Article: Easy Bikes, No Spandex Required

[TwoWheelsDC]

@Terpfan 117580 wrote:

Agreed.

I sat there puzzled why they included that quote after explaining these targeted folks would only be riding a mile or two to the gym or farmer’s market.

Not only that, but every organized ride I’ve done (excepting maybe Mountains of Misery), has a range (pun intended) of distance options for less experienced riders, families, etc…hell, the century ride at the Tour of Richmond is the smallest event, with the 25 mile ride being the biggest, with tons of families riding together. And then there are events like Tour de Fat and all the family-friendly rides that Bikenetic, Phoenix, BicycleSpace, etc…are doing year round. There may be a greater number of running/walking events, but to say that running events are more inclusive than biking events is just stupid.

[GovernorSilver]

I support any press that gets more casual riders on bikes, which in turn will hopefully lead to continued improvements in cycling infrastructure to get us closer to the standards set by the Dutch. I ride our local trails for pleasure, though coming and going from my house gives me a climbing workout, occasionally fetch groceries, commute to work maybe 1-2 times a year, so I consider myself a casual rider. I (reluctantly) started working on improving my speed, only because some peeps are saying that riding more than 10mph is safer for being on the road with cars.

As a resident of the “wrong side of the tracks” Alexandria (south of Cameron Run/Beltway, part of Fairfax County rather than the City of Alexandria), I feel like our biking infrastructure is 2nd class compared to City of Alexandria bike infrastructure. I don’t see any bike lanes or even sharrow markings on the roads in our neighborhood. We have the Eisenhower overpass mixed-use path but we have to bike on the road to get to it.

My friend and I made fun of the spandex clad when we were walking on the MVT (years before I learned to ride a bike) because every cyclist we encountered wore it and shouted “Left!”, which we thought was a bit obnoxious. We quickly learned to walk only on the right lane of the MVT but we still got the “Left!” yells from cyclists. We were getting the vibe that the cyclists own the trail and have the right to go as fast as they want, and us puny pedestrians better get out of the way or be killed (which is exactly what happened recently to an elderly lady on Four Mile Run). Now that I ride a bike myself, I try to be nicer to pedestrians I encounter on trails. I haven’t reached the level of prejudice though that I feel when I see somebody wearing a Bluetooth earpiece… when I see someone clad in sportive cycling wear.

[vvill]

I think it’s fair enough to say that cycling has more barriers to entry than running, as a recreational activity/sport. Pretty much everyone knows how to walk and at least shuffle if not jog/run, and you only need some sneakers, shorts, t-shirt, whatever. Not everyone knows even how to ride a bike, and buying a bike plus kit/accessories can be quite an investment. (I was once quite adamant I’d never wear spandex nor shell out the cost of a fancy road bike since I’d gotten everywhere I’d wanted to go on my cheap rigid MTB in the 90s.)

For transportation it’s an even greater barrier though, especially for cities with a lot of sprawl. I think the Dutch/Danish/etc examples are a little overwrought because most of the bike transportation trips there are based on people who really do live within a few idyllic flat miles of everywhere they’re going. If they wanted to go 10+ miles they probably wouldn’t use a bike.

That said, it’s really nice to see greater usage of bikes in urban situations and the success of CaBi, etc. I really enjoy seeing people in formal/casual work clothes getting around on bike in the city, and the growth in biking infrastructure. There’s also something classic to the casual cruiser aesthetic, although I agree with others that parts of the article are a bit silly… what is a “synthetic belt drive” as opposed to any other belt drive? Is a metal bike chain naturally occurring?

[GovernorSilver]

@vvill 117590 wrote:

For transportation it’s an even greater barrier though, especially for cities with a lot of sprawl. I think the Dutch/Danish/etc examples are a little overwrought because most of the bike transportation trips there are based on people who really do live within a few idyllic flat miles of everywhere they’re going. If they wanted to go 10+ miles they probably wouldn’t use a bike.

