Second Annual Cherry Blossom Ride

On a gorgeous, blue morning, 12 members and one guest of the Lake Barcroft Bike Club set out for the 26 mile round trip to see our nation's capital's best show of the spring, the Japanese Cherry Blossoms at the Tidal Basin.

With myself in the lead and Jerry Mendenhall as the sweep, our group enjoyed the cool breeze as we made our way up Beachway and over to the Four Mile Run and W&OD Trails. Here are some photos of our group along the way.

Newt, Lloyd, John and Linda meet up at Bluemont Park

Ellen checks her phone before departure

Jerry and Lloyd 

Newt and Mike installing a wheel on Andrea's bike

Stopping at Gravelly Point, near Reagan Airport, is always a thrill.

Ride leader, Larry (photo by Newt)

Planes swooping directly overhead toward their landing

Guest biker Mark

Arriving in front of the Jefferson Memorial, the group stops to take in the scene and for photos.

Mike, Lloyd, Jerry, Newt, Andrea, Gail and Jim

Blossoms just past peak

Enjoying the scene

Mark and Newt, left, Gail and Cindy, right

View over the Tidal Basin

Visitors enjoying the scene

Cindy, Gail and Larry (photo by Newt)

John and Linda 

Tourists with great hats

The group shot: back row: Larry, Lloyd, Andrea, Mark, Newt, Gail and Jim
Front row: Mike, Jerry, Cindy and Ellen. (Not pictured here: John and Linda) 

After enjoying our morning and the beautiful scene, riders took off for the return trip. Newt, Mark and I lingered a bit and visited the Martin Luther King Memorial before heading back. On the way, a surprise: the Bolivian community was holding it's annual Carnival de Oruro along Four Mile Run Drive. Based on a 2,000+ year-old religious and cultural tradition in Bolivia, the parade featured music and colorful folk dancers from different areas of Bolivia. 

With all this Bolivian culture, we stopped at Cafe Sazon at the plaza at 4704 Columbia Pike, where the bike trail crosses, for an excellent Bolivian lunch. Highly recommended for both food and service. 

Reviews are in and everyone reported a great day for biking and a fun outing.

The next ride of the Lake Barcroft Bike Club will be posted soon.

Opening Season Ride to Vienna, Virginia

The Lake Barcroft Bike Club's first ride of 2014 on Saturday, originally bound for Buzz Bakery in Alexandria, diverted to Vienna, Virginia instead, for a fun but challenging, chilly and windy morning ride. 

Our hearty three person contingent included Rick Uritus, recumbent bike aficionado Bill Cook and me. The newly constructed, but very unwieldy detour on the Four Mile Run Trail (just before the Mount Vernon Trail) led me to make this last minute change to our itinerary. Unfortunately that detour will continue into the summer, and bike riders will need to face it if they want to enjoy rides south into Old Town and on to Mount Vernon. But maneuvering that detour on a recumbent bike would be difficult.

We set out at 8:30 a.m. and faced a tiring and chilly headwind as we pedaled west to the W&OD Trail, through Falls Church and Dunn Loring and then on to Vienna. 

Bill and Rick at Bluemont Park

Despite the relentless wind we finally made it to Vienna under a bright blue sky and warmed up with coffee and bagel sandwiches at Caffe Amouri, a great little local coffee shop on Church Street. Check our their website here: http://www.caffeamouri.com/ .

Rick, Bill and Larry outside Caffe Amouri

On Bill's recommendation we then headed over to the Pure Pasty Company,                         http://www.purepasty.com/, to pick up some Cornish pasties (pronounced "pass-tees") to take home. These baked gems wrapped in a wonderful pie crust are traditional meat and vegetable pies, somewhat like empanadas but with a lot more filling. The wives and mothers of tin miners in Cornwall would make them for their hardworking husbands and sons to help them get through the day. Easy to carry even on a bike, they make a satisfying meal today as well.

Loaded down with our pasties, we headed east down the W&OD trail, with the wind at our backs on the return ride, for a well-earned afternoon of relaxation and Cornish pasties.

Next week, the 2nd Annual Cherry Blossom Ride. Check your email for details.

Spring is coming? 2014 Biking at Lake Barcroft

Hello Lake Barcroft Bike Club! 

It's March 7, time to emerge from hibernation. 

With spring only two weeks away, the Cherry Blossoms predicted to peak a few weeks after that, and still, it's cold? I for one am tired of winter and got very spoiled by my warm weather, sea-breezy and shaded-forest bike rides in the Piñones State Forest and Nature Reserve in Puerto Rico a few weeks ago.

Biking in Piñones is a favorite activity of mine. This 11-kilometer nature trail is located just minutes east of the high rise condos and fancy hotels of Isla Verde, but you find yourself in another world with less crowded and even empty beaches, rocky shores, and mangrove forests. 

The trail comprises both a paved path that runs along the beach and then becomes a boardwalk as you enter into the mangrove forests. It is mostly flat and takes about 2 hours to go directly from one end and back. But I stop multiple times along the way for photographs, so it can take much longer. 

A Cooperative that helps promote the Piñones area and local businesses, COPI (the acronym comes from it’s name in Spanish), hosts a company, CicloNatura, that rents bicycles. They offer “comfort” bikes (the ones with the fat tires) but I needed something my size, and the only one to fit me was this "rustbucket". If you look carefully, you'll see the rust on the top, seat and down tubes, the chainstays and around the crank.

