Missed connection

[dbb]

Not really a missed connection but here goes.

You: Cyclist that went down at MM 14 (just north of CC Connector) on the MVT last Friday morning.

Me: Stopping to help. Waiting for the medics and seeing you transported to the hospital. Taking charge of your bike. I failed to get your name (rookie mistake) but did give you one of my business cards.

Bike: Safe and sound in my garage. A bit scuffed but OK.

You: Made contact with me yesterday and arranged for the bike.

Lesson to all – Put a business card in your seat bag. The medics didn’t seem interested (allowed?) in scooping up the bike, the PP never showed and I was damned if I would leave it along side the trail. The business card may be the key to success.

[skins_brew]

@dbb 83724 wrote:

Not really a missed connection but here goes.

You: Cyclist that went down at MM 14 (just north of CC Connector) on the MVT last Friday morning.

Me: Stopping to help. Waiting for the medics and seeing you transported to the hospital. Taking charge of your bike. I failed to get your name (rookie mistake) but did give you one of my business cards.

Bike: Safe and sound in my garage. A bit scuffed but OK.

You: Made contact with me yesterday and arranged for the bike.

Lesson to all – Put a business card in your seat bag. The medics didn’t seem interested (allowed?) in scooping up the bike, the PP never showed and I was damned if I would leave it along side the trail. The business card may be the key to success.

This is a really good story! Were you riding a bike? If so, how did you transport both bikes home?

[dbb]

@skins_brew 83728 wrote:

This is a really good story! Were you riding a bike? If so, how did you transport both bikes home?

Well, I tried to channel my inner Dirt and do a missing man ride (holding the headset of the empty bike as I ride mine). Turns out, I’m not that good and it isn’t that easy. Got back to the Water Park in CC, stripped and locked the other bike and then rode home and came back in my truck to take it to my house.

I need to practice the missing man to get better at it. I seem to recall Dirt posting a photo of him doing it with no hands on his bike (one for the empty bike and one for the camera). I’ll likely never be that good a rider.

[KLizotte]

That’s awesome dbb! Going up and down the hills must have been a challenge. I wish I had known since I could have driven over to help you out since I live in the hood. Will PM you my cellphone for future emergencies.

[kcb203]

@dbb 83724 wrote:

N
Lesson to all – Put a business card in your seat bag. The medics didn’t seem interested (allowed?) in scooping up the bike, the PP never showed and I was damned if I would leave it along side the trail. The business card may be the key to success.

Also put a business card inside the seat post. If the bike is stolen and recovered, it’s an easy way to prove it’s yours. Easier still is to record the serial numbers, which I still have never bothered to do.

[slowtriguy]

You: two guys riding aggressively EB on the W&OD between Virginia Lane and Grove in Falls Church about 0745 today

Me: solo guy riding non-aggressively in the same direction, same place, roughly same time

Guys, the morning commute is really not a time to be racing down the W&OD, especially on a nice day when it is relatively crowded and when sun glare is an issue. Also, in case nobody told you, squeezing between two people walking side-by-side with a stroller in one lane and a solo runner coming the other way in the other lane is obnoxious — and doing it at speed is dangerous and stupid.

And holy cr*p, are you lucky you have good brakes and could stop in time to avoid colliding with that truck at Grove. You really shouldn’t blast through stop signs like you were about to — at the very least (and I’m not debating legalities or philosophies, just practicalities of not being creamed by cars) slow the hell down and look before rolling through. I really don’t want to see anyone get hurt. I could hear what the driver said after you pulled that stunt, and he was right to say every *&*#)(@#*&@)(# syllable.

On the plus side, I think I learned some new curse words from said driver, so there’s that.

[jnva]

I had to re read this rant a couple of times, then I realized you wrote “same place” not same “pace”. I don’t disagree with anything you day here. If you do stop at the crossings in falls church, you may also hear cursing from the driver because they expect you not to stop, and then you both are stopped waiting for the other to go. I avoid that section of the trail.

[KWL]

Me: Coming off of Key Bridge turning left onto the MVT at the Intersection of Doom.
You: Two Elite-type riders queued up single file for the stop light ‘way back on the asphalt part of the trail (no shoaling here). Thank you, thank you, thank you.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5431[/ATTACH]

[dasgeh]

A little karmic relief on the way in this morning — I was stopped at a light (one of so many) in the Penn Ave cycletrack. A guy, sporting the Fred-stereotype everything, rolled up next to me and started to roll past, until I smiled and said hi. He stopped. A few seconds later, as the opposing traffic got a red light, he rolled past me and started to sprint all out in the moments before we got green. Half way through the intersection, his pannier falls off. No one was hurt, so I can chuck at the karma of it all (especially because there’s no way to make the green at the next block, so he was shoaling and sprinting for nothing).

