Adventures in Our Nation’s Capitol

by Catherine Powers, Aaron's Professional Women's Cycling Team
June 2006

After our race in Somerville, Candice and Jeremy and I spent a week at Aaron’s corporate housing at Gables Dupont Circle. Jeremy and I headed out Tuesday morning to do some grocery shopping and explore my old stomping grounds, Adam’s Morgan. During the summer after my first year in college, I worked as a bike messenger and waitress, living just off of Columbia Road in Adam’s Morgan. My old house is still there, but the café I worked at has become a McDonalds and everything looks pretty different. We took one look at the withered vegetables in the supermarket and decided we were going to have to suck it up and pay the big bucks at Whole Foods if we wanted to eat well. Then we sat at the Starbucks for a while, reading the paper and people-watching. The most interesting to watch was an older East African man across from us, who was looking through the classifieds and talking on the phone to a prospective employer. He was very intense and listed about 5 different languages he speaks, standing up to emphasize his point, and finally pacing the Starbucks, leaving his wallet lying on the table. 

Tuesday afternoon we all headed out for a ride. We thought we were heading for a bike path but went the wrong direction and ended up riding through traffic for quite some time until we found a bike path along the Anacostia. We got lost on the way home despite some help from a local cyclist and had to stop at a flower stand to get directions. I think the experience traumatized country girl Candice, because she thereafter refused to ride outside and spent the remainder of the week riding the trainer on the balcony. On Wednesday and Thursday Jeremy worked on building up Candice’s new Bianchi (a much better fit than her last one) and he and I got in two long rides. On Wednesday we went over the Arlington Memorial Bridge and along the Potomac all the way down to the end of the bike path in Mt. Vernon and back up to the other end in Arlington. On Thursday we consulted the ever-helpful Kristy and Jason, who helped us get out to the country roads in Montgomery County for our best ride in the area. In between, we explored Dupont Circle a bit, buying T-shirts and ice cream. Candice and I took a walk one evening and Candice kept shaking her head at city life: “Why do people keep banging into me? How can people live so close together? You call that a yard?! People here are so rude!” Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore. 

On Friday Shannon and Mackenzie arrived, minus Shannon’s bike. We stood in line at the airport luggage office to file our claim and were told Shannon’s bike would be in on Saturday afternoon (not quite good enough – since our race started at 10am). We crossed our fingers and hoped we could figure something out.  

Now that our whole squad was complete, we made the rounds of the Aaron’s stores in the DC area. It’s so cool to get out and visit the Aaron’s people because everyone’s so friendly and enthusiastic about the team. It’s great to feel like we’re part of a bigger entity. We met Lonnie (sp?) and Walid and Ray and Ron and their staffs. Everyone had seen our video and they were pretty jazzed up about the team. We showed off our superfly decked out Jaguar Wagon and took pictures and talked about racing. I was impressed by how many Aaron’s employees are recreational cyclists themselves. We tried to convince folks to come out to our race on Saturday but most of them had to work. We told them we were sure that Don and Ed wouldn’t mind if they closed up the stores for the morning to come to the race but they weren’t quite convinced on that one.  

After the store visits we got a bite to eat and headed back to Dupont Circle. Candice and Mackenzie and I decided to take a recovery ride to see the monuments while Shannon and Jeremy negotiated with the airlines for Shannon’s bike. As a former DC resident I showed Candice and Mackenzie around the Lincoln Memorial (where a sarcastic teenager, noticing our cycling apparel quipped to Mackenzie “Nice outfit. Did you shop at the same store as the other two?”), then the Washington Monument and all the way down the Mall past the museums to the Capitol building. We took the requisite tourist photos and rode home. It was after 10 when Shannon and Jeremy finally returned with the wayward bike. 

Bright and early Saturday morning we were up again, packing bags and mixing bottles for our big race in Arlington. We arrived early and set up our trainers in front of a beauty salon. A very bubbly Asian woman who works at Phantacee Nails came out to chat with us. There was a men’s race in progress and she ran to the corner to jump up and down yelling for them. We were glad we would have such an enthusiastic cheering section. Also cheering for us were Scott and Caroline Hutchison, Shannon’s brother and sister-in-law. As it turned out, we would need all the cheering we could get!! Our race was fast from the gun and never slowed down. The course is under a mile long with 6 corners, one of which is almost 180 degrees. It’s our longest criterium of the season – 50 kilometers of all-out intensity. The weather threatened rain, with clouds overhead and high winds. All the race favorites stayed near the front, everyone thinking a breakaway would form as has in past years. At the back of the race, riders were falling off the pace in a steady stream so that by the finish we were left with less than half of our original pack. Colavita sent rider after rider up the road. We took turns covering moves and chasing things down but it really took its toll on us. Mackenzie won two mid-race primes and Candice put in a couple of blistering attacks but nothing stuck and it came down to a field sprint. With one to go I moved Shannon up to the front but I didn’t have the legs for a proper lead-out so she was left to fend for herself. She ended up a respectable 8^th place. 

Jeremy performed his magic and managed to get all of our bags, bikes and bodies packed into the wagon and we headed to Lancaster, Pennsylvania for our next race. No rest for the weary!