Washington and Old Dominion Trail

Purcellville, VA

The Washington and Old Dominion Trail is a 45 mile paved bicycle path from Purcellville, VA to Shirlington, VA. I completed a round-trip ride on it yesterday.

It took me from 10 am to 11 pm. A distance of 90 miles in thirteen hours!



Fly-over animation of the entire trail! So cool! (Warning: large data download)

Link to my workout on MapMyRide

There are markers every 0.5 miles along the trail, numbered from mile 45 in Purcellville to mile 0 in Shirlington. Mile marker map.    Google bicycle map.

Fireman's Field

A good place to park the car in Purcellville from morning to night without getting ticketed or towed is at Fireman's Field baseball park. Thanks, local policemen who showed me the way there!

My bicycle is a 26" Roadmaster Granite Peak Women's Bike. I bought it from the local Walmart in used condition clearance priced at $67. LOL. I'm embarrassed bringing it into bike shops where a tune-up would cost more than the bike itself. Some shop techs are real nice to me, others can be pretentious douches. But hey, I'ma do this thing n.e. way so fuk dem hoes.

Trailhead at mile 45 in Purcellville, VA

The paved trail is in excellent condition from start to finish. All the road crossings are clearly marked and most drivers are very patient.

Purcellville, VA

The first five miles (mile 45 to 40) on the bicycle was an argument with myself on where to place furniture. The seat was too high, then too low. The rear rack wasn't lined up. The pannier bags were weighted unevenly and banging against the wheels.

I'd forgotten how much give and take was needed for parts to work together. After some getting off and on, trial and error, my butt and my head started to agree and make progress.

Miles 38 to 35 were very fast straights. I sang at the top of my lungs. I sang songs nonstop for ten miles. I was so excited. I smiled and waved at everybody. My heart shouted, "I'm on a bicycle again. I feel so liberated!"

Carolina Brother's Pit BBQ at mile 27.5 in Ashburn, VA.

At mile 17, I stopped in Reston to rest for food and bike adjustments.

It was 1:30 pm when I slipped into Pizza Hut in Reston, VA, just as their lunch buffet was ending. I was in luck! Quickly scooped up three mountainous plates of carbs from the bar. Pasta in marina sauce. Pineapple ham pizza... yeah, might as well drown that in marina sauce too. (It actually tasted delicious.) Supreme pizza, meat pizza, cinnamon bread sticks. Fuel for the fire.

The air in the region is humid and there's dust or pollen or something in the air. Whatever it is, my exercise induced asthma started to act up. Especially after I exited the cold, air-conditioned restaurant. I coughed a lot. I decreed there was to be no more singing for a while.

The Bike Lane bicycle shop at mile 16.5 in Reston, VA.

After getting my seat and packs set up the way I liked, I got another bike problem. My front derailleur was getting stuck on second gear. I couldn't shift up to third on high gear. So I rolled up to a repair shop. I asked to borrow some tools, and when it became clear I didn't know what I was doing, a tech helped me tighten the cable tension to fix the problem. Thanks, Becky! You're awsum!

We also hacked together an idea to keep my pannier bags from hitting the wheel. The gear shifter on the right had a cage around it. So, I just unscrewed the cage and put it on the left side of the frame, upside down. Winning! Now those pesky bags cannot bite me anymore!

I happily continued on a full stomach and a smooth bicycle. From Vienna (mile 13) to Falls Church (mile 5), there's a nice quaint historical touristy feel to the little town shops and signs.

Vienna Train Station at mile 12 in Vienna, VA

Then neighborhoods become more city and dense. There are many road crossings, pedestrians, little girls in helmets on trikes, pony-tailed joggers, and a lot more super-pro spandex Lance Armstrongs.

19th street N at mile 5 in Arlington, VA

From mile 5 to 0, some of the views are pretty. Almost to the end!

Four Mile Run trail at mile 1.7 in Arlington, VA

S Four Mile Run Dr at mile 1.5 in Arlington, VA

Dun dun dun dun dun. The home stretch. Charge!
We made it, Ulix!

Trailhead at mile 0 in Shirlington, VA

And now, to do it all over again!

It was 4:24 pm. Sunset at 8:22 pm.
Here we go!

The afternoon humidity rose. I was dripping in sweat. I couldn't wipe my eyes fast enough to keep the salt out. And I hadn't eaten enough salt to keep water in me.

