Guus Bosman

While Sasha and Nora spent a mother-and-daughter afternoon together, Jaap and I went for a long bike ride. We rented bike's from BikeShare, and drove to the National Mall. This was the first time I rented bikes from there and it worked really well. We picked up our bikes at Veitch Street, drove 20 minutes to DC and left them at the kiosk at Metro Center. Great system.

At the Mall we visited the Freer Gallery, a museum with Asian and Western art, and then had lunch in the National Museum for the American Indian. The latter is a new museum. It's a beautiful building, with interesting materials, but it had an air of melancholy -- not surprising of course, given the subject.

On the way back we biked past the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, and crossed the bridge to Arlington. A great afternoon. It's so special that we can simply go for a bike ride together.

Today I went for a bike ride, for the first time since we moved to Durham.

I spent an hour cleaning and checking the bike and realized in time that fixing a squeaking break with oil would not be a good idea.

I went to the American Tobacco Trail. The trail is nice, but it takes a while to get there as it starts in downtown Durham. All in all I spend about 2,5 hours on the bike. The weather was nice.

In the evening I went to a bike shop near Wholefoods to ask about bicycle maps, but there aren't any for this area. Bicycling is less popular here than in Washington.

Last Tuesday was Fourth of July, Independence Day in the United States.

It's great to celebrate that event in the nation's capitol. In the early afternoon I went for a bike ride downtown. It was a special experience bicycling around the Mall and Tidal Basin, because all roads were blocked for car traffic. There were a lot of bicyclist driving on the roads.

I was back by 3 pm to see the soccer game between Germany and Italy.

Some pictures.

On Sunday I felt quite some muscle pain from Saturday's bike trip, so I decided to go for a little round to get my legs moving again.

However, when I arrived in Rosslyn I felt much better, and the weather was amazing, so I decided to go for a long trip instead. I went to Mount Vernon again (like the first leg of the Super Nova), but this time I did it round trip.

I can feel my bicycling improving -- it took me a little under four hours to do the complete round trip, which is about 36 miles altogether.

Sasha came back on Monday, which was very nice. I spend Tuesday and Wednesday in another city for work, came back around 7 pm yesterday.

The last couple of weeks I have been bicycling quite a lot. It's fun, because I like to explore the area that I live in, and it's a great work out.

The other day I toured the Arlington Triangle again, this time in a little over two hours. Today I did the first part of a large tour that I once would like to do: the Super Nova. Clearly, a 70+ miles ride is overly ambitious for me, but it's fun to work towards something. Today I drove the first 25 miles, from Court House to Reagan National Airport, from there to Mount Vernon, and finally to Springfield, where I took the metro home.

I had lunch near Springfield, and just when I was done Ettie called, which was very nice. The last 15 minutes or so it was raining, but not to bad, and I arrived reasonably dry at the Franconia-Springfield metro station (the last stop on the blue line).

When I came home I realized I had gotten a sun tint; there was a bright sun in the morning.

Last Sunday I spent pretty much the entire day on the bicycle. I did the Great Washington Bicycle Loop ride, a route around Washington and many of the suburbs.

It was pretty cold, but very sunny. The first half of the route was on the Capital Crescent trail, which I had done before, basically going north to Bethesda. I'd never seen Bethesda before, but didn't spend a lot of time there, and continued the trail.

In Silver Spring I got some bread, cheese and milk and I had lunch in the Sligo Creek park. At one point in South-West D.C. my clue sheet told me to leave the Sligo Creek trail, but I took a wrong exit, and within 1 minute bicycling I arrived in a really bad neighbourhood. Not just shabby, but it seriously scary, with broken down cars and a lot of unpleasant folks on the street. I quickly turned around -- it's easy to forget that Washington has some really bad neighbourhoods.

On my way back it was really cool to approach Union Station from the north, although traffic was pretty crazy there.

There are many differences between bicycling in the States and in the Netherlands. For one thing, there are much less bicycles on the road here, and typically more traffic.

Almost everybody wears a helmet here. When we first bought our bikes the salesman asked me if I thought I needed one, and I said no, with in mind my 23+ years experience in bicycling without a helmet.

However, two weeks ago, when I was bicycling on the Four Mile Run for the second time, I was driving pretty aggresively in the park, on a hilly road with tight corners. At one point I really under estimated a corner, and I more or less crashed in the roadside. No real injuries, I managed to stay on my feet during the incident by extending my arm and holding myself against a tree, so bike and rider were fine.

It did make the point clear though that a helmet would not be a totally unnecessary luxury. So, now I am the proud owner of a bicycle helmet.

Saturday I went on a rather ambitious bike trip: I visited the Great Falls, using a great bike route.

While early in the morning it was cloudy, when I left at 10.00 am the sun was shining brightly.

I started the route in Georgetown, just like the Lost Blossom Tour did. Somewhere half-way I made a wrong turn -- I took the Capital Crescent trail into DC, which I though had a connection to 2nd trail back towards the Falls, but it didn't. With this detour it took me quite a while to get there, but around 1.00 pm I made it to the Great Falls Overlook.

The first time I was at the Great Falls (with Jaap and Mieke), I was at the Virginia side of the river, this time I took the C&O Towpath on the Maryland side. The first part of the route was busy -- there was a MS Walk going on -- but after a few miles the road became very quiet, and it is truly a beautiful ride.

I had lunch in a nice outdoor place. On my way back I used the Chain Bridge to cross the Potomac into Virginia, and took Militairy Road to get back home.

Some pictures.

The cherry blossoms are blooming. They are a very popular destination in D.C., and the Tidal Basin is usually very crowded.

Last Sunday I decided to bicycle the "The Lost Blossom Bicycle Tour". In North-West Washington there is a street in the Kenwood neighbourhood where there are a lot of cherry blossom trees.

It was a long trip. I started going north, next to the Potomac, and from there I took the Capital Crescent trail. The cherry blossoms were nice, and there were many people in the small park having lunch and hanging out with their kids.

On my back I cheated a bit with the route. Not to take a short-cut, but it's just that I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find my way, so I took Massachusetts Avenue all the way through D.C. until I reached Rock Creek park and crossed the river to go back home.

Some pictures.

Today I went for a back ride around Arlington.

I used four dedicated bicycle trails, so I hardly encountered any car traffic. I started by going to the Roosevelt Island entrance, and from there to Reagan National Airport. The second part of my trip brought me to Shirlington, where I had lunch at a sandwich place next to Carlyle's.

From Shirlington I continued the Four Mile Run trail (which is actually 6,5 miles). To get back home I used the Curtis trail. Initially I missed the exit to the east-bound Curtis trail, and it took me some 15 minutes to realize I was traveling west, not east.

When I got home I found this route on-line and it is named the Arlington Triangle. The link nicely shows the various trails I took. They call it a "nice, short route of only 17 miles", but I was rather proud of completing it. Of course I brought my camera so I have some pictures of my trip online.