning of June this year, which gives me a little less than three months to prepare. Last year I considered upping my personal challenge to do the full century, but at the time I wasn't doing my other type of riding: horse.

With Cass back in in the picture, I actually (well, hopefully, barring any significant injuries to either him or myself) might have the chance to compete consistently this year… something I've been trying to do for the past 3 years. The fact that Cass is a much more suitable partner for me than Cody ever was has been a motivation to challenge myself and work harder at becoming a better rider. I really, really want(ed) to compete at Rubicon, but it's on the same weekend as the MS ride. Granted, the metric century is only on Saturday, so technically I can compete Sunday, but I'm not sure if my body can handle that amount of stress.

Right now, my two bikes are sitting in my living room, waiting to have their tires pumped and hit the road. However, I've been avoiding them for three reasons: one, the roads here in Arlington are still covered in salt ; two, I can't make the time; and three, it's still just a little bit cold here.

In a month or so, I won't have an excuse based on temperature or lack of daylight hours. Somehow I need to figure out how to fit Cass and biking in the same day a few times a week. I can [bike] ride in the morning (which would mean getting up at 5 AM or so), go to work, ride Cass after work, and then collapse from exhaustion… but the main concern I have is riding that early in the morning. The alternative is to ride solely on the bike trails, but I have an aversion to them mainly because people on bikes can be more dangerous than cars. The other option is to ride my bike after work and then ride Cass, because we have lights in our ring and I can ride after dark.

I need to be Superwoman, if only for two months…

Okay, so apparently last week's ride wasn't my last ride, after all. I'm not even sure if this past Saturday's ride will be considered the "last ride" of the season, so I think I'll stop dubbing them as final bike rides when they may not be.

Anyway. Went out on a 25 mile "training ride" on Saturday sponsored by the Capital MS Society… that I nearly skipped out on. First off, doing that ride meant getting up early on a Saturday morning. Additionally, the weather report called for showers and fog. Bleh. So, when my alarm blared at 8 AM (hey, that's early for me), I looked outside, saw wet pavement (no rain, though), and said "Screw it," and tried to go back to sleep.

Yeah, easier said than done. 30 minutes later, I'm still awake. I grumble at my conscience for ruining my attempt to sleep in and finally haul my butt out of bed to ride down to Courthouse. Fortunately, the weather cleared up and the pavement was dry by the time I got there, so my original "excuse" was no longer valid.

The ride itself was fun, I'm glad I ended up going. The autumn leaves were out in full force and looked beautiful… a.k.a. nice and distracting, since there were many many many hills to climb. Since it was somewhat of a smaller group, there wasn't as much bunching-up/riding 3 abreast trend that I hate with group rides… not to say that everyone rode single file and obeyed all traffic rules.

Route is below, although the little section down by miles 12-13 is a little weird — I don't exactly remember cutting through 5 backyards to return to Lincoln Ave. I'm not sure what my total mileage was, probably closer to 30 with the commute to/from Courthouse… still a lot for my weak little legs.

Off to the gym to pedal 30 minutes to nowhere. Only 117 days left until daylight savings time begins again.

Hopefully this won't be the last LAST bike ride, but with the time change (I really dislike daylight savings time), it's going to be much harder to find time to ride.

So, after shaking off my post-Halloween hangover, I quickly plotted out a route and hit the road. Despite not having ridden for about two weeks, I actually felt pretty good. For some reason my HR was not nearly as high as it has been going up hills, which to me seems kind of backwards. Oh well.

As you can see below, my trip took me back up to multimillion-dollar McLean neighborhood along the Potomac. I thought this was kind of interesting — the further north I went, from Arlington into Fairfax County, the more McCain/Palin signs I saw. Interestingly enough, the dividing line seemed to be Route 123/Dolley Madison Blvd.

A really inspiring sight for me: as I turned from Westmoreland St. onto Chain Bridge, there were about 10 people standing on the side of the road with a huge Obama/Biden banner and waving signs around. People were honking and giving the thumbs-up. Gotta love grassroots efforts!

April 2008.

My turnaround point was a familiar place, as I had previously visited this spot back at the end of April. The under-construction house where this photo was taken is still empty and unfinished, so I decided venture one more time into the backyard to take in the view.

I figured I should capture the moment 6 months later with another self portrait with the river and trees in the background.

6 months later and I still look like a tool.

[One thing I love about Virginia is the fact that most of the leaves are still on the trees by November, whereas in Connecticut they've been long gone for 2 weeks. The fact that it's commonly above 50 degrees (it was actually around 70 when I went out) also helps.]

I think that's the last time I'm going down to that particular spot, not only because it'll probably be someone's residence next year, but my cleats were completely coated in sticky mud. I may or may not have wiped them off on someone's lawn with a McCain/Palin sign on it.

Without further ado, the usual MMR route:

Oh yeah, and GO VOTE TODAY! Your future depends on it!

Last month, a Kamas, UT man tried to run down a group of cyclists riding along Mirror Lake Highway. Normally I'd be all, "Stupid redneck!" and spewing some other anti-Utah insults at the driver on here. However, if you read the article closely, you'll see one of the riders who was nearly run over was riding side-by-side with another.

Now, I'm not going to side with the redneck driver — what he did was pretty rash and dangerous — but at the same time, I'm not going to feel too much sympathy for the guy who was hit because he was NOT riding smart. You don't ride double on a busy road. EVER. I've ranted over this topic many times, because it seems to be an epidemic during group rides. There are two sides of the "Share the Road" equation when it comes to bikes and cars. Both must show courtesy towards one another for it to work.

Bill Dark, a Park City resident, responded in an editorial:

"I have to admit that we road cyclists have brought this problem on ourselves. We expect to have the same rights as cars on the highway, but we blatantly disregard the laws that we should abide by… If we were in a car we would never do this, but we feel somehow entitled to on a bike. This is wrong. How can we expect respect from drivers when we show them that we believe we are somehow above the law[?]"

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Bill says the road had too much traffic for two riders abreast. Apparently it's legal to ride this way (which is beyond me, because I'm relatively sure there's something written down saying bikers should probably stick to the right of the white line), but it's just downright rude to do so. Motorists get pissed at bikers for taking up too much space, and to be honest, I don't blame them. Again, not saying it's okay to run over people, but I do see where they're coming from.

"We will not change the attitudes of people like Barto and Delray Hatch, an Oakley city councilman who advocated in a public meeting that bicyclists should be run over. But we can change the opinions of many others. It starts with us."

AMEN!