The long and winding road...

This weekend my training took a turn for the intense. I have had my new bike for some time now, and had racked up some decent miles to date, but at some point one must put the rubber to the road and test the limits. With a couple friends down in Charlottesville, Virginia, and more from New York coming through DC to visit them there, a perfect opportunity for a long ride presented itself. So I packed my bag (er, CamelBak) and after $2.45 in Metro fare, 200 oz of water, 3 Clif Bars and 112 miles, I was basking in the afterglow of a hard day's cycling and the company of good friends. That, though, is a bit too neat and rosy a statement to capture the full experience.

I set out Saturday AM on the metro from my home in the middle of Washington, DC. The blue line to Franconia offered a chance to take a chunk out of the high traffic roads I'd have to travel, and I was able to route a nice cut over which ran on by Burke Lake and towards Manassas. A brief aside: Virginians take their highway clean up seriously. A plethora of community organizations, boy scout troops, and one oddball menagerie that chose to denote itself as "Angry Rednecks Who Hate Litter" are apparently proud participants in Virginia's Adopt-A-Highway program. The Angry Rednecks' stretch sure was litter free, but I would have appreciated their removing a stray beaver carcass which, in the warm March sun unique to the Mid-Atlantic, proved the most powerful odor I came across all trip.

I was a bit spoiled by this early run through tree-lined single lane roads, and as I skirted the southern fringe of Manassas I reentered the suburban sprawl for which Northern Virginia is known. My sails still full with my first wind, though, I pedaled on through to 28-S, and as the highway interchanges, strip malls, and McMansions of Manassas fell away behind me I came into the world of verdant fields and ruminating livestock, as well as the full fragrance one might imagine in both, in which I would dwell for the rest of my Saturday on the road. I stayed strong on up to the 45 mile mark, and there first felt my energy falter. A decent rest on a hilltop and a few Clif bars had me back on my feet in no time, and I stayed strong, despite battling a potent headwind, all the way through the rolling hills of Rapidan Road into Orange, Virginia and just over the 80 mile mark.  

Another rest and a meal there steeled me for the final push down the Constitution Highway into Charlottesville. The sun was drawing closer to the Blue Ridge Mountains off to the west. The first 12 of the last 28 miles were covered rapidly, but into the mid-90 mile mark there were more hills, screaming quads, and my pace was often reduced to a tortured crawl. The sun was setting and a chill in with it, and it was neither strength or energy but willpower only which kept my legs moving even as they cramped. I came into the city as its lights came up, and found my way to my friends in almost complete darkness. I cannot say that I came in like a conquering hero, in fact I was fairly vanquished by the whole ordeal. But I can say that I did it, and that this is just the first of many more trying trips and moments for setting my mind over the matter of my body.

On February 19, I spent a Friday away from work (sweat equity never felt so good!) volunteering with Habitat for Humanity of Washington, DC. Now I’ve participated in build projects before, from the Hudson Valley in New York to Highlands County, FL, but the project in DC is unique for its sheer scale. At a 53-home development in Northeast DC which already accommodates nearly forty families, a crew of Americorps volunteers and armies of weekend volunteers stay on pace to build ten new homes each year. DC has only recently begun to rebound from decades of urban decay following major riots in 1968, and the significance of the H4H effort here was enough to prompt a visit from the President and First Lady on September 11 of last year.



Against that broad background, my part in this project was as small as a 6’ x 8’ room. I hung sheet rock in what may become, of all things, an elevator shaft. This home – something of an anomaly among affordable housing’s usually simple, one-story floor plans – is being built to American Disability Association specifications. That means bigger bathrooms, a very unique kitchen and, because it’s multi-story, plans for an elevator! I have hung sheet rock many times, but working on a new site inevitably brings fresh experience (sheetrocking an elevator shaft), new skills (“Glue before you screw!”), and new vocabulary: “cripple” (stud), “mud” (spackle), and “heat gun” (propane-fired heat artillery - er, space heater, which also goes under “fresh experience”).

The bottom line is, even if you have volunteered on build sites before, your sweat equity hours are an opportunity to hone your skills, learn new things, and experience the great work that’s being done on affordable housing beyond even the impressively expansive boundaries of Bike and Build!