On your left – tales of woe

[Bilsko]

@KLizotte 23549 wrote:

100 feet? Seriously?!

There should also be a sign for ped users too; they have responsibilities as well. Just sayin’

The language is weird though….approaching within 100ft. How else would the whole passing thing work? Or perhaps there are sections of the trail where you get a wiiiiide 125ft berth.

[brendan]

@creadinger 23530 wrote:

Hah, 100 feet??

On the MVT that would mean calling/dinging to pass the 4th person up ahead while passing #1. The sightlines and traffic on the MVT just do not warrant giving huge warning times before passing, unless you just want to constantly ding your bell every 5-10 seconds. Most of the time when I pass another cyclist I have been riding behind them for a few seconds already because on-coming traffic is in the way. So no, they don’t get multiple warnings 5 seconds prior to me passing them.

On weekend MVT rides, I ding my bell every 5-10 seconds. Which is why I almost never ride the MVT on weekends…and if I do, I don’t do it on any sort of time schedule.

Brendan

[consularrider]

@brendan 23618 wrote:

On weekend MVT rides, I ding my bell every 5-10 seconds. Which is why I almost never ride the MVT on weekends…and if I do, I don’t do it on any sort of time schedule.

Brendan

Let’s see if we can get a group together with different bells and see what tune we can come up with alternately ringing the bells every 5-10 seconds.

[5555624]

@brendan 23618 wrote:

On weekend MVT rides, I ding my bell every 5-10 seconds. Which is why I almost never ride the MVT on weekends…and if I do, I don’t do it on any sort of time schedule.

I used to feel the same way, but lately I’ve been doing some Saturday morning rides. If you’re off the MVT by 4:30 a.m., it’s not bad.

[consularrider]

@5555624 23625 wrote:

I used to feel the same way, but lately I’ve been doing some Saturday morning rides. If you’re off the MVT by 4:30 a.m., it’s not bad.

Also remember there is a 15 mph speed limit on the entire trail that is honored just about as much as the 40 mph speed limit on the adjoining GW Pkwy. That said, I’m on the MVT at least five days a week and usually twice a day during commuting hours with more variable times on the weekends and really rarely feel frustration with other trail users. OK maybe once of twice a day, but that’s no worse than I would experience anywhere else. There are certainly routes on city streets as an option, but I really enjoy 90% of the MVT from Rosslyn to 4MR. Now if they would just widen the Memorial Bridge underpass!

[pfunkallstar]

I was cruising in with some guys this morning around 7ish and both of them insisted on ringing their bells pretty much constantly starting around 100ft out – good in theory – but in practice it just scared the crap out of the pedestrians.

[dasgeh]

I’m thinking of putting multiple bells on my bike and playing songs on my way into work…

[KLizotte]

I rode the Custis eastbound yesterday at rush hour for the first time. Wow, I feel so bad for the people heading westbound in the afternoon because they have it even worse than I experienced. Given the nature of the Custis (narrow, curvy, lots of hills) it is definitely not a good place for peds to be, esp given the blind curves and speeds that come with the hills.

Regarding bells, there were a few places where I could not ring my bell since I really needed to keep both hands on the brakes for safety of all concerned so I relied on voice calls (but the peds were listening to iPods anyway). Note to peds: we can’t always ring our bells for this reason.

[Terpfan]

I don’t ring it 3 separate times if I’m passing 2 or 3 clusters of peds within a few feet of each other because it just confuses them more. And I’m starting to question even ringing it for tourists as it seems like they not the faintest clue why a bell would ever ring. They also ignore any calls. I basically have just taken to dealing with them very slowly. My favorite is the bike tours…they seem to move toward the bell like a herd.

[DavidAsch]

How’s this for a twist! I commute regularly on the path through Rock Creek Park and always ding my bell when I pass runners. Yesterday when I dinged my bell, the runner said, “That was completely unnecessary.” I slowed down and asked what she meant. She said, “I am here. You are there. The bell is an annoyance.”

[mstone]

@DavidAsch 23731 wrote:

How’s this for a twist! I commute regularly on the path through Rock Creek Park and always ding my bell when I pass runners. Yesterday when I dinged my bell, the runner said, “That was completely unnecessary.” I slowed down and asked what she meant. She said, “I am here. You are there. The bell is an annoyance.”

Simply explain that you are meeting your obligation to signal the pass. If she wishes to opt out, she should wear a large sign on her back indicating that she does not want to be so notified–otherwise it is impossible for a cyclist to guess that.

[dasgeh]

The more I ride around other cyclists (since my commute moved from ANC to the Custis), the more I wish more cyslists called their passes, because the more passes are called, the more normal it is. E.g. this morning, I was 5th in a line of 6 bikes headed down the Rosslyn hill. #2 had a bell, and sometimes rang it. No one else called. Given that there wasn’t much point in passing, I’d sometimes let a gap open between me and #4. I called almost all my passes, but I was torn, because I could see how, from the ped’s prospective, it would be weird to be passed by so many bikes, and have one towards the end say something. In the end, I kept calling because I didn’t want to pass the one ped who decided to veer into me (’cause I really, really don’t want to fall, with the whole baby thing).

Anyway, just another inarticulate reason for everyone to call all passes.

@DavidAsch 23731 wrote:

How’s this for a twist! I commute regularly on the path through Rock Creek Park and always ding my bell when I pass runners. Yesterday when I dinged my bell, the runner said, “That was completely unnecessary.” I slowed down and asked what she meant. She said, “I am here. You are there. The bell is an annoyance.”

Isn’t the answer to that just “Well, those are the rules of the trail, as it were”? It’s like using a blinker in a car — sometimes unnecessary, but always the rule.

[pfunkallstar]

@DavidAsch 23749 wrote:

How’s this for a twist! I commute regularly on the path through Rock Creek Park and always ding my bell when I pass runners. Yesterday when I dinged my bell, the runner said, “That was completely unnecessary.” I slowed down and asked what she meant. She said, “I am here. You are there. The bell is an annoyance.”.

I got that from a woman running with what looked like a mastiff/lab mix – “Your voice upset my dog!” I apologized, but didn’t really understand what she was getting on about, the dog was just standing there drooling like a maniac.

[TwoWheelsDC]

What about dinging on behalf of cyclists in front of you? Sometimes if I’m in a line of cyclists and I notice people aren’t calling passes, I’ll ding from the back before the lead bike overtakes a ped. But I hate to give the cyclists in front of me the impression that I’m going to pass THEM….so I’m conflicted on this practice.

[consularrider]

@DavidAsch 23731 wrote:

How’s this for a twist! I commute regularly on the path through Rock Creek Park and always ding my bell when I pass runners. Yesterday when I dinged my bell, the runner said, “That was completely unnecessary.” I slowed down and asked what she meant. She said, “I am here. You are there. The bell is an annoyance.”

I’ve had this twice over the past year on the 4MRT between Walter Reed and George Mason, maybe the same runner? The first time was what I thought was a snotty remark about how he was an experienced runner (how can I tell the difference?) and the second was that one ding was enough (I almost always do a double ding). I think I’ve had somebody else refer to me as the “ice cream truck” when I had to pass a large group.

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