I’ve never been to Denmark, but if someone wants to go 10+ miles in the Netherlands, they have a wide variety of public transportation options – buses, light rail, trains, etc. – all of which run consistently on schedule like clockwork. But if that person wants to cover the same distance on a bicycle, chances are excellent he/she can – due to the infrastructure, and feel safe doing so. The bike lane networks there are amazing, even in smaller municipalities like Middleburg. I saw stuff like this just about everywhere I went in NL:

https://bicycledutch.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/junction02.jpg

https://bicycledutch.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/junction05.jpg

https://bicycledutch.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/junction03.jpg

Source article: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/state-of-the-art-bikeway-design-or-is-it/

[sjclaeys]

@jrenaut 117558 wrote:

My wife got an 8-speed Linus last summer…

… and now she wants a road bike so we can do a metric century together this fall.

Shhhh, don’t let people know that an 8-speed can be a gateway drug to cycling longer distances!

[hozn]

@GovernorSilver 117596 wrote:

But if that person wants to cover the same distance on a bicycle, chances are excellent he/she can – due to the infrastructure, and feel safe doing so.

I may have misunderstood, but I think the point was more that riding 10+ miles is more than just a quantitative change: you need to deal with sweating, comfort on the bike (spandex), etc. You can wear whatever you want if you are just hopping on the city bike for a couple miles.

[jrenaut]

@sjclaeys 117598 wrote:

Shhhh, don’t let people know that an 8-speed can be a gateway drug to cycling longer distances!

CaBi was my gateway. I started bike commuting on bikeshare and bought my own bike when the beautiful spring weather hit and I couldn’t get a CaBi anywhere near my house in the morning.

[GovernorSilver]

@hozn 117599 wrote:

I may have misunderstood, but I think the point was more that riding 10+ miles is more than just a quantitative change: you need to deal with sweating, comfort on the bike (spandex), etc. You can wear whatever you want if you are just hopping on the city bike for a couple miles.

The thing is some of the Dutch cities are actually large enough in size that one could ride over 10 miles over the course of a day, just going about one’s business (shopping, going to coffee shops, meeting with friends, etc.). Also, there are villages outside the city limits that people could be cycling from to get to the city center.

[mstone]

@GovernorSilver 117620 wrote:

The thing is some of the Dutch cities are actually large enough in size that one could ride over 10 miles over the course of a day, just going about one’s business (shopping, going to coffee shops, meeting with friends, etc.). Also, there are villages outside the city limits that people could be cycling from to get to the city center.

Can and do are different things. I think the actual number is that the dutch average less than 20 minutes on a bike. There are more people in the DC metro area that can’t get anywhere desirable in 20 minutes on a bike than there are those that can. At around 2.5 miles the dutch bicycle mode share drops from 37% to 24%. After 9 miles the mode share drops to 2%. Yes, there’s a lot of dutch bike infrastructure, but that’s to enable a lot of arbitrarily chosen short trips (i.e., things people decide to do organically rather than specifically planned destination pairs), not primarily to enable long trips. It’s certainly possible to take long trips, but that’s more for leisure than for daily commuting.

It’s also worth noting that this is extremely relevant when we ask for more bicycle infrastructure like trails along I66. We don’t necessarily expect that a lot of people are going to commute by bike from Haymarket to DC, but a long continuous route like that enables a huge number of short trips along its length.

[hozn]

@GovernorSilver 117620 wrote:

The thing is some of the Dutch cities are actually large enough in size that one could ride over 10 miles over the course of a day, just going about one’s business (shopping, going to coffee shops, meeting with friends, etc.). Also, there are villages outside the city limits that people could be cycling from to get to the city center.

I’m not disagreeing with that and I don’t think vvill is either. Living a few idyllic miles from work can easily add up to 10 miles a day, sure. Living 20 miles from work, like the guy I was riding with this AM (or @dcv for that matter or probably a number of people on the board), is very different. Even if those miles are 100% dedicated infrastructure (W&OD). Our weather, while far from extreme, doesn’t make it quite as easy to ride in city clothes (w/o sweating). It’s 55º in Amsterdam right now, for example.

[vvill]

@GovernorSilver 117596 wrote:

I’ve never been to Denmark, but if someone wants to go 10+ miles in the Netherlands, they have a wide variety of public transportation options – buses, light rail, trains, etc. – all of which run consistently on schedule like clockwork. But if that person wants to cover the same distance on a bicycle, chances are excellent he/she can – due to the infrastructure, and feel safe doing so. The bike lane networks there are amazing, even in smaller municipalities like Middleburg. I saw stuff like this just about everywhere I went in NL:

Yep, they could ride 10+ miles, but they probably wouldn’t as transportation because of other practical reasons (better alternatives!). And if they did they probably would not want to do it on a cruiser/comfort bike (a weekend/leisure ride is different since time is not as important).

