Future Trips

Clayton with a fully loaded bike, near the trailhead in Cumberland, MD

For those interested, Clayton is on his second full day of the C&O tow path currently, and has stopped at mile marker 72 for the evening. His total mileage so far should be around 112 miles for the past two days, and he has 72 more miles to go before he hits DC.

Now that I've visited all the states east of the Mississippi (save Rhode Island and Wisconsin), I've noticed that I'm less interested in planning a 10 state 3 day weekend road trip. Things like bike touring and walking long sections of the AT are beginning to catch my eye.

I've had my eye on the Kettle Valley Rail Trail in British Columbia for awhile. It's 280 miles long, so I could probably do it (along with some sightseeing side trips) in two weeks. If there's not much elevation change, I could probably do a 15-20 mile ride today. But I don't think I'm in good enough shape yet to make that ride every day for 2 weeks.

I've also been looking at some of the 5 star terrain caches. Most of the ones I've been eyeing aren't terribly far from here, but require a camping trip. There are some good ones in the Youghatomac area that have a relatively low mileage, but cross through some pretty tough terrain.

There are 3 challenge caches (Run with the Big Dogs) within 5-10 miles of me that I'd like to hit in one day. When combined, they require nearly 30 miles of hiking. I can handle about 15 miles in one day, so I'm getting there. It's been hard to get out for a good training hike with Paul, so I picked up a copy of Leslie Sansone's 5 Mile Challenge Walk and have been doing the 5 mile and the 3 mile walks most days. I think I should be able to finish all of the Run with the Big Dogs series in 3-4 weeks.

Weekend Rides: Sugarland Trail

An unlikely place for a Bookcrossing.

I decided to check out the Sugarland Run Trail for my first geocaching bike trip. I did the section from near the intersection of Elden St and Herndon Parkway until about 0.3 of a mile from the Leesburg Pike. I was hoping it would be bike trailer friendly, but it seems that Paul will have to wait until he's old enough to make the grade C column stream crossings. Those are tricky enough with just me, since the concrete tends to get really slimey and you get stuck with swamp stink for the rest of the day if you fall in.

I only had one mishap with those. A little girl wasn't paying attention and ran out in front of me as I was crossing. As I tried to swerve around her, I hit a really slimey patch and slid into some briars. No one was hurt, aside from the swamp stink. The swamp stink is so bad that Jack even gave me a "WTF? These smell horrid!" look upon inspecting my socks when I got back. Jack loves the smell of sweaty socks and dirty diapers, just to give you an idea of how offensive the swamp stink is.

I was glad I had my GPSr with me. Otherwise I might have never gotten back to my car. There are quite a few spurs and parallel paths in the park, and the intersections all start looking the same after while. After a few wrong turns, I decided to follow my tracks back to the car. I was pretty surprised I did 10 miles today. I guess all those wrong turns do add up.

The terrain was pretty hilly and the paths left a bit to be desired at times, so I thought I maybe did 7 or 8 miles. I did pretty decently on my geocaching, finding 4 of the 7 caches I set out to find today. One was too busy, one wasn't accessible from the trail like I thought it was, and the other was a plain old DNF because I couldn't find a good place to park my bike.

The Bike Post: Part 5 - Success!

Clayton and Paul pause for a picture before heading off to Fairfax Corner

I was a little nervous this morning when I went to go see the bike trailer. It was a pretty short drive for me, since they live on the other side of 7100. It took me about 10 minutes to drive over. The bike trailer is in really good condition, even though it's about 5 years old. It was only used about 5 or 6 times for quick neighborhood trips, and it was stored in the basement. The only thing that was a little less than desireable was that it didn't appear to fold easily.

So we probably spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get it to fit in my husband's car. We took the wheels off, put the seat down, tried the trunk and everything else we could think of. They apparently lived in a mcmansion the whole time, so space wasn't an issue, and they had never tried folding it. It had two white pieces of plastic that were in the right place to collapse the top, but they thought it was too old to be a folding model. We decided it was probably best for me to go get my Outback and they would try to find the manual.

So I got home, and Clayton was taking a look at it. We realized that the white plastic pieces were for collapsing the top, which eliminated the only negative thing about the trailer. Clayton got the trailer set up on his bike while I got Paul ready for his first bike ride. They were out for about an hour, and did around 5 miles. Paul seemed mostly indifferent until he got a little fussy towards the end. (Although to be fair, it was pretty rapidly approaching his nap time.) I am really glad that he wasn't scared, since that was one of the reasons this trailer was used only a few times by the previous owners.

The Bike Post: Part 4 - The Bike Trailer

Ok, so it's not a bike trailer, but Paul and Jack love riding around the neighborhood

So, for the past few weeks, we've been keeping an eye on Craigslist and Ebay for bike trailers. Dealing with Craigslist is kind of frustrating, because people either don't respond at all, or they respond a few days later, or worse. I responded to a few posts early this week on Craigslist for bike trailers. So out of the blue tonight, I get a call from a woman about a bike trailer. Turns out she lives relatively close to me, so I'll be picking the trailer up about 10:30ish tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to going biking with Clayton and Paul sometime this weekend. I guess we'll probably stick to the W&OD Trail, since it's paved the whole way through, unlike the CCT. My bike and the trailer can handle the crushed limestone and natural surface portions of the CCT, but I'm not sure that Clayton's road bike can.

Paul and I will probably ride section 5 of the CCT while I get used to riding with the trailer. The stretch between Pickett St and Prosperity Ave is pretty easy terrain wise, and also pretty short. Once I'm comfortable riding that stretch, I'll probably work on being able to finish the rest of section 5, which has slightly harder terrain (small hills and narrower paths). There's a few other places we can ride that have relatively easy terrain, but section 5 is probably the closest with good parking and playgrounds.

I also plan to hit the other caches along the Sugarland Trail (near Reston/Herndon). Paul and I did a cache along the trail, Short Bridge, awhile back, and the section of the trail we were on was paved and shaded. There's also a nice playground that we could take a break at, so I'm really hoping the trail is something we can ride together.

So, where am I going with all this biking and getting used to a trailer? Why, I'm getting ready for Geocaching Vacation 3.0, of course! They recommend being able to ride 30 miles on consecutive days, so I'll be working up to that with the trailer. After I pass that goal, I'll probably start riding with some added weight in the trailer. I'm really looking forward to finally having something challenging to do again :).

Fairfax CCT: Section 5 - The Aftermath

This looks familiar... The Outerloop of the Beltway as seen from the Fairfax CCT

Last Sunday, I took my bike out for the first time. I decided to ride the stretch of the CCT that runs from Prosperity Ave to just past where the Little River Turnpike (Va 236) crosses I495. Turns out that if I could have crossed the Beltway there, I would have been less than a quarter mile from one of my friend's houses. Unfortunately, there's no real easy way to do that without doing a bit of backtracking and dealing with traffic.

My ride was pretty good, although I did decide to tweak a few things before my next ride. I had Clayton's old Etrex Legend bike mount, and the Legend had a hard time keeping a lock on the satellites. I think I rode somewhere between 5-6 miles, but without a reliable lock, I didn't get enough data in my tracks to do more than guesstimate. Paul and I took a trip to REI to pick up the Garmin 60 series bike mount and a pair of bike gloves.

Clayton also had a better set of pedals, so we put those on my bike and he adjusted my brakes. I had another seat (designed for women) that I picked up a few months ago to make riding Clayton's bike a bit more comfortable. I decided to swap seats out, so I could decide which one went to the Craigslist pile accumulating at the bottom of the stairs. (By the way, if you feel like driving to the Fair Oaks area and want a 17" or 21" monitor, let me know.)