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A waterfront view is just one of the scenic pleasures of cycling the Northern Neck.
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Kenny Boles and Steve Reiss are part of a larger movement toward two-wheel transportation.
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You don’t select your passion; your passion selects you.
Just ask Steve Reiss. Back in 1998, he picked up a copy of National Geographic while at Reagan National Airport, opening it to find an article about the 50 places everyone should see before they die. An inveterate traveler who enjoyed bicycling but never did anything with it, he found himself captivated by the article’s premise, but with a twist: what if he cycled all 50 of those places?
As if to reinforce that thought, he was leaving the outdoor store REI not long after when a flier on their bulletin board caught his eye. It advertised a 325-mile biking trip through Ireland, and despite never having biked that distance, he didn’t hesitate to reserve a spot on the excursion.
With no experience, Reiss made rookie mistakes, bringing with him a so-so bike and all the wrong clothing. And although it rained nearly every day, his memories of that trip are rapturous. “I was tired and sore, but I was lying in bed in this tiny cottage thinking how great this was,” he recalls. “I didn’t want to look at pictures anymore; I wanted to be part of the pictures.”
From that moment, he realized that cycling was what he wanted to do. A registered architect by trade, his analytical skill set kicked in as he began creating lists, flip charts and diagrams as a means of planning how many trips he could do a year to begin chipping away at the 50 places. Before long, the list began expanding.
That’s when he had his light bulb moment. “I realized at that point how important it is to have something you’re passionate about,” he says.
Five years later, Reiss left the architecture company where he worked because of a driving need to engage in more cycling trips. It was a big decision. “But you can’t go to meetings wearing spandex,” he jokes. “‘You, with the helmet! Take that thing off.’ It just wouldn’t work.”
These days, Reiss does architectural consulting and writing, which allows for a sufficiently flexible schedule for two to three month-long biking trips annually. He’s ridden through South Africa, Death Valley, France, New Zealand, Stockholm, China and the Canadian Rockies, among others. He prefers always to ride across a country, beginning and ending at different locations because he feels this gives him a much better understanding of the different cultural regions, particularly the food and drink. So far, he’s been across the U.S., Italy, the United Kingdom and Spain.
In 2002, he spotted an advertisement for a small house in Irvington and it felt well-timed to help him dial back the noise of what had been a very hectic lifestyle living in Alexandria. The house, designed by Virginia mid-century modernist Alan McCullough, spoke to Reiss, who jokes that he’s the head of the local McCullough fan club.
Once settled into life on the Northern Neck, Reiss became part of several local cycling groups, first with Fletcher Brown’s group and then with the Chamber’s River Ride. The chamber group’s legacy is a map of bike rides with 10- to 100-mile routes crisscrossing Lancaster County that local cyclists still use today.
When both those groups faded away, experienced local cyclist Kenny Boles took it upon himself to organize an informal cycling group by planning rides most Sundays. Currently there are 54 people on the weekly email blast alerting cyclists to the weekly ride, time and weather, although attendance ranges from two to eleven most Sundays.
The scenery in the Northern Neck is a big part of the draw. “In the spring when the fields of canola are in full bloom, it provides a sea of yellow and a fragrance that’s unmatched,” Boles says. “Farm land provides the beauty of crops growing to harvest stage with the scent of growth wafting through the air as you pass. The waterways provide the aromas and beauty that only come from them and can’t be experienced from inside a car.”
A Chicago native and self-described “city kid,” Reiss also keeps a small apartment in Richmond near the Virginia Capital Trail where he stores his five bicycles. Once in the city, he got involved with the Richmond Area Biking Association, which does three annual rides in the Northern Neck, events that attract as many as 80 cyclists.
“It amazes me how people are willing to drive an hour and a half to ride for two hours,” he says, chuckling. “They’re always amazed at the Northern Neck. Living down here, it’s easy to become jaded about the beauty—sunsets, osprey—but they notice every bit of it.”
Reiss and Boles are part of a larger movement toward two-wheel transportation. Currently, the U.S. is enjoying a cycling renaissance with the number of people pedaling up from around 51 million riders in 2012 to slightly more than 66 million last year.
In many cases, especially outside of urban centers, bike infrastructure hasn’t kept pace with the uptick in ridership, and the Northern Neck is no exception. At one point, Lancaster County had a grant to put in bike lanes, but it had an expiration date and went unused, although the county did widen the shoulders on some roads.
To regular cyclists, that’s not enough. As it is, cyclists deal with being chased and threatened by unleashed dogs—Boles suffered an attack that required two surgeries and months of recovery—navigating roads without shoulders, and enduring vehicle operators with no respect for cyclists, or even a full understanding of bike rights. By Virginia law, bikes have all the rights that cars do, as well as a mandated 3-feet minimum cushion when being passed by a vehicle.
So, while conditions for biking on the Northern Neck aren’t yet ideal, Reiss insists that’s no reason to forego pedaling. He suggests taking into account time of day—even rural areas have peak traffic times—as well as season, wind direction and any known doggie danger zones. Wearing bright clothing, having a mirror and lights on your bike, carrying a cell phone, riding with a companion and knowing the route also go a long way toward ensuring the best possible ride.
Hemingway wrote that, “It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus, you remember them as they actually are.” Reiss, who never repeats the same bike trip because he prefers to keep his first memory of a place his only one, concurs with Papa.
“When I cycle anywhere in the world,” he says, “I don’t feel like a tourist. I feel like a traveler.”