My Morning Commute

[Drewdane]

Just a hint of a nip in the air this morning. I guess it’s time to look for my arm warmers so I can have them at hand if needed.

[huskerdont]

Juice of dead rat on my legs on G Street. Good thing we have showers at work.

[Vicegrip]

hurk, hurk….^

I had my shower on the ride in….

[notinthe18]

The light timing at 20th/Virginia/E has been tweaked slightly in cyclists’ favor and it’s glorious.

[Crickey7]

@Vicegrip 164624 wrote:

hurk, hurk….^

I had my shower on the ride in….

I had an impromptu lesson on the effects of precipitation on the friction coefficient of paved surfaces.

[dasgeh]

@notinthe18 164630 wrote:

The light timing at 20th/Virginia/E has been tweaked slightly in cyclists’ favor and it’s glorious.

I thought I was the only one who noticed!

[secstate]

The new Beach Drive closure seems to have greatly increased the amount of traffic on 14th St between about Military Road and Arkansas. A lot of cars now want to turn from 14th St onto Arkansas, and it was a bit of a mess.

I have two main routes to get into the city from Silver Spring: 1) down 14th and 2) GBT –> CCT. The former is my “fast” route, and usually takes me 35-40 minutes to go 8 miles through the city. The latter is my “nice” route, and takes me around 55 minutes to go 14 miles through the woods. It seems like my fast route is no longer so fast (took me 52 minutes today), at least not at rush hour, so I guess I’ll be a regular on the Totally Unofficial Chevy Chase Neighborhood GBT Detour .

Edit: I should add that I was also delayed this morning by the White House grounds closure and impassable traffic near the IMF/World Bank, so pretty much walked my bike the last half-mile. Nice morning, fortunately!

[dbb]

Was pretty sweet this morning. The current lady in my life, Irma, forced me to do the entire ride before sun up, with no Freezing Saddles points. I was rewarded with this just north of Gravelly Point.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15441[/ATTACH]

[Judd]

@secstate 164866 wrote:

so I guess I’ll be a regular on the Totally Unofficial Chevy Chase Neighborhood GBT Detour .

All the cool kids are calling this the TUCCNGBTD.

[TwoWheelsDC]

I thought it was great how there was only a light drizzle until I got the truly weather-exposed portion of my commute, when it promptly started pouring…then the rain pretty much stopped altogether once I was parking my bike. Weather is awesome.

[consularrider]

@TwoWheelsDC 165212 wrote:

I thought it was great how there was only a light drizzle until I got the truly weather-exposed portion of my commute, when it promptly started pouring…then the rain pretty much stopped altogether once I was parking my bike. Weather is awesome.

Glad we’re getting same conditions on both sides of the Atlantic for a change. :p

[Steve O]

To complement the e-bike thread, there were two I encountered on the Custis this morning.

e-biker A (for ass) – passed me close without calling and with an oncoming walker. He continued to pass peds and other cyclists rather close without any warnings while I chased him. I caught up to him at the bottom of the Rosslyn hill at the light at Ft. Myer. He had decided to shoal everyone by going onto the roadway from the Lee-Hwy-side ADA ramp and waiting facing oncoming traffic. I politely suggested that it would be courteous of him to signal his passes, perhaps even buy a bell. He may have acknowledged that he heard me before he sped off on the green, making sure he got ahead of everyone else waiting at the light.
I noticed as I said this that I was immediately behind another e-biker.

e-biker B (for behaved) – He and I chatted briefly about e-biker A, who he called a jackass. During the short time we rode together, B played nice with all the other trail users, called his passes and then passed safely and appropriately. I wished him a good day as I went up the hill to the TR Bridge and he continued along the MVT.

Oh, and a flyby with wheels&wings!

[Left Field]

@Steve O 165295 wrote:

To complement the e-bike thread, there were two I encountered on the Custis this morning.

e-biker A (for ass) – passed me close without calling and with an oncoming walker. He continued to pass peds and other cyclists rather close without any warnings while I chased him. I caught up to him at the bottom of the Rosslyn hill at the light at Ft. Myer. He had decided to shoal everyone by going onto the roadway from the Lee-Hwy-side ADA ramp and waiting facing oncoming traffic. I politely suggested that it would be courteous of him to signal his passes, perhaps even buy a bell. He may have acknowledged that he heard me before he sped off on the green, making sure he got ahead of everyone else waiting at the light.
I noticed as I said this that I was immediately behind another e-biker.

e-biker B (for behaved) – He and I chatted briefly about e-biker A, who he called a jackass. During the short time we rode together, B played nice with all the other trail users, called his passes and then passed safely and appropriately. I wished him a good day as I went up the hill to the TR Bridge and he continued along the MVT.

Oh, and a flyby with wheels&wings!

Interestingly enough, I also had an encounter this morning at o’dark 30 this morning. It’s dark, I am usually the only out there and along comes a rider. No call out. Okay, after last weekend on W&OD, I am prepared for that. Except as he passes about 2-3 inches from me while we are on the MVT, he is not pedaling. Wait, huh? No coffee, dark, semi-groggy, I took a moment to process. I realized he was riding a throttle bike at about 20-25. So of course, I am now in hammer mode, as much as one can be at that time. I catch up and mention that A) call your pass, do not pass so close, and C) too fast for the trail at even that hour. I received a rather inappropriate hand signal; I of course took the high road and responded with an appropriate equal personalized retort to the hand gesture with a comment regarding his parentage. Not a proud moment, but I hope he got the message.

[dbb]

Rolling north on 15th just past the entrance to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, a longtail ebike rolls past me, slides to the other side of 15th and salmons for about 150 feet, blows the light at Independence (while salmoning), slides to the correct side of 15th and continues to the north.

Alas, the motorists likely only saw a bicycle and not an e-bike, so I got tarred with that brush.

[honestmachinery]

@Left Field 165300 wrote:

Interestingly enough, I also had an encounter this morning at o’dark 30 this morning. It’s dark, I am usually the only out there and along comes a rider. No call out. Okay, after last weekend on W&OD, I am prepared for that. Except as he passes about 2-3 inches from me while we are on the MVT, he is not pedaling. Wait, huh? No coffee, dark, semi-groggy, I took a moment to process. I realized he was riding a throttle bike at about 20-25. So of course, I am now in hammer mode, as much as one can be at that time. I catch up and mention that A) call your pass, do not pass so close, and C) too fast for the trail at even that hour. I received a rather inappropriate hand signal; I of course took the high road and responded with an appropriate equal personalized retort to the hand gesture with a comment regarding his parentage. Not a proud moment, but I hope he got the message.

These examples are going to be more numerous than we can be bothered to write about. The only saving grace is that these ebikes will die young, leaving their owners to question the capital investment to repair or replace.

Bad shoals and incomplete or close passes are not reserved to ebikes, and get equal disrespect from me. Off my wave.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

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