Addicted

I am completely addicted to my bike. Completely. I rode than seventy-six miles on the Outer Banks last week. Seventy-six! And those were just the miles that I remembered to track on my phone. There were a few short toodles around that I missed because I forgot to resume the tracking app. Most days I rode between twelve and fifteen miles with one twenty mile round trip jaunt up to the Currituck Beach Lighthouse. I was a cycling fool and LOVING the flat landscape. The locals aren't kidding when they talk about the headwind being an invisible hill, though. Woof.

There was a bike meet-up to ride to Mt Vernon scheduled for yesterday that I really wanted to participate in but I was too pooped from the SEVEN HOUR trip home (thank you, traffic on 64 and 95) on Saturday to be in Alexandria for 10:45am Sunday. But I still wanted to ride, and I wanted to ride far (for me). Around 11:30 I pointed Rose eastward and rode to Vienna. I made it past the "Entering Town of Vienna" sign and rode on up to the Vienna Station. Good lord, there were a lot of cyclists there. It was a gorgeous day for being out on the trail. I figure we've only got another month or so of comfy weather, so we may as well make the most of it. I was happy to discover that I was neither pooped nor feeling like I wanted to die like I did the last time we rode to Vienna. I made it up the hills with ease (okay, I was in granny gears and yelling at myself to keep pushing while riding up the scary switchback, but I made it) and paced myself pretty well. I guzzled water and munched on a Honey Stinger Waffle (how do I love thee? let me count the ways) while walking around the station and snapping photos. The ride back to the Toll Road felt mostly uphill, but I wasn't struggling like the last time. I didn't need to hop off and walk up any hills and I didn't stop for any other breaks. Even the hill up Greenthorn and Sherwood -- the end of my ride and when I'm the most tired -- were easy-peasy. I felt like a million bucks when I got home and realized I'd ridden twenty-two miles in well under two hours. *rawr*

A fair number of the Ride Me DC folks are doing the Seagull Century on Maryland's Eastern Shore on Saturday with a thirty mile "recovery" ride on the peninsula Sunday. It's not really feasible for me to do either ride so I'll stick to NoVa and see if I'm up to pushing past Vienna. The next scheduled ride is the Great Pumpkin Ride in Warrenton on the 22nd. I'm tempted by the 44-mile route, but I'm going to stick to the 24 miler. I'm also thinking about the Fall Colors & Covered Bridges ride in Thurmont on the 29th and the Halloween Bike Ride (in costume) and Party in Arlington & DC on the 30th.

You know, normally I'd been scouring the web for local haunted houses to visit on the weekend but what I really want to do with my weekends is ride, ride, ride.