[AFHokie]

@mstone 99419 wrote:

That’s true, in a vacuum. Try throwing a brick and a feather out a window and report back

Please clear the impact area before throwing…feathers can tickle

[AFHokie]

Could it be the shoes? If new, they might feel fine at first, but then start to hurt on longer rides, or if older could be wearing out and causing the pain.

[AFHokie]

@dasgeh 98073 wrote:

Italian Store is delicious and just off the Custis, though I have a hard time supporting stores in that strip mall, given their hostility to the trail and cycling generally. Kite Runner on Lee Hwy between Oakland and Pollard is worth the detour (not that it’s a detour for us – we live a block away).

Even with Big Wheel Bikes as a tenant? I’ve never heard of any issues with stores in that strip mall disliking the trail or cycling.

[AFHokie]

@americancyclo 98059 wrote:

again, the League of American Bicyclists survey: http://bikeleague.org/content/survey-perceptions-electric-bikes

They have some visual examples that gave me pause when I took the survey.

I learned that I am ok with an ebike going 20 mph, a little uneasy about 30mph, and vehemently against 50mph.

I think my personal preference for unassisted speed is a 25mph cutoff. or maybe 20 mph.

At 50mph you’re riding an electric motorcycle and I think all but a small minority would agree that’s way too fast for a MUP. However that’s the problem, what’s a reasonable cutoff. Overall, there’s a middle ground in there somewhere and I think 25mph sounds about right. Sure some cyclists can exceed 30mph on the MUPs, but how many can sustain the speed? I’m comfortable assuming the minority who can are experienced enough to know how to ride responsibly, so I don’t think that’s a good argument against limiting an e-bike’s speed.

Plenty of dumb and dangerous shenanigans between 5-20mph occur on normal bikes; I don’t think adding e-bikes will significantly affect these occurrences. Who knows, e-bikes could surprise everyone and reduce excessive passing speed and failure to stop issues due to people not wanting to slow down because as dasgeh suggested they want to protect their momentum.

Btw, how much torque does a typical e-bike have? A buddy of mine (and not a big guy either) had an old motorcycle that was so anemic it topped out around 45mph on anything more than a gentle uphill grade. I could be wrong, but I don’t expect to see e-bikes roaring up the Custis through Rossyln at 25+mph in the near future.

[AFHokie]

@bobco85 97945 wrote:

I always have to avoid looking too long at the Ben & Jerry’s in Old Town Alexandria, but other than that I would probably say the barbecue that’s on the W&OD at South Oakland St (near the Shirlington end of the W&OD). I see the smoke and smell the delicious food, but I have not stopped to grab a bite yet.

+1000 I make it a point to get Cheerwine when I stop at Carolina Brothers Pit BBQ because it’s a rare find in this area! It also goes well with the pulled pork bbq sandwich

Somehow I haven’t stopped yet for the BBQ at S Oakland St. Every time I ride by I think to myself I should.

I stopped at Carolina Brothers on the way back from my first ride out to Leesburg. In fact the thought of BBQ is probably why my fastest segment was from my turn point to their parking lot.

[AFHokie]

For those that really want blinky lights: blinky spoke lights are much more attention grabbing than a front/rear blinky.

http://www.monkeylectric.com/
http://www.rei.com/product/774213/nite-ize-led-spokelit-bike-wheel-light
http://revolights.com/

Plus, I’ve yet to pass anyone running them who’s managed to aim them into someone’s eyes or blindingly bright. A win/win for everyone!

[AFHokie]

@Supermau 97729 wrote:

Seriously. I do.

Much of the MVT is pitch black when I’m on it. I’ve tried lower settings and I always wind up back at 750. The one time I was called for blinding was when my light was new and I think I had it angled too high. It didn’t help that I was coming down hill while the other rider was coming up, making my light even more in his face. We did not crash however. Not even close.

A direct hit with 200 lumens is still pretty blinding. I make no apologies for my bright light. It’s got a pretty focused beam pointed down toward the road about four meters in front of me. That’s the best I can do right now.

I get blinded too on occasion. The best strategy I’ve found is to eyeball the trail, hold my line, and avoid the temptation to stare into the light. The whole thing is over as quick as it began.

Like mstone’s points out; beam design is more important than XX lumen output. My 25yr old Maglite with a krypton bulb produces less than half the lumens of my 350 lumen LED Niterider light, but throws a beam much farther…again, beam design over lumen output. Unfortunately, I find mounting a 2D cell flashlight on my bike unwieldy.

I checked out Cygolite’s webpage and while they don’t tell you how far their lights put out a beam they do show a photo of the light output from a cyclist perspective on a road. It looks more like a fan vice a beam however you will outrun even a highly focused beam if you point it at the ground only four meters in front of you. I’d guess that is why you need it at the 750 setting in order to keep from overrunning it.

IIRC, Niterider includes a distance chart on the packaging, but when I checked their webpage, I couldn’t find anything regarding distance. Incidentally, I also checked Surefire’s webpage as well and they don’t state the effective distance of their flashlights. They all only state the number of lumens produced. Maglite’s webpage is the only one I could find that included beam distance and they only had the data for their LED lights. For incandescent, they only showed ‘coming soon’.

The best part of a helmet light is also the worst part; there’s always light wherever you look. Great for you…annoying for anyone you look at in the eyes.

