Ride to Vienna, VA: Caffee Amouri and Bikes@Vienna Demo

The Lake Barcroft Bike Club travelled the 16.6 mile round trip ride to Vienna, Virginia on a crisp, early fall Saturday morning, October 6, 2012. Six members of our group gathered at the Bluemont Park parking lot for an 830 am departure. A few of us met at the Potterton Bridge a bit earlier for the 6 mile (3 miles each way) additional round trip journey over to the meeting spot.

Here's a few folks from our  group getting ready for the ride:

 

Lucie and Ted Seward 

Marcelle Miles

The parking lot at Bluemont was jammed with cars and runners for Arlington's 1st Annual "Mind Your Health 5K Run/Walk to benefit Mental Health America" so for the first couple minutes, our group wound its way through the crowd and headed over to the W&OD Trail for the  ride to the first of our destinations, Caffe Amouri, a local independent coffee shop and bakery on Church Street in Vienna. Coincidentally, we were greeted by the street closing and lots of tents being set up on Church Street for Vienna's annual Octoberfest.

After coffee and treats, we headed over to Bikes at Vienna, where we were given an extensive demonstration of their many folding bikes, probably the most complete set of folding bikes offered in the entire metropolitan DC area. This visit was a great suggestion made by group member Bill Cook, who didn't make this ride as he was riding the Seagull 100 over on the Eastern Shore.  

Bikes of Vienna staffperson demonstrating the features of a folding bike.

We saw a number of these bikes from lightweight 12 and 16 inch wheel versions to near full size folding bikes. These bikes are very well engineered and include top quality components that belie their small size and weight and make riding them great fun. The store offers the following brands. Click on the links to see more details of each. (Information below courtesy of the store's website at www.bikesatvienna.com )

• Breezer distributes the Zig7, Ziggy, and Zag 8 aluminum folding bikes
• Dahon makes a wide range of folding bikes from entry level to higher performance.
• Brompton folding bikes are made by hand in the UK. They fold fast and small and are fun to ride.
• Bike Friday produces small collapsible including a tandem and triplet. They are best known for "travel" bikes that can be checked as regular luggage with the suitcase converting to a trailer using the optional trailer package. They accept custom orders.
• Mezzo - Developed in the UK, and distributed by Marin Bikes USA, the Mezzo achieves a new level of performance and practicality with unrivalled handling for its compact size.
• Tern - Sharp looking, well built, and fun to ride.

Several of us tested some of these bikes and were pleasantly surprised at how easy and fun they were to ride.

 

Nomi on the Tern "Link" model

Marcelle on the Tern "Link" too!

Allan on the Tern "Verge X10"

This Dahon IOS9 was my favorite and the one I tested. Sorry no photo of me on the bike!

Our Bikes@Vienna demo lady got a bit long-winded when we got to the high end Brompton line of folding bikes, so we politely thanked her at an appropriate break and headed back to our starting points at Bluemont and Potterton. 

Ted, Lucie and Nomi waiting at the light at Glen Carlin and Leesburg Pike.

It was great ride for our small group. Here's a photo of our intrepid riders:

Lucie, Ted, Allan, Marcelle, Nomi and Larry

Hopefully, we can get in a few more rides before the cold weather sets in. 

A couple of final notes: Loaner bikes

Allan Mostoff, one of our riders and a former LB resident now residing at the Crescent Apartments at Lee Highway and Washington Boulevard (right on the W&OD Trail) has informed me that his building offers loaner bikes to residents, and he offered to arrange for anyone in the LB Bike Club who doesn't have a bike to borrow one of the loaner bikes. Contact Allan directly at mostoff@aol.com or contact me to arrange this at larrygol@yahoo.com or by phone at 703-658-8658, mobile 703-626-0801.

Weekday rides

Finally, there are a number of us that would like to ride during the week, so my suggestion is that those who are interested in weekday rides send me an email, and I'll set up a informal email subgroup of the LB Bike Club for these weekday rides, similar to what I do with an informal group of kayakers. The kayakers just send out a same day email to members of that group along the lines of "Anyone who wants to join me at 6pm this evening, let's meet up at Beach 3." Whoever is interested and available just meets up at the arranged location. 

For our weekday riders, I think we need a bit more advance notice, so anyone going out would send out an email the evening or day before with a time and starting place -- something like this: "I'm going out for a ride tomorrow morning at 11 for an hour. Anyone who'd like to join me meet me at Stoneybrae and Crosswoods or let me know where you'll be. I'm riding around the lake via Beachway to Blair to Columbia Pike to Aqua Terrace to Lakeview. Here's my mobile number:  703-626-0801." We could also plan for longer rides during the week this way as well with a few more days notice. 

The weekend rides will stlll be planned in advance with at least 4-5 days advance notice if not more.

If anyone has any other suggestions, comments, etc., about the club, the rides, etc., please let me know. 

See you next time.

Larry