The Story of the July 4th "80-mile" Bike Trip

Some background: I've been biking with friends from Looking Glass, and this makes my 5th long-distance trip. We had planned to bike from Greenbelt to the Chesapeake, about an 80-mile round trip, on the 4th of July. Here's what actually happened...

Erik, Stephanie, Kellan, Mike, Brian and I met at 9am on the morning of the 4th of July. A few of us had bike modifications to make, and we talked through the route, delaying our start for an hour. We set out for the metro at 10 to start our 80 mile trip from Greenbelt, but it turns out bikes aren't allowed on metro on July 4th, despite pleadings with the station manager. So we plotted a new course that was a "century" in bike speak, i.e. 100 miles. We started again at 10:45/11 and took what felt like endless turns on DC roads, a poorly planned route unfortunately. Mid-way through, Kellan managed to collide with Erik while we were all going 5 mph. An ominous sign. A cop on a Segway even showed up to make sure we were ok. We finally got to Greenbelt, where we meant to start our trip, at noon.

From Greenbelt, we took some lush stretches of road with fields and forests, through USDA agricultural research, and a few intermediate hills which I took pretty easily. We got spread out a bit in this section, which continued for the rest of the trip, so we made a lot of stops to regroup. We made it to route 450/Defense Highway at 2:30, I believe. 450 is not a significant road by DC standards, but it turned out to be significant to us. The short, 1.5 mile stretch was blocked off and the bridge was washed out (Brian, our recon crew, bravely rode past the blockade for us to make sure we couldn’t go through). We took a detour, and as soon as we made the first turn, we saw the steepest, most unrelenting hills any of us had ever seen on a bike. I walked my bike twice, which is totally against the "rules". More than a few expletives were spouted and various deities names’ taken in vain as we struggled up the hills. We added 40 minutes, 2 miles, and probably doubled our elevation change on that small stretch of the trip.

Once we got on flat ground again, we stopped at a gas station and downed 2 gallons of water. After that, it was not far to Annapolis. Once in Annapolis, we continued right across the bridge over Severn River that passes by the waterfront of the Naval Academy grounds (with a significant incline but also a fantastic view - it was sunny at that point, one of the few sunny points during the day. As it was the 4th, everyone was out with their sailboats getting ready for fireworks.) We continued 8 miles on more hills leading up to the western shore of the Chesapeake. Though this section was not significantly easier, I tapped in to some reserve blast of energy knowing that the end was near, and made really good time all the way to Sandy Point Park.

We all met up at the entrance to Sandy Point Park (at 4:30?) and rode the short distance to the beach. We immediately went to the concession stand and inhaled chicken fingers, burgers and fries. Then we changed in to swimsuits and made our way on to the sand (which looked more like clay, but I wasn’t complaining…). The water was so comforting after a (perhaps insane) ride like that. We stayed on the beach for about 90 minutes, resting. During this time, we lost Brian and Mike, new to our biking group, who each called people they had on standby to come pick them up. We were impressed with how far they came without training with us for the past few weeks. After resting, we changed, waited for some rain to pass, made jokes about chammy butter, and Erik, Steph, Kellan and I started back to Annapolis over the hills.

About 2 miles from Annapolis, the wind started to blow harder (at the top of the Severn bridge, no less!), then it started sprinkling, then it poured. We made it to the brew pub that we had visited the week before. That weekend, we went through 2 pitchers of stout, ordered potato skins, crab dip, onion rings, and a heavy entree each. We learned our lesson on the brutal ride back home. This time, it was light entrees for everyone, and water for me, water and coffee for them.

The rain stopped and at 9:30 we started on the same route that we took back from Annapolis the previous weekend - none of us could face the detour hills of 450 again. We guessed at the route back, as we still couldn’t take bikes on metro, and decided thatafter Route 214, Route 193 would take us to New Hampshire Ave, which most of us live off of in DC, and that stretch would only be 12 miles. Surprisingly, we all felt good about leaving at 9:30pm… this was going to be a breeze. We turned on our fancy bike headlights and looked like a long red & white shining snake in the dark. We glided along the roads, and everything felt ridiculously easy. We even caught glimpses of a few fireworks. On that stretch we clocked 17 mph. We stopped after making a turn on to a road that we'd be on for 20 miles. Everyone had water and adjusted their bikes. As we were starting to leave, I discovered my first flat tire. We were all in disbelief, as none of us had had a flat on these long-distance trips thus far. We fixed it pretty quickly (group effort) and got back on the road. However, Erik accidentally released one of the CO2 canisters in trying to fix my bike, and we only had 2, so now we have none left.

Route 214 is my nemesis. There are a lot of easy parts, with hills that make you feel like a strong biker because you can take them so easily, but there are 3 hills in particular that drain everything out of me to get up them. They don't seem to affect Erik, Kellan, and Steph as much - I have a hybrid bike, with "relaxed angles" as Kellan puts it, and my tires are wider so they create more friction on the road. We finally got on to flatter ground, though it was still hard because I was pretty tired... We turned on to Route 193 to start the approx. 12 mile trip back to DC.

A mile up the road, the sidewalk ended and I rode across some gravel. Apparently there was yet more glass in my path and as we stood around drinking water, Kellan heard air escaping from my tire (more expletives). You can imagine how disheartening this was. Now that it’s 1am, things don’t feel quite as easy. After a lot of talk about fixing the tire, we decided the best thing to do was try and find me a way out - there's no guarantee this wouldn't happen again, in some totally inaccessible area, and it’s already later than we ever imagined being on the road. Erik called his girlfriend Anjuli, who so amazingly immediately left a party and got in to a cab, went home, got directions and came to get me. About an hour after I hit mile 87, my second flat and some emotional moments, I was in a car heading back to DC with our good samaritan. Erik, Kellan and Steph continued on.

I typed most of this after I got home and washed the day off of me, around 4am. I saw my first official fireworks, and enjoyed sitting on a couch and not a bike saddle. I found out the next day (I ran in to Erik and Anjuli at brunch, 10 hours later) that that “12 mile” stretch was 21 miles, and they got home at 4:30am. It was an epic journey, and we learned yet more lessons about how to bike. My #1 rule is still to bike with people who help you fix flats, pick you up at 2am, give you a shoulder to lean on when things are overwhelming, and basically reinforce their friendship at every turn. I didn’t make my “century”, but I wouldn’t have been anywhere else last Friday.