Remington Loop With Katie

First ride of 2020!

Katie and I braved moderate wind and low temps (in the high 30s) today to do a 30 mile ride in Remington, VA. When we got to the start, however, the temperature said 42 degrees, higher than expected, so we were glad we forged ahead. I did this ride with WWO a few years ago and recreated the cue sheet from a picture--which made me 30 minutes late to pick up Katie--who thought maybe she misunderstood me on the phone and we had decided to cancel the ride because of the weather.  Thankfully she didn't leave without me!

Not many pictures because of the cold - plus I have a bunch of pics of this ride already - all the purple houses in particular. But here I was compelled to stop and take the gloves off to snap a pick of this mural.

Beautiful blue skies and lucky sunshine that kept us warm at the start when we really needed it.

Katie waiting patiently for me, which she did a lot today.

This ride is not spectacular, but just filled with peaceful, expansive fields. It's also relatively flat which makes it a good ride for winter when my fitness isn't as high.

We were horrified to come across this park--Lenn Park--flying a Confederate flag.  The website is interesting - it skirts the Confederate history, providing an extensive slide show of the inside of the clubhouse but not one image of the Confederate Memorial near the flags, and the one outside picture of the park that includes the flags is distant enough that it's hard to tell what's flying. But when you're on site, it's hard to miss.

There was quite a bit of history posted describing the battle that occurred here and the death of William Farley, who lost his leg and died on the battlefield and is celebrated in the park's kiosks. The land was donated to the county by "three brothers" for recreational purposes, so I'm suspicious that the Confederate display was a condition of the donation. The write-up of the battle felt to me like the many memorials littering Gettysburg Battlefield that have been erected by family members or descendants of the deceased rather than by historians.

Confederate displays like this are surreal to me. Katie and I talked about what we would do if our ancestors were involved in something so atrocious as taking up arms to defend the right to own slaves. We agreed the dilemma isn't so difficult: we can condemn the actions of past family members and acknowledge that their mistakes shouldn't be celebrated. That people feel like they must cling to this history despite its obvious moral depravity speaks, we agreed, to a failed education system that has not adequately illuminated the atrocities perpetrated against Black people during and since slavery.

A faux headstone memorializing William Farley

At mile 20ish, we decided to stop for a snack. We picked a sunny place in hopes of keeping warm. I didn't notice the No Trespassing sign until Katie pointed it out as a car turned into the driveway we were occupying. I waved and smiled in hopes of subduing their potential unhappiness to find us parked on the edge of their property.

Our bikes leaning against the No Trespassing sign in an unintentional act of brazen disregard.

Katie posing for a pic to prove I didn't do the ride alone!

The temperature dropped after we ate and our feet were suddenly very cold. We had also been going slightly uphill and now everything was down, which is nice, but chilly.  At mile 28ish, we crossed back over Kelly's Ford. I stopped for the pic and checked the temperature: it had dropped to 38 degrees.

I was wondering exactly what a ford is, now I know.

Forgot to mention at the beginning that after taking so much care to be sure I had all my cold weather gear, I neglected to grab my sunglasses off the counter at home. This could have been a really bad mistake because the cold would have been hard on my eyes. But I found these orange child's sunglasses in my car which did the trick.

And that was that! We stayed warm enough except perhaps my numb feet. Twenty minutes into the ride home, they started to feel cold, which means they were thawing out!

Here are the cue sheets, which were remarkably perfect - down to the tenth of a mile.

Distance: 32 miles
Speed: 12.8 mph