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Paul's obituary

Nice remembrance from the "Citizen of Laconia" newspaper

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before on this blog, but my dear old dad followed in my footsteps/tire tracks and rode his bike across the country this summer. I did this trip eight years ago when I was 17, and to say the least, it was the experience of a lifetime. The couple that led the group of kids have been continuing the cross country trend every two years or so, and this summer, Dad decided to take advantage of his spare time in retirement and hit the road.

Today was the group's last day of biking — the last point being the coast of Maine and dipping their tires in the Atlantic. One of the riders has family in New Hampshire, and the plan was for several of them to join him on riding the last leg today.

Unfortunately, Jon's son (known as Paul) was struck and killed by a logging truck earlier this morning.

[Side note: the news report is somewhat inaccurate. 1) Paul apparently didn't fall off prior to getting hit, e.g. was NOT lying in the middle of the road, according to witnesses at the scene, and 2) they were riding from Washington, not California.]

Dad told me Paul was riding along the road when the shoulder abruptly ended. The road itself curved to the left on a slight uphill, and I guess there just wasn't enough room for the two of them. He was killed instantly and didn't suffer any pain.

It's times like these that make me realize how lucky I've been. The only time that my bike has landed me in the hospital was my own fault and didn't include a car; although Dad has been unfortunate enough to actually hit TWO cars (not the other way around — he ran into them. One was parked, and I think the other one was going so slowly that he ran up the trunk or something.) But at the same time, it really hits home. Bicycling is a dangerous sport. When it comes to sharing the road, we (as much as many of us hate to admit it) MUST respect cars, even in the cases when they're supposed to yield to us. In any moving car versus bike accident, the car will win. Always.

As much as I rant about dumb people who don't respect traffic laws and ride two/three abreast, I do it because of situations like this. It pisses me off not only because it's rude to the few drivers that do give us a wide berth when passing, but it tends to aggravate the anti-biker ones and make them despise cyclists even more, to the point of driving dangerously around us.

Paul, who wasn't doing anything wrong or illegal, lost his life because of a careless logging truck driver, who was most likely driving too fast for the road. That's the sad reality — the ones who do obey the law and ride where they're supposed to end up hurt or dead.

Another recent bike accident actually occurred here in D.C. A girl was commuting to work and was hit by a garbage truck. She was riding IN a bike lane, and the truck turned in front of her and she was trapped underneath. Again, she was doing nothing wrong, obeying the law, etc., and lost.

That being said… to anyone who reads this and bikes: be careful. Please.

Well, I did the Reston Bike Club ride yesterday, and I'm still alive. I didn't wuss out and do the 30 miler, but I did forgo the metric and just did 54 miles instead. Overall it was nice — the scenery wasn't up to par with the MS ride, but there were some sections that were just flat out nice. Dry Mill Road, which runs parallel to the W&OD, was a particularly nice, low traffic stretch where I could just clock along effortlessly at 20 mph and take in the bucolic surroundings.

I'm not sure if starting at 8 AM helped because there wasn't much rider congestion. I originally expected somewhat of a traffic jam on the W&OD since weekends are the most crowded, but I was pleasantly surprised not to be stuck behind anyone… mainly because I was that person that other bikers were stuck behind. Holy manoli. Talk about some seriously overzealous riders. I don't consider myself to be that slow — mainly because I've finally talked myself down from being the stupidly competitive 17-year-old that used to chase down triathletes — but really, did everyone else find it necessary to form a paceline on a rail trail? If you want to do a century for time, don't do it on one that uses the W&OD, only because you're going to have to stop about nineteen times at road crossings and also because it's just obnoxious to be that guy who runs down 6-year-olds on training wheels.

So, in a nutshell — yes, I'm glad I went, but not having to pay the registration fee and getting a free lunch and cool tee shirt made it all the better.

Alrighty, I finally got the Reston Century packet yesterday in the mail. It turns out there aren't three routes (half metric, metric, and regular centuries), but an additional three sections that you can do. Basically, you can choose to pedal 32.3 (half metric), 52.8, 63.5 (metric), 76.2, 91.5, or 104.2 (century) miles divvied up into eight cue tables and about 10 maps. The first and last cue sheets are entirely on the W&OD, and portions of the rest (one loop in Ashburn for the half metric, two loops in Hamilton, and one in Taylorstown) also hit the W&OD for a few miles here and there.

Anyway, I mapped out the metric century on MMR, and needless to say, I'm a little disappointed:

Booooooring.

Now, based on last night's ride, I can't say for sure if I'll do the metric. To put it bluntly, I felt like crap. I'm also sleep deprived from watching the Olympics until 12 AM every night, which is NOT helping my energy. The 52.8 mile route removes that stupid loop of Route 7 and the W&OD in Purcellville, which I'm more than happy to omit. However, looking at the sheets, there's another loop ("Hamilton South") that encompasses part of the MS ride I did back in May, and I'm tempted to do that part… but doing so would mean I'd hit 76 miles… and not that's not likely with my lack of training.

So, that being said… the 50 mile route is looking like it'll be in the cards. My average speed as of late has been turtle slow, so chances are it'll take me nearly 4 hours to finish.

Since I seem to live my life with my head stuck under the sand 90% of the time, I shouldn't be suprirsed that the Reston [metric for me] Century ride is in 6 days. Crap, crappity, crap… I was kind of hoping that I had at least another week to build up my endurance a little more. Stupid August going by too fast… grumble grumble. The 60-70 miles/week commute that I've been putting in might not be enough, but then again my commuter bike weighs probably twice as much as my new(er) bike does. (Although if you ask any of the tri geeks I rode with a few weeks ago, my road bike may as well be made of cement compared to their $5k carbon fiber rockets.)

The other consideration is that a good chunk of the ride is on the W&OD, whose elevation from Reston looks something like this:
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Last year's route is below, not sure this year will be the same, but I think it'll be doable. If not, I can always be a wuss and do the 30 mile route.