Happy Holidays from a new member

[drevil]

@anomad 150853 wrote:

A fellow commuter on the way home today who told me about this forum after we rode past the power plant, so I signed up. Just saying hi and happy holidays and I hope everyone got to leave work early today!

I moved here in May and have enjoyed the bike infrastructure. Having moved here from a tiny western town, I was shocked at the sheer volume of people riding on the Mount Vernon Trail! While it can be a little annoying when its super busy, this winter has been great.

See you on the way. Don’t be afraid to say hello or good morning out there.

Without a picture or a name, it’ll be difficult to know who to say hi to. However, if you post a picture of your credit card beside your face and send me a message with your CVC code, I will gladly say hi aboard my weirdly-new titanium commuter bike every time we pass each other!

[anomad]

I’m easy to spot. I have a red blinking light on the back of my bike that I use when its dark. 😎

[drevil]

@anomad 150855 wrote:

I’m easy to spot. I have a red blinking light on the back of my bike that I use when its dark. 😎

Well, hello and welcome!

[KLizotte]

Many jolly welcomes to the forum! As you can probably tell, we aren’t serious (usually) and some of us are downright nutty. But it’s all in good fun. Hopefully you can make it out to some of the coffee club meetups or happy hours. Info can be found here: http://bikearlingtonforum.com/calendar.php

And there is a really big event coming up in January to celebrate the start of the Freezing Saddles competition (which is now closed to new registrants but you should come by and meet everyone if you can).

Tuesday, January 10th from 6-8 p.m. at The Bier Baron Tavern on 1523 22nd St NW, Washington, DC. Please bring $10 to cover facility rental and finger foods. More info can be found here.

We would be curious to know what biking is like where you are from.

[cvcalhoun]

@KLizotte 150865 wrote:

some of us are downright nutty.

Only some of us?

[Steve O]

@KLizotte 150865 wrote:

Hopefully you can make it out to some of the coffee club meetups or happy hours.

I think the Coffee Club sticky is more accurate than the calendar, regarding coffee clubs at least.

Also, there’s a new Freezing Saddles calendar that will hopefully fill up with all sorts of events once we get close to Jan 1. It also has the coffee clubs on it, as well as the initial happy hour.
Freezing Saddles Official-Ish Calendar

[bobco85]

@KLizotte 150865 wrote:

some of us are downright nutty.

@cvcalhoun 150866 wrote:

Only some of us?

Some people have allergies

[anomad]

Thanks for all the welcomes and likes everyone! So many wonderful people riding to work here in DC.

I’ve nicknamed some of the regular folks I see along the way. I hesitate to offer that up since it may (embarrassingly) be forum members…
On the other hand, what’s up with the bug eyed guy I see walking every single day around the airport? And the skinny black dude walking the other way? I call him umbrella man and the other one starvin’ Marvin. Junkies I guess walking to “work”. Anyone ever talk to them?

Another thing I have noticed, who stops to help? I have changed 4 or 5 tubes for stranded folks since I moved here with only a tiny fraction of all riders bothering to offer assistance. Been carrying a couple 26 inch tubes and a couple 700c tubes so I can always offer up a spare tube to someone in a pinch. I have seen 2 or 3 others working on other’s stranded bikes and always stop to ask if I can provide anything. Usually just ended up BSing and laughing with them. With all the threads about snow shoveling and other community involvement I hope this is the “high road” cadre of commuters I would feel at home with.

KLizotte asked “We would be curious to know what biking is like where you are from.”

My last location was a pitiful 4 mile ride all pavement option or all dirt option. I usually did about half and half on my touring bike. There were only a handful of cyclists in the whole county, well organized into a bike club. 6k foot elevation high desert. Cold mornings and hot days. Brutal winters. I rode my fat bike regularly in winter. I also got fat because 4 miles is kind of exercise, but not enough to keep up with my beer/pizza etc consumption. 12 miles each way here is much better. My wool isn’t stretched to the limit now. But I have lived in Denver, Salt Lake City, and small towns all over. I have some good cold weather experience earned in Fairbanks Alaska.