[AFHokie]

@baiskeli 97570 wrote:

Sure, but this discussion isn’t about whether we should have mandatory stops, it’s about what you or I should actually do when we encounter a schoolbus picking up kids. My motivation isn’t to avoid killing a child, since that’s unlikely, but I am motivated by avoiding injury to a child, not to mention the scorn of everyone who saw me ignore a legal requirement to stop and hit a kid.

We’re legally required to hit kids? Is that new legislation from the Get Off My Lawn party?

[AFHokie]

@dplasters 97478 wrote:

Reaching those speeds requires a lot of fitness, effort and experience

Or a significant downhill stretch.

[AFHokie]

@baiskeli 97444 wrote:

Yes, I think that’s a big factor. In the U.S., most people think of a bike as either a child’s toy or at least an adult recreational activity rather than a way of getting around, and therefore not as “serious” as a car.

This entirely. Most Americans just don’t view bicycles as transportation. Your average American views cycling as a recreational activity/workout. Look at the majority of bikes bought and sold in the US. How many ‘commuter’ bikes vs road/mountain, etc are bought each year?

If bikes were viewed as transportation in the US, I think we’d see more bikes with fenders, a dyno & mounted lights, a rack/trunk system adequate for two bags of groceries/ a backpack, etc and some sort of built in lock system.

Plus as others have mentioned; bike attire. You don’t typically dress in special clothing before hopping in your car for a trip to work or the store. That reenforces the ‘it’s a workout/recreation’ activity mentality.

[AFHokie]

@mstone 97398 wrote:

No, I don’t think there’s any chance of a required standard for bike lights in this country–we’re just not that into standards generally. (Whereas in Germany they’re ok with citing a cyclist for a non-approved light because that’s how they roll–they have standards for everything.) There are also different situations where different kinds of lights make sense (e.g., mountain biking at night) so it may not be a one size fits all situation. What I’d like instead is just better information so a consumer can more easily make an informed choice. Maybe it will be printed on airborne swine.

That’s no different than non-road legal lights on 4×4’s and track cars. With cars, it’s easy…on a public road the light isn’t legal. For bikes, where do you draw the line? MUPs? Gravel trails like the C&O?

[AFHokie]

@mstone 97335 wrote:

Except the point was that it’s not actually all that simple, right? Now, I fully acknowledge that good lights tend to be crazy expensive, and that may be more than a lot of people are willing to pay–but everyone should be clear on what the tradeoffs are, and why some lights cost more than others (it’s not just because the good companies are putting huge markups on stuff you can get cheap from china, and it’s not the case that a higher lumen rating means a better light). In general, though, I don’t have any idea on how to fix the market–the general solution would be to give the consumer information to make an informed decision, but we already know that most of the lumen data (which is simple but also useless) on the internet is just made up. What we really want is a beam pattern showing lux at a given distance (something like http://www.bumm.de/uploads/tx_templavoila/IQ-TEC_vs_IQ-Premium.jpg but with numbers and in a form that’s comparable across manufacturers)–that actually tells you how much light is on the road vs how much is up in the sky. But who would actually ensure that manufacturers gave out reliable data of that much more complex and hard to generate sort, if we can’t even get them to tell the truth about lumens? Until we figure out how to get better information to the consumer, the manufacturers have no incentive to compete on quality of light output.

I believe what you seek is a bicycle version of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108. I don’t think bikes need anything quite as in depth or specific, but some sort of baseline standardization would be nice. Unfortunately creating one would make herding cats on catnip look easy.

[AFHokie]

@bobco85 97174 wrote:

The taillights of cars at night have 2 different settings when on: normal (red) and braking (bright red). This change in brightness draws attention to the fact that the car is braking. Bicycle taillights do not have a feature like this as they have usually 3 different settings when on: solid, flashing, and strobe.

How hard would it be to develop a rear light for bikes with an integrated bluetooth connection to the brake levers? Pull the levers and your rear light lights up like brake lights on a car.

[AFHokie]

@Harry Meatmotor 97109 wrote:

one little tid bit, too:

I see a lot of riders using flashing rear lights. I’d recommend keeping both front and rear lights on constantly. I used to work a transportation research institute and we did a small study on different flashing and non-flashing lights for both stationary and (slow) moving road maintenance vehicles and found that steady-on lighting greatly improves other motorists’ ability to estimate speed and direction of another vehicle. Flashing lights are good for stationary objects, but not so great for moving objects.

Wasn’t there an issue when some motorcycle manufacturers started building motorcycles with two smaller headlights instead of a single light and some motorists would think it was a car, but much farther away? Because of that, they thought it was safe to cross/pull into traffic, etc only find they just cut off a bike.

[AFHokie]

@Henry 96923 wrote:

8:30am, Tuesday, Clarendon Blvd and Barton.

You: Mountain Bike, backpack, headphones, oblivious to everything. Me: 50 feet back, watching you blow past the school bus, on the right, by its open door, with its flashing lights and stop sign fully engaged, honking its horn at you to stop. That you had to dodge the kid with the violin case running to catch the bus only reaffirms why vehicles are required to stop for school buses while they load/unload. And yet you rode on, blissfully ignorant of the chaos in your wake.

Thanks for demonstrating the worst in scofflaw cyclist behavior and reinforcing every negative stereotype about us.

What’s also sad is if stopped the guy was incredulous to the fact he’d broken any laws. It’ll never cease to amaze me how many people assume that since they’re on a bike vehicle laws don’t apply.

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