Happy Friday, DMV*! It’s April 17.
CYCLISTS NEEDED: The Metro Washington Association of Blind Athletes is seeking volunteers to ride tandem bikes with their blind cycling group.
For years, my friend and former colleague Chris George had told me about his group rides in which blind cyclists team up with sighted partners on tandems. Yesterday evening I joined them to check it out.
I was on my own bike along with one other rider on a single bike — or a “half-bike” as the group calls them — while eight other people were on tandems. The sighted captains sat on the front seat, and the blind stokers in the back. We started from the Eastern Market Metro station shortly after 6 p.m.
We crossed the 11th Street Bridge to the Anacostia River trail, then continued northeast past marshy areas and along a few boardwalks to Bladensburg Waterfront Park — where we stopped briefly, took a group photo, then headed back, crossing the Anacostia again on Benning Road at Kingman Island.
A group of nine cyclists smile while holding onto their bikes — four tandems and one single bike, or as they like to call them, a half-bike — at the Bladensburg Waterfront Park in Maryland. (Alisa Tang)
Temperatures were on the warmer side yesterday. It felt like a lovely summer evening ride. Seventeen miles in a little over two hours.
Some of the blind riders told me they’d learned to bike when they were children — one when she had her eyesight.
Marcos Rodrigues, 44, of the Columbia Heights neighborhood of D.C., said when he was younger, his father biked or ran alongside him and told him which direction to steer his bike. He said he joins these rides to exercise and hang out with nice people.
Caroline Carbaugh, 28, of Great Falls, Virginia, said, “I just enjoy the feeling of being on a bike, and it's just priceless.”
Want to join them? They’re training captains next Thursday at the Eastern Market Metro, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Sign up on this form if you’d like to learn to be a tandem captain (or if you’re an experienced stoker or captain who’d like to help with the training).
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📰 News around the DMV
4 open houses worth checking out this weekend (Washingtonian)
9 creative spring markets and fairs to shop in the D.C. area (Washingtonian)
🎶 Things to do
Come join the D.C. Sing-Along on Saturday at Seekers Church in Takoma Park, Maryland. It’s my first time checking them out. (Please say hello if you spot me!)
📷 Your joy
(Lori Skalitzky)
Lori Skalitzky, a resident of Crofton, Maryland, who is turning 58 on Monday, sent in this photo she took on Wednesday.
“Saw my first butterfly of the season already! My lilacs traditionally hit their peak right around my birthday, which is next week, and the butterfly decided to check them out this evening as I was out watering,” Lori wrote in her submission.
“The lilacs that are open smell amazing already, and my whole yard will smell heavenly next week. My absolute favorite flower and scent!”
Lori: I also saw my first butterfly of the season on Wednesday! Flitting about the azaleas in my front yard.
* In case you’re wondering: The DMV is how residents here call the D.C. region, which includes Maryland and Virginia. Readers often ask. Now you know.
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