He did basically block the intersection for the two cyclists coming the other way, which sucks.

[Terpfan]

To the gentleman in the white pickup truck who decide to back out onto Beacon Hill Rd in the middle of the downhill stretch right in front of me, thank you for proving I still have youthful reflexes allowing me to divert across the street and onto the sidewalk at probably 30mph. Next time, I would greatly appreciate it if you would either let me go first or back onto the side that’s going uphill. (Especially since you ended up turning left onto Ft. Hunt anyway, you could have just taken Quander). Besides your test of me, impressively almost everyone called their passes this morning and nearly every jogger noticed the calls I made.

[brendan]

To the officer stopped at the red light on 11th St. as I was sprinting down the right lane of Rhode Island with 10s left to spare on the green light (as per the pedestrian signal).

I emergency stopped because you turned your lights on, started moving forwards and hit your blitz-blatz-blitz warning to cross traffic that you were going to cross against the light. I love my disc brakes but I don’t like braking so hard that I start skidding before stopping. Esp. while riding a half-loaded cargo bike.

What made it less of a “oh crap” moment and more of a “ugh! what a jerk!” moment was that even before your completed your left turn, you turned your emergency lights and noises back off.

Not cool man. Not cool.

[dasgeh]

@brendan 84340 wrote:

To the officer stopped at the red light on 11th St. as I was sprinting down the right lane of Rhode Island with 10s left to spare on the green light (as per the pedestrian signal).

I emergency stopped because you turned your lights on, started moving forwards and hit your blitz-blatz-blitz warning to cross traffic that you were going to cross against the light. I love my disc brakes but I don’t like braking so hard that I start skidding before stopping. Esp. while riding a half-loaded cargo bike.

What made it less of a “oh crap” moment and more of a “ugh! what a jerk!” moment was that even before your completed your left turn, you turned your emergency lights and noises back off.

Not cool man. Not cool.

Definitely deserving of getting a car number and reporting it in. I see cops do this far too often — and it’s evident that they’re often just too lazy to wait for the light.

[PotomacCyclist]

Great to see that cyclist passing on the MVT right into a blind turn (southbound, as the trail heads away from the Gravelly Point parking lot at the wooded area). I had slowed down behind a runner. I didn’t want to pass there because I had no way to see if anyone was heading in the other direction. Then some guy passes me and the runner and heads up that small incline, where the blind turn is located. He just continued on his way as if this was normal.

If there had been oncoming bike traffic, there’s no way he could have avoided a collision. After I made it past the blind turn, I passed the runner. I saw an oncoming cyclist about 40 feet ahead. This was around 7:30 pm. There was still plenty of bike and runner traffic on the MVT at that hour. It’s insane to be passing on the trail at blind turns like that.

[consularrider]

@PotomacCyclist 84483 wrote:

Great to see that cyclist passing on the MVT right into a blind turn (southbound, as the trail heads away from the Gravelly Point parking lot at the wooded area). I had slowed down behind a runner. I didn’t want to pass there because I had no way to see if anyone was heading in the other direction. Then some guy passes me and the runner and heads up that small incline, where the blind turn is located. He just continued on his way as if this was normal.

If there had been oncoming bike traffic, there’s no way he could have avoided a collision. After I made it past the blind turn, I passed the runner. I saw an oncoming cyclist about 40 feet ahead. This was around 7:30 pm. There was still plenty of bike and runner traffic on the MVT at that hour. It’s insane to be passing on the trail at blind turns like that.

This is the main reason I really dislike the MVT heading from Gravelly southbound, there are too many people trying to pass when they really can’t see the oncoming traffic.

I’m also really getting tired of the S Glebe/Rte 1 intersection part of the 4MRT detour. Is there some reason the cars turning right from S Glebe to head south on Rte 1 can’t wait until they have a green light? They keep trying to run over the cyclists who are making a legal left turn with the green arrow who are trying to get to either the sidewalk curb cut (which is incorrectly placed) or to the Porche dealer driveway to continue west.

[CaseyKane50]

@PotomacCyclist 84483 wrote:

Then some guy passes me and the runner and heads up that small incline, where the blind turn is located. He just continued on his way as if this was normal.

Did he bother signaling his pass or did he just assume his presence on the trail was enough to alert the other users of his intention?

[Author]

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