Coffeeneuring Ride #1 - Dolcezza Gelato

November 17, 2013

Dolcezza Gelato: 2905 District Ave, Fairfax VA 22031 http://dolcezzagelato.com/ Total Mileage: 37.9 --- Dolcezza Gelato is a small local chain of gelato and cafes, and serves some of the best espresso to be found in all of the DMV. The ride for the day was the Freshbikes Tourist Ride, led by my friend Pete. Now, I wasn't sure what their hours would be, and I purposely did not start my day with my normal cup of coffee before leaving home.

So to make sure I would get credit for my first coffeenuring ride, I stopped at the Le Pain Quotidien (The Daily Bread). I got my standard fare; a chocolate croissant and a cappuchino, a bad habit I picked up Alpe d'Huez. We left out of Freshbikes just a little after 9am, waiting for Clovis and Dane to finish up the group. The original plan was to ride down the W&OD down to the Arlington Freshbikes shop to pick up anyone else (as this was a shop ride). However, with the day being nice and sunny, the trail was packed and not a welcome route for an 7 person train. Pete had broken his wrist earlier in the week by being ridden into a drain grate by a driver in Georgetown, and he hadn't had time to tune his bike up, so he had some issues with a broken spoke the entire ride. We rode thru Falls Church to Arlington, and then over to the Freshbikes shop, picked up 4 more riders, and rode our way down to the Key Bridge through the intersection of doom (Lynn & Lee Hwy).

Winding our way though Georgetown, and seeing the sights; something that we don't tend to do much commuting into the District, or training.

The Cosmos Club

The Indian Embassy

Mahatma Ghandi Statue

Interesting entrance way to The Cairo condominums.

The Weeping Elephant statue.

The Milano Condos

Pete provides directions to our next stop. Note the pink cast on his left wrist.

The old Hecht's Building...Now a Macy's (Forever 21).

The Old Post Office Pavilion

The US Navy Memorial. There was a memorial on going at the time as it was a week after the shootings at the Naval Yard.

The Newseum.

The Chess Players in John Marshall Park

...Right across the park from the Canadian Embassy.

The Namesake for the Park, John Marshall.

The next part is a reminder that we were riding during the government shutdown. Basically the roads were empty. Here's me by the Capitol building.

Pete and Clovis inspect the Solar System Voyage

Which is a 1/10 Billionth scale installation showing how big the solar system is.

...Empty...

Normally there'd be be a lot of traffic and other trucks parked along...But because the government was shutdown, it was a zombie invasion ghost town.

I did Take this moment to document something very rare: Riding a bike down Independence Avenue, on a warm sunny Sunday.

We made our way round the Washington Memorial, but the one that you might stumble upon:

This is the actual real-middle of where the White House and Capitol would line up. It's a mini-monument to L'Enfant, the designer of Washington DC. Past the WW2 Memorial, was the DC War Memorial:

Then across the Memorial Bridge over to Arlington National Cemetary.

Up from the cemetary we climbed up to the Iwo Jima memorial. Our trip finished, we headed back, riding up to Freshbikes, then back to Falls Church. Pete's bad luck continued to triple; broken spoke caused a flat tire, and his free hub had issues spinning while free. So we limped back to Falls Church; never let a friend limp home by himself. Afterwards, I walked down to the real point of the Coffeeneuring trip: Dolcezza Gelato.