On your left – tales of woe

[GuyContinental]

Daylight Crazy Ivan! That is rare Ninja style there…

[JeffC]

@mrkenny83 19680 wrote:

This morning, I had my first passing-gone-wrong incident.

I was on the wood/bridge portion of MVT (by the TR Bridge/66) and there was a woman jogging in the center of the route. I ring my bell way far in advance to no avail. I start yelling “passing on your left” with no success. As I get closer, I get panicky and louder – “I’M ABOUT TO PASS ON YOUR LEFT, PLEASE MOVE OVER TO THE RIGHT!”

I realize she can’t hear me, so I begin my deceleration. As I’m approaching her, out of nowhere, she spins around to begin jogging in the opposite direction (now towards me). I have to break harder/faster…. and since I’m on the wet wood, my rear tire fishtails, I fall, and skid about 5 feet.

The woman looks down at me and yells “F**K YOU A**HOLE! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO WARN PEOPLE WHEN YOU’RE NEAR THEM”

I waived as she flicked me off and continued her run. I couldn’t help but hear the sound of another cyclist fall/skid. I wonder if she was the culprit there, too…..

Have a great day lady.

Wow, hope you are better. If I had been in your shoes, unless the woman was pregnant, I might have taken physical action. This is yet another reason why our bike infrastructure is not that good and why we need separate bike only paths. My dream is to some day have the Custis be bike only from say 4 to 7 pm from April through September.

[rcannon100]

Unfortunately the area is rife with college students jogging from GTown and GW, who have all but no sense of trail etiquette. Up on the Custis I had a crazy ivan – walked to the right to cross and then doubled back deciding she needed to mash the cross walk button – who cursed as I went by yelling “watch watch watch” As was said in the movie, “We must give this American a wide berth.” The ninja’s will learn fast hopefully. Only thing you can do is steer clear, go slow, and not let it get to you. After all, you’re on a bicycle!!! 😎

[Dirt]

I’ve been thinking about this stuff as I psychotically sing my way down the multi-use trails of the National Capital Region… It is odd to me what people hear and what they don’t…. what registers with them and what doesn’t.

The fixie is totally stealth. People not only don’t hear it, but they tend not to hear me while I’m riding it unless I’m singing something particularly heinous.

Things are different on the fatbike. There’s something about the rumbling of something that sounds like a truck tire that gets through both headphones and “me me me” mindset. I usually don’t have to sing when I’m on that bike. I do anyways because it is wonderfully therapeutic to sing really loud, out of tune and with the wrong words.

I may have to start a new scientific study of this.

Hugs and kisses,

Dirt

[Mikey]

@Dirt 19720 wrote:

I’ve been thinking about this stuff as I psychotically sing my way down the multi-use trails of the National Capital Region… It is odd to me what people hear and what they don’t…. what registers with them and what doesn’t.

The fixie is totally stealth. People not only don’t hear it, but they tend not to hear me while I’m riding it unless I’m singing something particularly heinous.

Things are different on the fatbike. There’s something about the rumbling of something that sounds like a truck tire that gets through both headphones and “me me me” mindset. I usually don’t have to sing when I’m on that bike. I do anyways because it is wonderfully therapeutic to sing really loud, out of tune and with the wrong words.

I may have to start a new scientific study of this.

Hugs and kisses,

Dirt

Dirt,
What song do you tend to sing? So I know it is you comming up behind me. I find that Stevie Wonder’s “Ribbons in the Sky” tends to jump in my head on the W&OD between Ceder and 495; the trail is pretty straight here and you can see a thin ribbon of asphalt leading to the horizon.

[FFX_Hinterlands]

@rcannon100 18379 wrote:

A thought on why experiences may be different.

One variable is WHEN the signal is give. As a fellow cyclists, I can share and confess that I hate the signal that is two feet from my ear. Yelling “LEFT” in my ear means you are already on my left, does not give me a chance to move right, and does not avoid me floating left into your path if I am avoiding something like one of those Custis Trail moguls.

I signal probably 50′ behind the person with a bell. It creates a nice doppler effect giving them notice not only that I am there but also how fast I am coming. I almost always get positive responses (except for those haters). One thing haters have yelled at me is when the signal is too close.

If you signal within 10′, that could be why you are startling people and why you are getting negative reactions.

I was going to add to this thread, by rcannon100 has left me with nothing more to add. Get a big bell with some sustain (brass preferably), and ring far in advance. The doppler effect tells them you’re coming. Bells can be heard over headphones in many cases.

[Dirt]

@essigmw 19728 wrote:

Dirt,
What song do you tend to sing? So I know it is you comming up behind me. I find that Stevie Wonder’s “Ribbons in the Sky” tends to jump in my head on the W&OD between Ceder and 495; the trail is pretty straight here and you can see a thin ribbon of asphalt leading to the horizon.

Totally depends on the day, my mood and the number of people on the trail. This morning was Roxanne, by The Police sung with my best/worst Eddie Murphy impersonation. Truly scary thing to behold.

