Sore butts
The canal is done. It was, to be honest, very slightly disappointing, perhaps because my expectations were so high -- our bike trips around the UK were so terrific, always filled with stumbling upon stone church ruins, or an eccentric Dickens museum, or charming pubs with great food (including possibly the best meal I've ever had, a huge plate of spaghetti stunned and drowned in a pungent Stilton sauce, consumed at the end of a long biking day while a quarter past famished).
This trip involved a lot of trees.
I know, I know: the UK is a small country that grew up around horseback distances, which are, by lovely coincidence, the same as biking ones. To bike through the English countryside is to get the nation, the logic of its geography, and its glorious quirkiness, in a way that hadn't been as fully revealed before. Among the many wonderful features of exurban UK is that you cannot go thirty miles without being in a different place.
Biking the C&O meant seeing a lot of trees.
Also deer, herons, cardinals, and groundhogs. And, closer to DC, idiots who hike or bike while using their cellphones, rendering them a menace to anyone trying to get their attention using only a small bell (or squeaky-toy whale, in my case).
Don't get me wrong: I'm glad we did it. But I did woefully underestimate the enormousness (please, not "enormity." Though, lately...) of this country, and how not-to-horseback scale it is. Also how colorless even the most friendly motel is compared to even a nondescript Isle of Wight B&B, and how much that affects trip enjoyment. Despite setting out with an "interesting things always happen on bike trips" attitude, gleaned from experience, nothing especially interesting actually happened on this trip.
But it was a personal challenge, and one we bested rather handily, ending each day with more leftover energy than I expected, even if more pain than anticipated from the gravel-strewn trail (isn't that the stuff they put down to stop vehicles?). It was also a good equipment test for other rides. I'm sure I'll be posting a more technical trip report elsewhere, so I'll spare you the details, but among the more pleasant discoveries: (1) CoolMax skullcaps prevent that icky cold, wet, squishy helmet phenomenon when re-gearing-up after a break, and (2) padded gloves really do eliminate, and not just reduce, road vibration injury to the hands, just as claimed. Now if only bike shorts could do the same...
Most parts of most days were spent in silence and isolation (K, who was carrying slightly more gear, rode more slowly; we did a catch-up and check-in every 5 - 10 miles). With the scenery not changing much, and not much visible other than a tunnel of foliage, the effect was both numbing and meditative.
Random things I learned:
- How not to think things like "I wonder how many pedal revolutions I've done today? I wonder how many more before we stop? I wonder how many over the whole trip? A million?"
- How amazingly long a mile is. No, really.
- What the inside of a bungee cord looks like. I think this is the biking equivalent of leaving a cup of coffee on the roof of the car, but I did take off -- once -- without securing the end of the cord, which promptly lodged around the back wheel hub, nearly unseating me, before disintegrating spectacularly in a shower of latex confetti.
- There are entire small towns in Western Maryland that consist of nothing but Civil War re-enactment supply shops. We rode to the sound of musket fire one morning.
- C&O mile marker zero is amazingly hard to find. Thank you very much, kind stranger on a bike, who stopped to talk to me while I waited with our stuff outside a pet store in Georgetown (K ducked in to get some "please forgive us" offerings for the cats) and ended up physically leading us to the spot, some ways distant from where we thought it was.
I now find myself in an unexpectedly sharp post-vacation meloncholia, perhaps because I'd hoped my subconscious was steadily working on "what next?" plans during those six days of road daze, and it now sheepishly tells me it's got bupkis.
The blog buzz, at least, seems to have settled down, which is a relief, though the earlier bump now means I'm showing up in Google. I take no mean amount of pride in being the ultimate destination for both the seeker of "middle age + allergy" and "gay mans testicle," and, to you both, apologize.
This trip involved a lot of trees.
I know, I know: the UK is a small country that grew up around horseback distances, which are, by lovely coincidence, the same as biking ones. To bike through the English countryside is to get the nation, the logic of its geography, and its glorious quirkiness, in a way that hadn't been as fully revealed before. Among the many wonderful features of exurban UK is that you cannot go thirty miles without being in a different place.
Biking the C&O meant seeing a lot of trees.
