‘Type II fun’ on the Arlington Loop bike trail

Good morning, DMV! It’s Wednesday, May 13.

Before I start, a quick public service announcement: Birds are migrating! Please turn off your outdoor lights to help them migrate safely. Now back to our usual programming…

Have you heard of the fun scale? Here’s a breakdown:

Type I: Simple fun, like chilling on the beach with friends and loved ones.

Type II: Kind of a grind and not all that fun as you’re doing it. But in the end, a combo of exhilaration, pride and joy manages to kick in, and you conclude it was fun after all.

Type III: At no point is this fun — not during or after.

I have been known to lean into the type II variety. Long hikes that have difficult sections with names that include “devil” or “hell.” Jumping out of an airplane … or off a cliff into a body of water I can’t see but trust is there because someone told me so.

Last Thursday, I joined a 17-mile community bike ride that definitely fell into this category. Sure, not as extreme as my other feats, but still type II.

The outing — organized and led by WABA (Washington Area Bicyclist Association), Bike Arlington, National Landing BID (business improvement district) and Conte's Bike Shop — started at the bike shop in Arlington. Just a half dozen or so strangers, out for an evening ride.

I always get pumped up as I begin pedaling. Off we rolled, down a few city streets toward this tunnel. (These photos are from the National Landing BID because when I couldn’t take photos while biking and didn’t want to stop for fear of losing my pack.)

I love being on trails. No cars. The Arlington trails are busy! But it makes me happy to see so many people out moving their bodies. We rode a combo of the Mount Vernon, Four-Mile Run, W&OD and Custis trails.

I chatted with my fellow riders, though it’s not easy to talk to people safely while biking single-file. It made me think of my ride last month with blind cyclists and how being on a tandem must make for great conversation.

Then, I started to get the feeling that this was a grind. My thighs burned.

“Why do you do this to yourself?” the voice in my head asked.

“Are you really having fun?” it demanded.

“You can do it! You are a beast,” it rallied.

We chugged up a long, slow uphill — the kind that doesn’t look like an uphill but definitely feels like one. We stopped for a water break. I asked how long we’d been going. Our fearless leader told us we were about a third of the way through.

“Only a third?!?” screamed the voice in my head. I kept this to myself.

Aloud, I said to our group something along the lines of, “We’ve got this! This is awesome!” Our pack leader appreciated my enthusiasm.

As we rode the next third or so of the loop, bliss finally settled upon me. The trail was lovely. At one point, we were next to Interstate 66, but with a tall barrier wall on one side and forest on the other, the traffic seemed distant and barely noticeable.

On the Custis Trail, our leader told us we were approaching a rollercoaster of hills. But riding the ups and downs as part of a group made it bearable. We were in it together.

“Type II fun — I love it!” I blurted out loud several times to whichever cyclist was nearest me.

After the hills, we coasted down toward the Potomac. By the river, I spotted a bald eagle in the sky. Gravelly Point was full of people watching planes fly in low overhead toward the runway at Reagan National Airport.

We rode through headwinds along the river, but we were near the finish line. That’s when I bursted with a sense of accomplishment.

I have this awful tendency to liken myself to male TV and movie characters, and on Thursday, it was Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack in “Titanic.” I know it doesn’t end well for Jack, but he was the one taking over my internal voice.

“I’m the king of the world!” the voice shouted — repeatedly — in my head.

I did not say this out loud.

I had fun. Really.

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Did you know there’s a National Bike Month? We’re in it — May. To that end …

DC Bike Party has a ride tonight. Meetup is 7:30 p.m. at Dupont Circle Fountain. Wheels up at 8 p.m.

Also, Bike to Work Day is Friday. Here’s a map of pit stops across the DMV.

Jackie Marks, 42, of Hyattsville, Maryland sent in this pic on Monday with a note about her outing for a naturalist program she’s in.

“These beautiful mountain Laurels were spotted in Buck Lodge Community Park in Adelphi — a park I did not know existed until that day,” Jackie wrote in her submission.

“Me and five other budding naturalists joined a botanist for a plant walk, as part of a year-long Anacostia Watershed Society Master Naturalist program. We graduate in August!”

I’ve met quite a few people in our communities studying to become naturalists. I read in a bit: The Maryland Master Naturalist Program is sponsored by University of Maryland Extension, with the goal of educating and developing a corps of individuals to serve as stewards of the state’s natural resources and ecosystems.

Share your recent photos of your bike outings (DC Bike Party!), nature and life in the DMV here.

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