[baiskeli]

@Dirt 19734 wrote:

Totally depends on the day, my mood and the number of people on the trail. This morning was Roxanne, by The Police sung with my best/worst Eddie Murphy impersonation. Truly scary thing to behold.

Since you’re passing on the left, I think it should be songs with “left” in them. I found some candidates on the web:

Beyonce – “To the Left”

The Replacements – “Left of the Dial”

Nickelback – “Left”

No, wait, scratch that. Don’t ever sing a Nickelback song, ever.

Suzanne Vega – “Left of Center”

[dasgeh]

BTW, in Iowa I saw a lady on a bike with a speaker. As in she was riding along, a speaker was mounter where I bike computer would normally be on the stem, and a nice workout-oriented was playing (at a responsible level). Seemed like a nice idea…

[jabberwocky]

@dasgeh 19742 wrote:

BTW, in Iowa I saw a lady on a bike with a speaker. As in she was riding along, a speaker was mounter where I bike computer would normally be on the stem, and a nice workout-oriented was playing (at a responsible level). Seemed like a nice idea…

Several years ago I was riding the Capital Crescent back from Bethesda. As I approached DC, I passed a dude sedately riding a department store bike pulling a trailer. On the trailer was an old-school boombox. Which was playing “Eye of the Tiger” at full volume.

It was awesome.

[thucydides]

@dasgeh 19742 wrote:

BTW, in Iowa I saw a lady on a bike with a speaker. As in she was riding along, a speaker was mounter where I bike computer would normally be on the stem, and a nice workout-oriented was playing (at a responsible level). Seemed like a nice idea…

I bet she’s a frequenter of RAGBRAI. Lots of the folks there ride along with musical accompaniment (some of a decidly R-rated sort). If I ever do RAGBRAI again I want to go as Team Fitzcarraldo and play opera all the way across Iowa.

[dasgeh]

That’s definitely an awesome thing about being out in Iowa — TONS of people are training to do RAGBRAI. Unfortunately, while they have some great trails, the people who don’t live those trails seem to drive to places they can bike. Definitely not consistent bike infrastructure, at least in DSM.

[Terpfan]

@dbb 18361 wrote:

While warining early is good, the faster you go, the further away you are from the person you are warning. At 10 mph, 2 seconds is 29 feet. Speed up to 15 mph and that grows to 44 feet. At 20 mph, you are now 59 feet behind the person you will be passing in two seconds. Please note that I am not advocating any of these speeds on the trail, just discussing the distance traveled.

Unless you have a warning device of great volume, you will likely have to make your call a bit closer than two seconds out. I am not sure a voice will be particularly noticable at 44 feet when mixed with the myriad background noise often present on the trails.

As the mornings are getting brighter the warning our lights give to a trail user ahead will disappear, so we need to be aware.

I try to both ease up on the speed and give a warning a second or so before I pass. It is a balance between being heard and not scaring the crap out of the peds.

I use a bell for peds and call my passes with cyclists (on the occasion I am able to pass another rider). We can encourage cyclists to call their passes by responding, “thanks”.

That’s presuming the other cyclist/jogger/etc isn’t moving either. Aside from at Gravely Pt, rarely are people stationary. So even the joggers you have to factor moving at 4-5mph into that equation. The bikers are even easier because the slowest are still moving at a decent clip relative to you.

I find the biggest problem is the other distractions/noises. By Gravely, the planes and GWP are horrendously loud entirely destroying the effect desired. And by the Mall the tourists are so pre-occupied with orienting themselves or getting the perfect picture that they entirely forget people live, work or otherwise commute through the city.

And of course kids, which I tend to try to avoid widely or go slowly by since they seem to move without discretion or worry (and seriously, when I see the littler ones riding right by the edge of Reagan National’s fences I do worry one will one day ride into the Parkway).

[5555624]

@dasgeh 19742 wrote:

BTW, in Iowa I saw a lady on a bike with a speaker. As in she was riding along, a speaker was mounter where I bike computer would normally be on the stem, and a nice workout-oriented was playing (at a responsible level). Seemed like a nice idea…

Years ago, I saw an advertisement for a small bike-mounted radio. It was a tempting idea for my morning commute, but I like the peace and quiet more.

[dasgeh]

@5555624 19794 wrote:

Years ago, I saw an advertisement for a small bike-mounted radio. It was a tempting idea for my morning commute, but I like the peace and quiet more.

Good point, though I’d love one for my evening commute. There’s no peace and quiet, and it may help the peds who can’t seem to grasp what “on your left”, “heads up”, “nice evening, please share the trail” mean. In fact, I overslept this morning (whoops) so rode in much later than usual. The Arlington side was wonderful — much fewer cars. Once on the other side of ANC, however, was another story. Masses of tourists, cars and buses clogging up EVERYTHING. Luckily, I didn’t have long to slog through that mess.

[Author]

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