Annapolis Bike Plan

I received an email from a guy who works for the city of Annapolis. He sends out emails once or twice a month with things going on about biking in an around Annapolis. This email was about a new initiative to discover the good and bad things about biking in Annapolis. He requested we use a map, which he provided, to outline high traffic areas, bike parking needs, dirty/unusable bike paths, dangerous intersections, etc. The map is online and at Community Walk. It is highly interactive and allows a user (with the username and password he provided) to add icons and notes anywhere with information.

When I first used it there were only about 5 icons. I added a dozen or so, but I find it funny how much it has blown up since then. I don't think you can make it a tenth of a mile without something wrong.



I went on a very short ride up to the start of BWI from my house this weekend, just to check out how safe it was. Looks to be a good route, though I might do some weaving through backroads to avoid sitting on West B&A as much as possible.

Bike 2 Work 2011

Biking season (for me) has officially begun! Today was Central Maryland's Bike to Work Day, which is put on every year by the Baltimore Metropolitan Council. Working in Annapolis, I went down to the City Docks to the rally where they had a food table, coffee table, and gave a few speeches. Even with the threat of thunderstorms this afternoon, it was an amazing turn out! I was keeping an eye out for Chesapeake Sailor, but I think he headed on in to work instead of sticking around for the festivities.

They only had three raffles this year, which was a lot less than the previous two years, but one coworker was lucky enough to win a bike chain picture frame:

Five of us from ARINC made it down to enjoy the rally.... here are a few pictures:

Beautiful Weather!

I've been in a training class all week and was lucky enough to get out early today. The wife headed home early as well and we did a quick little 9 mile bike ride down and back up the B&A. Glad that she was wanting to go out though I am looking forward to a solo bike ride so I can up the speed.

Happy New Year!

A lot has been going on recently with me... I haven't posted in a few months due to... well, not really riding. I have done a few shorter rides, staying in my neighborhood, but the weather has kept me from doing much. I still haven't convinced myself to go out in sub 50 weather...

But, on the awesome side, my wife and I finally purchased a house! It is still in the process of being built, but once it completes, it will be a few miles from where our townhouse is, in Severn. 3.5 miles from the BWI loop and about 4 miles from B&A. It will be done January 31, so in a month we will be packing up and moving on in!

Today we went out shopping and I was surprised to see how warm it was, a nice 52 degrees. I decided to jump on my bike and do my normal Elvaton-B&A-East/West loop. Having never ridden in weather this cold (hey, its cold for me!) I donned bike shorts and a long sleeve Under Armor shirt with my new Dogfish Head jersey. Just a few pics... but I learned quite a bit. First off, gloves are necessary. It wasn't that bad, but my hands were very unresponsive. Second, I need a second layer of long, wind proof on my upper body. My legs, however were quite fine.

It also looks like they have made ZERO progression on fixing the B&A from where it washed out over a year ago.

Looks like Garmin Connect switched from Google Maps to Bing.

I wonder who wins...

Beautiful day down to Annapolis

This weekend's weather has been phenomenal.  I decided to get back out on the bike and head down to Annapolis.  Not surprisingly for such a wonderful day, Annapolis was packed.  I had a good time getting lost around town, going down roads I wasn't aware of.  They had a band playing down on the docks and a food festival of some sorts going on as well.  And tons of boats out!

Aluminum Man

Well, it has been nearly two weeks since I did the 114 miles on the C&O. My buddy who went with me apparently got hit by a car while biking in downtown Frederick and walked away with a severe concussion. Glad to hear he is ok, but scary none-the-less. I haven't been biking since. I weighed myself when I got home and was startled to see I was down to 139 pounds, a weight I can honestly say I don't ever remember seeing, even in high school when I was playing soccer every day. 139 pounds is an unhealthy low and I spent the next couple days packing on weight to get myself back up to a more healthy 145. I started lifting weights again as well, which has been a lot of fun. I destroyed my legs doing squats and that put me on the sideline of any cardio training for a few days. But I am feeling great now.

So the title of this post is Aluminum Man. What is the Aluminum Man? Well, talking with my buddy we realized that over the past few years we have done the running and biking portions of the Ironman. A few years back we backpacked 27 miles in a day. While we certainly weren't running and it did take us a good portion of the day, we were carrying close to 70 pounds on our backs. And just two weekends ago we did 114 miles of biking. The only thing left is the 2.4 mile swim.

Looking at that, we decided to come up with a half iron man we could do back to back in a single day. 1.1 miles of swimming, 57 miles of biking, and 13.1 miles of running. I devised a way we could do this self-contained and dubbed it the Aluminum Man (Iron's atomic number is 26, aluminum is 13). We would take off from my house, go to the B&A, ride around the BWI Loop four times then come back to my house. From there we would leave our bikes, switch into running clothes and run down East West to the B&A and follow that all the way south to the Naval Academy Bridge. Once there we would jump in the Severn River and swim 1.1 miles northward to the other bridge and exit there.



The reasoning behind this route is that we are never very far away from water or food. If we coordinate it well, we can park a car at the airport loop with food and water. Each lap, if we needed it, we could go to the car and get fresh water and/or food before continuing. Of course we can refill when we get back to my house. The run is a bit different. We might need a swag biker to stay with us with a backpack full of food and water that we can use as we run south. At the swimming point we can have another car to change in, refuel, and then have a canoe accompany us across the river for safety. Once there we can have the canoe-ist take us back across the river to the car and call it a day.

We are planning this for this time next year. I know the biking portion will be simple and I have confidence in my swimming ability. The only question will be the running, but if we give ourselves a full year of training, I see this being very very doable.