I shouldn't complain. I was glad to find a bike to fit me, even if the gearing kept slipping the brakes hardly worked and that left pedal was wobbly. I took a risk riding this, with all my camera gear in a pack on my back, but it all worked out.  

Here is a view from the trail.

Here is the first subject that popped into view. He was a really big specimen, and at first glance I couldn't believe that I spotted him, lounging high up in a tree: Iguana.

You can see more of my Puerto Rico 2014 nature and other photos on my photography blog here, as I add them.

Back in Lake Barcroft, we missed the big snows of February, and were glad the roads were plowed so quickly following this week's snow, although shoveling out two cars and a long driveway, as many of you did, was not my idea of how to spend an early March day.

CLUB RIDES 2014

So now, let's talk of upcoming rides. 

Time to get your bike in shape as well as your body. I've been doing studio cycling throughout the winter at 24 Hour Fitness and on my home trainer, so I'm ready, are you? The 10 day weather forecast  forecast is a mixed bag, with temps in the 60s this coming Monday and Tuesday, but still on and off chilly though March 15. Hopefully, the temperatures will start to rise thereafter. See
http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/Falls+Church+VA+22044:4:US

UPCOMING RIDES

The first ride of the season is tentatively scheduled, weather permitting, for Saturday morning, March 29. We'll do an easy ride down to our favorite bakery and coffeeshop just north of Old Town Alexandria, Buzz Bakery, to start out the season. This is a nice, easy ride suitable for any level of rider. Remember that our club is purely recreational, so even if you are wearing your logo-emblazoned spandex, except for those who prefer to move at race pace, the majority will not be racing. You'll be receiving details about the ride soon.

We'll follow that with our 2nd Annual Cherry Blossom Ride. The date could be Saturday morning, April 12 or April 19, depending on the timing of the blooms, so pencil in those dates and I'll give the exact date as we get a bit closer.

Please let me know if any of these dates conflict with community activities so I can reset the dates to accommodate as best as possible. I'll alternate Saturday and Sunday rides throughout the season for those who are working during the week and will sprinkle in shorter weekday evening rides as well. Other rides this year may include rides to Vienna, Virginia, Virginia, Del Ray in Alexandria, National Harbor, Mount Vernon, Reston Town Center and the Capital Crescent Trail to Bethesda. If you have another favorite ride to share with the club, let me know. Most rides have a lunch or coffee stop around halfway through. Rides vary in length and difficulty, so join in on those that you feel comfortable with. A few hills here and there shouldn't really stop you from participating. You can always walk up a hill. Ride leaders at the front and back end of the group watch out for slower riders and help anyone with a flat tire. 

I'll also be starting up once or twice a week (or more), one hour workout rides around the Lake at various times of day. I'll email the membership when I do these. These rides are more ad hoc and last minute, so if you see an email about a lake ride, let me know if you plan to join. Generally, I start at Potterton Bridge if there are takers for these rides. The route is meant to be a workout, with lots of hills, riding up Beachway, down and back on Mansfield, Greentree, Duff/Beachway to Beach 4, Pinetree, and down the Columbia Pike trail to Aqua. From there we cross and do the length of Lakeview from east to west, and return either via the Women's Club Bridge to Crosswoods, or cut through from Whispering over to Sleepy Hollow and up to Malbrook to Crosswoods. It's a challenging ride, but a satisfying feeling once accomplished. Feel free to drop out at any point.

NEWCOMERS OPEN HOUSE 

The Newcomers Club is holding the first of an annual open house to showcase Lake Barcroft's clubs and organizations to new residents of the community. This year, the event will be held on Sunday, March 23, from 1-4 pm at the home of Lark Lovering, 6326 Cavalier Corridor. I'll be there with a table promoting the Lake Barcroft Bike Club. All current and prospective bike club members are invited to stop by and pick up bike maps or other goodies relating to biking and talk about riding. For more info, contact Charlotte Flounders at cflounders@fdic.gov, Open House Coordinator, or Nomi Taslitt at nomitaslit@aol.com, President, Newcomers Club


BIKE CLUB WEARABLES AND DISCOUNTS
I've been looking into creating a bike club jersey for our club. I had already designed and sell a custom printed 16"x20" Lake Barcroft poster and was thinking this design could be on the jersey. 

Here's what it would look like:

Let me have your thoughts on this. The jerseys would run anywhere from $35-$60 depending on the supplier. Keep in mind cheaper may mean cheaper quality. If I can get a good number of people to place an order, I'll choose a quality supplier and we can have these in a few weeks.  

I am also looking into getting discounts for club members at local bike shops for equipment, accessories and repairs. It may involve printing membership or discount cards. I'll let you if this works out.

See you soon out on the trails!

Larry

 
The Lake Barcroft Bike Club is an informal club of bike riding enthusiasts and their families and friends who reside in or near Lake Barcroft. There is no formal membership application or dues. Anyone interested in club activities is welcome to send me your email address and I'll add you to the mailing list. The mailing list and this blog keep members informed about upcoming rides, display photographs of rides, and provide general information and tips about biking. Send your comments, ideas, and/or complaints, via email to me at larrygol@yahoo.com or follow me on Twitter at @larrygol1.