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Sierra Cascades Day 8: Prospect to Crater Lake to Crescent Junction
“Adventureland, where you can ride the Tornado, see a family show, and hear a rock and roll band!” During my childhood in Iowa, an amusement park called Adventureland was the summer go-to place for families, second only to the state fair. When we reached the rim of Crater Lake, and that old Adventureland jingle began… Continue reading
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Sierra Cascades Day 7: Ashland to Prospect
Summer, where did you go? We rose away from Ashland, following the cerulean patches between the clouds, sure that we would find you and ride some miles in your company. But all we found was springtime. Blue disappeared and clouds blocked the sunshine. Temperatures hovered in the mid-40s to high 50s, making for comfortable climbing… Continue reading
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Sierra Cascades Day 6: Mt. Shasta to Ashland
Cloudy and cool this morning. Wahoo! The sun can take a break from burning a hole in my retina. We eat and coffee up at Seven Suns- best breakfast burrito ever- and roll quietly out of Mt. Shasta. No one follows us, but I can feel the mountain’s gaze on me. Even partially shrouded, the… Continue reading
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Sierra Cascades Day 5: Burney to Mt. Shasta
Every day I sleep a full seven or eight hours, but each day that passes our cumulative miles make themselves known throughout my body. We’ve achieved true touring pace, I tell myself. A bowl of oatmeal and we’re on the back road out of Burney. Yay, we don’t have to deal with that no-shoulder rise… Continue reading
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Sierra Cascades Day 4: Mineral to Lassen Volcanic National Park to Burney
Climbing from Mineral and back up Morgan Summit ended up not being as daunting as I imagined. Knowing that Lassen Volcanic National Park awaited us around the bend inspired us forward, too. Our friends and Instagram buddies told us Lassen would be an eye popping ride, and we took our time pedaling through it. This… Continue reading
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Sierra Cascades Day 3: Graeagle to Mineral
“I was up above it, now I’m down in it.” –Nine Inch Nails, Down In It We departed Graeagle- on a sweet sweet downhill- and pointed the bike toward Quincy. Highway 89 was quiet in the early hours, which was helpful to our tour-tired bodies. At Quincy, Felkerino was tempted to stop at a restaurant… Continue reading
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Sierra Cascades Day 2: South Lake Tahoe to Graeagle
It’s a good day of bike touring when your only what-if is whether you should have eaten dinner on a picnic table at the Tastee Freeze or held out for the possibility of finer fare down the road. Felkerino and I eased our way out of South Lake Tahoe and after a few miles of… Continue reading
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Sierra Cascades Day 1: Sacramento to South Lake Tahoe
If anyone ever suggests you start a tandem bike tour by biting off 147 miles with over 12,000 feet of climbing from Sacramento over to South Lake Tahoe, laugh at that person. Tell them to think seriously about what they are doing. Advise no. Now Felkerino and I pack light since we credit card tour,… Continue reading
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Bicycle Estrangement
I kicked off 2016 with cycling and running foremost in my mind. I participated in the area’s Freezing Saddles challenge – to ride as many days as possible from January through March – and signed on to ride the best flèche ever with our friend Jerry. From the beginning of the year through April, I enthusiastically pursued daily riding… Continue reading
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Real Life Lessons From Randonneuring
I started randonneuring because I wanted to see what the distances beyond 100 miles held for me. I hoped randonneuring would make me fitter and stronger, and help me see new places. What I did not realize, though, is that randonneuring was stealthily strengthening me in other ways, too. Over the past two years, other life… Continue reading
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Summer Bike Tour Plans: Sierra Cascades
A couple of years ago, someone advised me that Oregon is a nice place to ride bikes. At the time, Felkerino and I were both taken with the mountains of Colorado, and that’s where we took our bike. Not this year. This year we take on the ups and downs of the Sierra Cascades, launching from Sacramento, California on… Continue reading
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If You Go Out in the Woods Today… #Coffeeoutside Coffeeneuring with Jay
Do you know if you don’t spell “coffeeneuring” regularly, that it becomes very difficult to spell? The same is true of the practice of coffeeneuring. If you don’t ride your bike to coffee regularly, it is soon a lost art to the individual. That’s why it’s important to Always Be Coffeeneuring (patch coming soon, courtesy of umbrella-works design… Continue reading
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Why Bike to Work Day Matters
I used to grumble about Bike to Work Day. “People don’t need a special day to ride their bikes. Every day you work could be bike to work day,” I would self-righteously think. “Bike to Work Day? You mean, Friday?” My feelings about bike commuting were somewhat in the realm of “Back in my day, I walked… Continue reading
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Phoenix Coffeeneuring on Two Feet: Part 2
As mentioned in Part 1 of Phoenix Coffeeneuring on Two Pheet (ha ha!), after a week of daily coffee runs, I filled my Saturday morning with a six espresso, one iced matcha coffeeneuring/run Phoenix tour. This is the most coffee I believe I’ve had in one go since I was in undergrad. I headed out early… Continue reading
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Phoenix Coffeeneuring on Two Feet: Part 1
A recent bout of work travel took me to Phoenix, Arizona, a place where the sun shines and the dry heat is still hot. Glorious conditions for someone who has spent the days in dreary Washington, D.C. Most of the trip was work, but I carved out morning runs – including a Saturday coffeeneuring crawl/run… Continue reading
