Bikin' Hardcore!

I've discovered a new love: that of cycling. I'd actually been planning to buy a bike for the past six years or so, and now that I've gone out and done it, I'm chiding myself for not having 'pulled the trigger' sooner. Biking is awesome. The reason for my reluctance was, of course, financial: Biking for 'realz' requires the initial investment in a bike, plus several necessary accessories that quickly add up. It's more than worth it.

I now bike 11.5 km (~7.5 mi) to work every day using a local commuter trail. Amazingly, it takes me about 40 mins, which is often faster than taking public transit (and is always faster than taking public transit on weekends due to all of the track maintenance work). Also, biking > 20 km per day has really gone a long way to assisting 'Operation Iron-Carlo', or my attempt to be in the best shape I've ever been in by the time I'm 30. I'm actually making better-than-expected progress on this front, so I have no doubt that I will succeed.

To that end, today a friend and I went on an epic almost 50K bike ride all the way from Rockville MD to Capitol Hill in DC.

Here's a rough sketch of the route we took. There are more efficient routes to get from Rockville to DC, but they're not as nice and scenic.

The commuter trails for this trip are beautiful and a great ride. All told, it took about 3.5 hours - mostly because we weren't speeding along at breakneck pace. Instead we took it easy, and chatted about science-fiction novels most of the way. Who would've thought that you could mix geekyness and exercise? I'm sure that I'll have the chance to check out many more of the excellent bike trails they've got in this area... As long as I don't get anymore flat tires.