My Morning Commute

[jrenaut]

Good to know. I will pass that along when talking about the differences.

[Steve]

Not to go too far on a tangent, but…..

I’ve noticed a lot of folks on here look at xtracycle as the longtail solution. Is there any reason that people like this over the Surly Big Dummy, other than the fact that perhaps you have told your children not to call each other dummies, and this would undermine your efforts?

[jrenaut]

@Steve 93806 wrote:

Not to go too far on a tangent, but…..

I’ve noticed a lot of folks on here look at xtracycle as the longtail solution. Is there any reason that people like this over the Surly Big Dummy, other than the fact that perhaps you have told your children not to call each other dummies, and this would undermine your efforts?

Frame geometry. The Xtracycle is much more relaxed. Since my wife is (eventually) going to take over some of the kid-hauling duties, and she’s not interested in the more aggressive frame, I didn’t really look at the Big Dummy. If I were buying a bike just to haul things on my own, I definitely would have tried one out.

[Terpfan]

A little humid, but an all around nice ride this morning. If only I got more sleep and our stupid cat didn’t wack me in the eye in the middle of the night.

[cyclingfool]

@Terpfan 93817 wrote:

If only I got more sleep…

Thanks in large part to dozing off early on the couch, I actually managed 8 hours of shut eye last night, a rare feat for me. Amazing what a difference it made. I felt so much more energetic.*

[FeltZ85]

Does anyone use Reno Road > 34th Street in the morning? I have been thinking about it as an alternative to going straight down Connecticut Ave. My intuition tells me it would either be gridlock, or the cars would be going 60 mph and I’d just be a moving target.

[Crickey7]

@FeltZ85 93823 wrote:

Does anyone use Reno Road > 34th Street in the morning? I have been thinking about it as an alternative to going straight down Connecticut Ave. My intuition tells me it would either be gridlock, or the cars would be going 60 mph and I’d just be a moving target.

I’ll sometimes use the stretch between Military and Fessenden, then hop over to Connecticut. My take on the lower stretches, until you get past the Cathedral, is that the numerous short steep segments you start hitting after Van Ness make you shed too much speed so that you’re creeping up the hills. And the big speed disparity with cars might be annoying, at the very least.

I don’t find Connecticut so bad, personally. I think drivers there are generally considerate. And every cyclist in the region has to experience cruising southbound on the Taft Bridge at least once–it’s one of the absolutely coolest things there is.

[vern]

It’s always a challenge to decide when to begin a long commute after waking up with a morning bout of diarrhea. Sadly, my calculations were a bit off.

On the other hand, it was really great to get rolling on a Friday morning with my legs feeling fresh as if it was still early in the week.

[Terpfan]

@FeltZ85 93823 wrote:

Does anyone use Reno Road > 34th Street in the morning? I have been thinking about it as an alternative to going straight down Connecticut Ave. My intuition tells me it would either be gridlock, or the cars would be going 60 mph and I’d just be a moving target.

Not in the morning, but I do ride it at different points during the day sometimes. It’s a little bumpy, but if you go left off 34th down Cleveland Ave (less bumpy than Mass Ave) and it usually lets you hit the light green at Calvert.

[Subby]

Lee Hwy was bad this morning.

[jnva]

@Subby 93846 wrote:

Lee Hwy was bad this morning.

Yep it sure was. Also yesterday. I rarely see people riding down lee hwy. Was this you yesterday?

[video=youtube_share;VwaDWQJv2QY]http://youtu.be/VwaDWQJv2QY[/video]

[vern]

@jnva 93881 wrote:

Yep it sure was. Also yesterday. I rarely see people riding down lee hwy. Was this you yesterday?

[video=youtube_share;VwaDWQJv2QY]http://youtu.be/VwaDWQJv2QY[/video]

You guys have a lot more faith than I do in what those drivers are going to do in the cars you are weaving through.

[jnva]

@vern 93882 wrote:

You guys have a lot more faith than I do in what those drivers are going to do in the cars you are weaving through.

More faith than what joggers and dog walkers are going to do on the custis!

[Supermau]

Great ride in today. I took the opportunity to try a new route that proved faster than winding through Old Town Alexandria. Straight up Commonwealth to Four Mile Run then catching the MVT at the airport. I cut off ten minutes easily. And I can’t say enough about my investment in a bell. It simply works. People hear it and they understand it. I even got some thanks for it this morning. Love the bell.

Thanks to everyone who replied to my new bike tuneup post yesterday. I have spent far too much time in the second chain ring. Today I went big for much of the trip and certainly learned more about shifting. I’m just a little better than I was yesterday, and perhaps a bit faster as a result.

Cheers!

[jcflack54]

Yeah I like the bike lanes on Commonweath and there aren’t as many stop signs or lights as Royal or the MVT through Old Town. Have they reopened Four Mile Run trail under the bridges to MVT then?

[Author]

Posts