My wrists hurt the most. My pelvis above the seat came a close second. My hip and rotators screeched. The small of my back hummed. (Thank Jesus I didn't wear a backpack or it would've been much worse). My palms chanted. Now it wasn't me singing to my body; it was my body singing to me in the language of pain.

By the end of the ride, I think my body got better at squeezing the seat between my upper hamstrings to distribute my weight, instead of sitting down hard on my pelvic bone. My butt hurt less.

Or maybe my body got tired of being in pain. "You keep sitting on your butt even when I say its damaged. What's the point of sending you messages, Jonathan, you don't listen anyway. So go ahead, smush your loins into jelly. I don't care anymore. "

Bicycle repair station at mile 20.5 in Herndon, VA

I had to lie down and stretch a few times, retighten my derailleur cable once more, eat bread and change into a dry shirt.

I pedaled most of the way in flip flops. It's not as crazy as it sounds! Nobody else I saw does this, but I find it seriously helps cool off on a long trip. They don't trap my feet in a stifling, damp casket. Also, I get a good grip on the pedals with a thin flat sole. I can keep pressure throughout each stroke. They don't slip off the pedal when wet, the way shoes with treads do.

And flip flops are essential in torrential rains to keep my feet from getting pruned and weighed down in a shoefuls of water. Such a storm just might happen.

Battlefield Pkwy overpass at mile 33 in Leesburg, VA

Sundown. 8:22 pm. Mile 25 in Ashburn.

Hello darkness my old friend.
Your happy day is at an end.

Another 20 miles to make it back to Purcellville.

In the darkness existential thoughts. Silence is absence of sound. What is the color of darkness? Black is the absence of light. Fireflies spontaneously come in and out of existence. Particle and antiparticles annihilate each other in random fluctuations in space.



From mile 30 to 33 on the return trip, thunderstorms and torrential rain between Belmont and Leesburg. But hey, what's an adventure without some calamity?

Dark paths along Kincaid Forest. My flashlight was close to useless in rain, because the water was so thick all I could see were drops in front of me. The road was as wet as the sky. It looked all the same, except for the splashes of raindrops hitting the ground. Every once in a while a flash of lightning reminded me of my place beneath the power of Zeus.

Rain is heavy and rain is cold. I stopped under a highway overpass. An American flag on the bridge cast long, wavy shadows on the trees behind me like a banshee.



As rough as the rain was, I checked DarkSky weather and saw the rain clouds were only over Leesburg. It cannot last forever, I reminded myself. Nothing does, good or bad. It wasn't my first time bicycling through torrential rain either. In a few miles, it will clear if I just keep going.

I checked my pack. Things inside were moderately dry, so I stored my phone and ate bread. Bread is warmth and bread is life. 

Sure enough, the rain stopped when I got into the city. I even saw a bicyclist going the opposite direction, then sometime later, another. I thought, "Wow you too bicycling in this rain, huh?" I said "Hi" but they didn't answer. Probably they were Japanese fox spirits or something. No human would go out in this weather.



After mile 35, there was not much excitement. The conditions were easy and the distance short. Getting to mile 45 was a certainty now. It was only a matter of time.

I started writing this blog post in my head while I waited out the miles. I tried to recall the day's events from interesting points of view. Knowing after waking up the next day and looking at Reddit memes, I'll probably have forgotten what I wanted to say. Or what sounded amazing in the echo chamber of my mind would be ejected into this world like an ugly, misshapen baby from the womb.

(Wow that's such a depressing thought to end on! It seemed cute and amusing at the time. So let's pretend it is, and move on.)



I made it to the trailhead. YaTa! I found my car. Yoshi! I stripped naked and put on clean clothes, but I needed two showers and a bath.

I ate a fish sandwich and a burger from Checkers on the drive back to Manassas, VA. My fitness app says I burned 3802 kCal from bicycling, so as a Planet Fitness recorded voice would say, "After all, you worked out today. You deserve it!"

Food tasted so good and my car seat felt comfortable. I felt satisfied. That is the real meaning of luxury. Comforts to recover from hardships, not conveniences to avoid them!



On this trail, I made a little journey that recalled moments of a greater journey I did two years ago. I never meant for that journey to end, only to find a different form. After aimlessly drifting some time, I feel like I have found my way back to it and I hope to keep it going.

There is no finish line. The destination is the journey. The journey is life.



It was a great day.