Also deer, herons, cardinals, and groundhogs. And, closer to DC, idiots who hike or bike while using their cellphones, rendering them a menace to anyone trying to get their attention using only a small bell (or squeaky-toy whale, in my case).
Don't get me wrong: I'm glad we did it. But I did woefully underestimate the enormousness (please, not "enormity." Though, lately...) of this country, and how not-to-horseback scale it is. Also how colorless even the most friendly motel is compared to even a nondescript Isle of Wight B&B, and how much that affects trip enjoyment. Despite setting out with an "interesting things always happen on bike trips" attitude, gleaned from experience, nothing especially interesting actually happened on this trip.
But it was a personal challenge, and one we bested rather handily, ending each day with more leftover energy than I expected, even if more pain than anticipated from the gravel-strewn trail (isn't that the stuff they put down to stop vehicles?). It was also a good equipment test for other rides. I'm sure I'll be posting a more technical trip report elsewhere, so I'll spare you the details, but among the more pleasant discoveries: (1) CoolMax skullcaps prevent that icky cold, wet, squishy helmet phenomenon when re-gearing-up after a break, and (2) padded gloves really do eliminate, and not just reduce, road vibration injury to the hands, just as claimed. Now if only bike shorts could do the same...
Most parts of most days were spent in silence and isolation (K, who was carrying slightly more gear, rode more slowly; we did a catch-up and check-in every 5 - 10 miles). With the scenery not changing much, and not much visible other than a tunnel of foliage, the effect was both numbing and meditative.
Random things I learned:
- How not to think things like "I wonder how many pedal revolutions I've done today? I wonder how many more before we stop? I wonder how many over the whole trip? A million?"
- How amazingly long a mile is. No, really.
- What the inside of a bungee cord looks like. I think this is the biking equivalent of leaving a cup of coffee on the roof of the car, but I did take off -- once -- without securing the end of the cord, which promptly lodged around the back wheel hub, nearly unseating me, before disintegrating spectacularly in a shower of latex confetti.
- There are entire small towns in Western Maryland that consist of nothing but Civil War re-enactment supply shops. We rode to the sound of musket fire one morning.
- C&O mile marker zero is amazingly hard to find. Thank you very much, kind stranger on a bike, who stopped to talk to me while I waited with our stuff outside a pet store in Georgetown (K ducked in to get some "please forgive us" offerings for the cats) and ended up physically leading us to the spot, some ways distant from where we thought it was.
I now find myself in an unexpectedly sharp post-vacation meloncholia, perhaps because I'd hoped my subconscious was steadily working on "what next?" plans during those six days of road daze, and it now sheepishly tells me it's got bupkis.
The blog buzz, at least, seems to have settled down, which is a relief, though the earlier bump now means I'm showing up in Google. I take no mean amount of pride in being the ultimate destination for both the seeker of "middle age + allergy" and "gay mans testicle," and, to you both, apologize.
3 Comments:
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Anonymous said...
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- 4:08 AM
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esquiver said...
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- 11:18 PM
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Anonymous said...
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- 1:46 PM
Post a CommentDo you happen to recall where you ate that plate of spaghetti-and-Stilton? It sounds amazing.
Every time I get the least bit homesick, I just need to read your blog to realize that the reasons why I left (even if I wasn't consciously aware of all of them then) are, if anything, more valid than they were in 2001.
It was in a pub in Bonchurch, on the hill above Ventnor, on the Isle of Wight. Your best bet is to stop in at this B&B (also recommended for staying at), and ask directions to the nearest pub (which was in a narrow lane going down the hill).
I remember that I was so tired, I forgot not to hold up two fingers when asking for two packets of crisps, and got a surprised and insulted "all right, all right" from the barman for my gratuitous and unprovoked insult...
At the wedding in Maryland, someone gave two fingers to the bartender when asking for drinks. Of course, there was no significance to either the orderer or the bartender, but I found it quite shocking.
Thanks for the tip on Bonchurch. We had a pretty traumatic time the last time we were on the IOW -- a music festival where the raison d'aller was a no-show (gee, thanks, Moz), and a hotel where the fellow guests were some of the most middling of middle-England types. Thus, it might take some effort to get on that ferry again.
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