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Beyond Fun: D.C. Randonneurs Frederick, Maryland 300K
As I set out my gear for Saturday’s 300K, I noticed the 2015 cue sheet for the same ride still in my bag. One year later, back again. For a while Friday evening and into the next day, I wondered yet again why I thought of randonneuring as a worthy pursuit. Early ups, questionable weather… Continue reading
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RUSA Member Profile: Bill Beck of D.C. Randonneurs
While some of you may already have read this feature in the most recent issue of American Randonneur, I like to repost pieces I do so that those who may not subscribe to the newsletter or who prefer to read it in a blog format may do so. I hope you enjoy. I’m rolling out a… Continue reading
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Randonneur- and Real-Life Spouse
As one of a small group of women who likes to ride long distances, I’m often exposed to conversations about “the wife.” I almost hate to write “the wife,” since I feel so strongly about it, but I’m writing what I hear and there you are. Sometimes “the wife” is referred to in other ways,… Continue reading
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The Highs and Lows of New Bike Day
One year ago, fate and desire intersected to create an opportunity for Felkerino and me to purchase a custom steel tandem. Prior to this tandem, our main brevet bike has been a custom-sized Co-Motion Java that has served us well and I’m not going to say one bad thing about it. Except one thing. We found… Continue reading
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Out of My Gordonsville: D.C. Randonneurs 300K
For the second year in a row, Felkerino and I couldn’t get our acts together to fit in a 200K, so we began our brevet season with this weekend’s D.C. Randonneurs 300K out of Warrenton, Virginia. Continue reading
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Tulipmania
I suspected that I’d experience post-flèche fallout, and over the last two weeks I’ve been proven right. The energy expended from 24 straight hours without sleep, 232 miles of pedaling over sawtooth terrain from Pittsburgh to D.C., and rough overnight conditions complete with snow squalls took their toll on my body. Continue reading
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Do You Believe in Unicorns? #BikeInBloom
In 2014, Capital Bikeshare welcomed a solitary pink bicycle into its fleet, the BikeInBloom. This bicycle, the only one of its kind, is released into the wild for just shy of a month each year, as part of the city’s cherry blossom festivities. In the three years the BikeInBloom has flitted in and out of… Continue reading
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Dedicated to the Cause: Calista’s Road to PBP 2015
I recently had the pleasure of talking with D.C. Randonneurs and RUSA member, Calista Phillips, who had a great year on the bike. Some of you may have already seen this feature in the latest edition of American Randonneur, but I present it again in full here. In 2015, Calista completed three 1200Ks (including PBP), and… Continue reading
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D.C. Randonneurs 2016 Flèche: The Only Way Out Is Through
Thanks Felkerino, MG, Jose, Steve and Kip for the ride. I sure enjoyed all those gravel roads and the 20 percent hills and the hail and snow squalls and the crazy wind situation and all the tree debris littering the roads and trails the whole night and the cold and the moaning and drama and the… Continue reading
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The Road to the Flèche: Team If We Lived Here…
One of the many motivators behind Felkerino’s and my increased riding miles in the early months of this year was our decision to take part in the D.C. Randonneurs flèche, which kicks off this coming weekend (April 1). The flèche is a rules-laden team event, many of which make no sense to me, but that I follow anyway… Continue reading
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Nick’s 2015 Paris-Brest-Paris: Had We But World Enough and Time
We’re heading into the spring riding season, and as we do the dreams of big rides take shape. To help stoke the flames of our big ride plans, I’m featuring friend and fellow D.C. Randonneur Nick Bull’s PBP story, “Had We But World Enough and Time.” Nick’s story gives the reader an inside look at PBP,… Continue reading
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Traveling Light and Self-Contained: Jerry’s Cross-Country Bike Tour Secrets
Last summer, our friend Jerry spent 9 weeks bike touring 9,300 km across the United States and parts of Canada. I talked with Jerry a few times about his tour – once before he left, once while he was in the midst of his ride, and again after he finished. He also shared snapshots of his… Continue reading
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My Errundonnee: Exploring Running as Transportation
After I rekindled my interest in running marathons, I began to seek out ways to incorporate additional mileage on my two feet. Since Felkerino and I spend much of our weekend time together on the bike, the long weekend run typical for many marathon runners was not a method that worked for me. In 2013,… Continue reading
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A Non-Runner Runs the D.C. Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon
Even though it’s been over two decades since I left high school, I still struggle to escape defining my athletic self in terms of physical education (P.E.) classes and (gasp!) high school sports. That definition repeatedly reminds me that I have no right to consider myself an athlete in any sport. I was never picked dead last… Continue reading
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Riding in Search of Brevet Legs
In an attempt to avoid gutting it out like it seemed we too often did on many of last year’s brevets, Felkerino and I have been taking advantage of snow-free roads to build our endurance for the upcoming randonneuring events. While it gave me confidence to know that Felkerino and I had the experience to successfully complete brevets on less-than-ideal… Continue reading
Chasing MailBoxes 