Every fall, M.G. hosts a Coffeeneuring challenge in which participants ride their bicycles to someplace and drink coffee or another similar beverage. This is my fifth year taking part and I decided to put more thought into the option to a theme within a theme than I did last year, when my plan to finish knitting projects and books during the event scaled down to knitting and reading.

So, I opted to make this year’s theme within a theme visiting some of D.C.’s 25 branch libraries. Some of these libraries are ones I’ve been to before, while others are entirely new to me.

Coffeeneuring Ride #1: Sugar Shack Doughnuts (1932 9th St N.W.) and Northwest One (155 L St. NW)

Saturday, Oct. 14; 5.7 miles

Hot chocolate, doughnuts (sprinkled and Butterfinger)

I kicked off my first Coffeeneuring ride by convincing Rudi we ought to ride over to Sugar Shack in Shaw and see if they still had quidditch doughnuts (they included a Golden Snitch doughnut hole) in the afternoon. Alas, they did not. But because I like to stay up to date on my doughnut shops, I knew that Sugar Shack’s social media feeds always includes offers for free doughnuts in exchange for certain things, like wearing a sports jersey or having a “q” in your name. So before we left home, I checked and that day’s challenge was to sing the Hogwarts school song and you’d get a free house doughnut. If you’re familiar with the Harry Potter world, you’ll remember that the song has neither a set tune nor tempo, so all you have to do is sing a couple stanzas and you’re golden. So we did. (Rudi opted for singing to “Ode to Joy,” while I literally just made up a melody as I went along.)

Which meant we got to eat two doughnuts each — one for lunch and one for dessert. Mine were sprinkled and Butterfinger (the ones on the left), which I combined with a cup of hot chocolate. The doughnuts were tasty, but the hot chocolate lacked whipped cream or marshmallows, which, in my opinion, make hot cocoa such a desirable drink while out. (And, yes, those are knitted doughnuts hanging from the ceiling in the photo at the top.)

We then ventured down to Northwest One, which I’d ridden past before on my bike, but had never stopped at. Located in a municipal-style building, the library abuts the Walker Jones Education Campus, a K-8 school. They have an adequate number of bike racks, but they’re right next to the trash and recycling bins, so if there were a bunch of bikes, it could be challenging to lock up. Inside, the library is a single main room divided into sections using the stacks (and some small meeting/study rooms off to the side).

The room is tall, with many windows, so there’s a lot of light. The library has tried to make the room scale better by hanging a bunch of Calder-inspired mobiles from the ceiling, which makes the space very cheerful.

I got them to unlock a dvd I’d already checked out, found a made-for-HBO baseball movie (Soul of the Game) that takes place part of the time in D.C., and pulled Jeff Zentner’s most recent book off the new-release shelf.

We stopped by Giant and did some grocery shopping on our way home, which meant we were heavily laden down for the last couple miles. But all in all it was a very enjoyable start to the Coffeeneuring season.