As winter sets in I signed up for transit subsidy last week. I don’t have studded tires right now and I kind of dread the idea of fat biking 12 miles one way if conditions are sh!t. We’ll see what the weather brings the next couple months. I know winter moisture in the form of snow is beneficial to the environment, but I am secretly hoping signing up for metro subsidy will prevent snow and enable me to ride all winter in relative comfort.

[creadinger]

@anomad 150878 wrote:

As winter sets in I signed up for transit subsidy last week. I don’t have studded tires right now and I kind of dread the idea of fat biking 12 miles one way if conditions are sh!t. We’ll see what the weather brings the next couple months. I know winter moisture in the form of snow is beneficial to the environment, but I am secretly hoping signing up for metro subsidy will prevent snow and enable me to ride all winter in relative comfort.

I think the snow-as-beneficial-to-the-environment is primarily a western thing, mostly because it acts as a longer lasting water supply during the dry months. That’s not so much of a problem here, and in fact with all the salt and crap they throw down on the roads when they think it’s going to snow, I think most plant life shudders at the thought.

Anyway, welcome to the forum! I don’t commute much anymore, but I am on the MVT some mornings. My guess is you’ll find the variability of the winter weather here most annoying. Cool one day, 65 degrees the next, a day of cold rain, then cold and windy the next. Also, when it does snow here, it turns to ice within a couple of days and hangs around for weeks, which is the worst.

[Crickey7]

There are plenty of us who ride year round and never use studded tires. Most winters, there are a tiny handful of days when that’s arguably necessary, though I have generally done fine with careful riding and slightly knobby tires for the very worst of it. As winter riding gear goes, that would be pretty far down there on my list of must-haves.

[ian74]

@anomad 150853 wrote:

A fellow commuter on the way home today who told me about this forum after we rode past the power plant, so I signed up. Just saying hi and happy holidays and I hope everyone got to leave work early today!

I moved here in May and have enjoyed the bike infrastructure. Having moved here from a tiny western town, I was shocked at the sheer volume of people riding on the Mount Vernon Trail! While it can be a little annoying when its super busy, this winter has been great.

See you on the way. Don’t be afraid to say hello or good morning out there.

That was me! Glad to see you joined! You should definitely hit up the coffee clubs. Everybody is so nice and wonderful! Except Judd.

[Judd]

@ian74 150912 wrote:

That was me! Glad to see you joined! You should definitely hit up the coffee clubs. Everybody is so nice and wonderful! Except Judd.

Actual picture of me headed out for a ride:

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[huskerdont]

@Judd 150913 wrote:

Actual picture of me headed out for a ride:

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I named my dog, Max, after the dog in the Grinch and depicted in that picture. He is actually much cuter in real life. Judd, on the other hand, is nicer than the Grinch, but otherwise the depiction is close to accurate.

[KLizotte]

I grew up minutes from the NH border and if you lived in a similarly snowy environment you will be rather shocked by the rather limited, and often ineffectual, snow plowing that occurs in these parts. It can take days for 4-5 inches of snow to be removed, even on the main roads. And yes, we get a lot of black ice. Snow doesn’t evaporate like it does out west; rather, it turns into gray slush that thaws/freezes depending on the time of day and takes eons to disappear.

Worst of all, most drivers in this area seem to be from the southern US and have no experience driving in slippery conditions and think SUVs are safe to drive at 65+ MPH regardless of the road conditions. Many folks use summer tires all year round. I have a 4WD Subaru Outback with all sorts of winter gizmos (even the side mirrors have heaters!) but I have never taken it out to play in the snow in the DC area because I am afraid of all the other drivers. Be careful driving and cycling when the yucky stuff hits. This ain’t Alaska!

[vvill]

@Crickey7 150911 wrote:

There are plenty of us who ride year round and never use studded tires. Most winters, there are a tiny handful of days when that’s arguably necessary, though I have generally done fine with careful riding and slightly knobby tires for the very worst of it. As winter riding gear goes, that would be pretty far down there on my list of must-haves.

This is true, but it does depend a bit on where in the DC area you live (the roads around me don’t always get ploughed in a timely fashion) and how much you want to be able to ride in (almost) all conditions. It only took me one wipe out on ice to justify the studded tires. I have two sets now, one that lets me ride more MTB style, and a more general riding pair. They last for ages too.

[Author]

Posts