(I’ve only been to Copenhagen once, but I really enjoyed riding the rail and free bikeshare there – this was before I ever rode “seriously” myself.)

@hozn 117599 wrote:

I may have misunderstood, but I think the point was more that riding 10+ miles is more than just a quantitative change: you need to deal with sweating, comfort on the bike (spandex), etc. You can wear whatever you want if you are just hopping on the city bike for a couple miles.

Yep, that’s what I meant. The trips in question that are usually quoted in statistics, reports, etc. are around 3 miles or less (I seem to recall, anyway). If everyone in DC who worked within 3 miles of their home rode a comfy cruiser bike to their offices in work clothes it’d be cool and a great start – but there’d still be crazy traffic everywhere. But even then at the same time I would never expect a person of even average fitness to ride 3 miles each way every day in say, the hills of north Arlington in work clothes with laptop/lunch/etc. cargo. I’m not saying it’s impossible (especially with better infrastructure and well, e-bikes) but I feel like there’s a pretty big disconnect comparing ridership under these different conditions. Most people who regularly commute significant distances by bike enjoy cycling as a sport and are relatively fit/athletic (even if they don’t admit it).

I think the bike infrastructure over there is laudable and worth taking cues from, and I also support anything to get more riders on bikes. I just think it’s silly to directly compare ridership/rider culture – that, and most who buy into a cruiser/etc will be more practically limited to those flatter, slower, 3 mile type journeys which is actually not that practical around the hilly parts of DC.

[jrenaut]

I live 3.5 miles from work and can only do the commute on a cruiser bike in work clothes when it’s cold out. And even then my work clothes are a sweaty mess after the uphill return trip.

[PotomacCyclist]

Re trails like I-66, Fairfax bike infrastructure can become more relevant and practical with the opening of the Metro Silver Line and the (slow) development of Tysons and other areas into more walkable, bike-friendly communities with safer transportation networks. A combination of the Silver Line, better transportation infrastructure and Capital Bikeshare in and around Tysons could convince many more people to bike at least part-time. They wouldn’t have to ride long distances. They could take the Silver Line and ride CaBi locally (if and when Fairfax joins CaBi). Merrifield (Orange Line) and Reston (Wiehle station and the future town center station) present further opportunities. I know it will take a very long time to build all of this out, but at least there is some progress, with the Metro already open and bike lanes planned for this year.

Cycling will never be 100% of all trips, but that doesn’t matter. It may never be 30% or 40%. But 15-25% in DC and Arlington, and in parts of Alexandria, urban Fairfax and urban Montgomery and Prince George’s County would be huge. DC and Arlington already have a high percentage of non-automobile commutes. In Alexandria, the Potomac Yard Metro station and the Metroway bus rapid transit will make it easier for many more people to go car-lite or car-free. Alexandria is also expanding their CaBi network. They will probably include the Potomac Yard Metro station in the CaBi network after the station is built in a few years.

[GovernorSilver]

@vvill 117627 wrote:

I think the bike infrastructure over there is laudable and worth taking cues from, and I also support anything to get more riders on bikes. I just think it’s silly to directly compare ridership/rider culture – that, and most who buy into a cruiser/etc will be more practically limited to those flatter, slower, 3 mile type journeys which is actually not that practical around the hilly parts of DC.

Of course it’s not possible to exactly reproduce their rider culture over here. I’m just saying we can get better – closer to their standard.

I have no comment on the Dutch cruiser bike thing – I believe your opponent in that fight is a different person.

[PotomacCyclist]

As for the weather, we can adapt by adding more showers in or near office buildings. Some private gyms may want to think about offering shower-only memberships. Some already do, but I don’t think most do.

Local jurisdictions could include this consideration in the development planning process. While many new developments include bike racks, indoor bike parking rooms and even bike repair spaces, not all of them include showers for bike commuters. Why not? Showers can be part of the overall bike infrastructure network in warmer areas like the DC region.

[Author]

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