[Alcova cyclist]

I’ll be there — arriving between 6 and 6:30. At least one other person said they were coming over on Strava.

[Alcova cyclist]

Happy hour tomorrow (1/26) at Capitol City in Shirlington – 6:30 pm.

Hope to see some of you there!

[Alcova cyclist]

@Emm 153388 wrote:

A Beerneuring ride works on 2/4 (even if we meet in Falls Church ) I’m also up for a Doughneuring ride at some point since donuts are pretty much my favorite food group.

No reason it can’t be both…

[Alcova cyclist]

All,

Three potential team activities on the horizon (also cross posted to Strava discussions):
Wed 1/25 – Hump Day coffee club (not really a team thing, but I plan to go between 7:30 and 8:15 or so)
Thursday 1/26 – team happy hour… open for a location or we could try the ill-fated mad fox one more time
Saturday 2/4 – Jason has suggested a happy hour then, and I’ve suggested perhaps a team beerneuring ride since it’s a weekend

[Alcova cyclist]

Good morning team 13! I see we are up to 11 members in the strava club. I think we must have gotten some new members. Welcome, and let us know who you are!

I am back in the saddle as it were after having to resort to sleaze-only for a few days.

Does anyone have interest in a happy hour this Thursday (aka tomorrow night)? Respond to the thread or click “like” for this post if you’re interested. As long as we can get at least 3-4 it’ll be on.

I was thinking someplace W&OD accessible that’s somewhat near most of us… I had previously suggested Mad Fox in Falls Church. Could also do someplace in Shirlington, or even farther afield in Alexandria or Vienna or Rosslyn. A little bit of a ride to get there/back is ok, since that’s just more points for us.

On that note… WHile the competition part of this crazy thing isn’t necessarily its primary purpose, it would be great to get off of the bottom of the charts. The key to that is riding every day. We are only 13 miles short of the next team above us in the standings, but we trail them by ~250 points because they have 25 more ride-days than us. The “One team to rule them all” is in 14th — 7 spots and 600+ points ahead of us — but they have almost 100 fewer miles than we do. The power of short but regular riding.

Sleaze on, compadres.

[Alcova cyclist]

Obscurerichard – sorry, I thought I posted from work but it didn’t go through. Since it was you and me I meant to cancel happy hour.

So, we’re not off to a great start (Note: NSFW or near small children)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyfriipc61A

With bad weather this weekend, even a few sleaze rides will help us try to climb back into the standings – try to get in at least a mile on Saturday.

Sunday and Monday look more conducive to a longer ride… anyone up for a ride from Arlington to Vienna (either for breakfast — say a 7am departure/8am arrival, or for a bit of beerneuring later in the day)?

[Alcova cyclist]

By the way, our team is:
Alcova Cyclist
Emm
Jason
Matt AUne
mikep
obscurerichard
pkeit32
stahlkenetic
Tania
Thor
Troutster

We’re still missing two from our Strava team. I think I can match Emm, Troutster, stahlkinetic, Matt AUne, mike p, obscurerichard, and tania to strava names of people signed up… that means we’re missing two out of Jason, pkeit32, and Thor (one of them matches to a named team member, but I don’t know which). I am “Chris A” on strava.

[Alcova cyclist]

Any interest in a Team 13 Happy hour tomorrow in honor of Friday the 13th? Suggest Mad Fox in Falls Church — looks like it’s just a few blocks off the W&OD. Could also support something closer in, say somewhere in Arlington. Say, start at 7?

If there are at least 4 folks interested, I’m in. I’ll consider that a quorum for team name voting (currently only one suggested name, so it’s in the lead!)

I had been thnking about a breakfast ride from Arlington to Vienna this weekend, but the weather looks unpleasant (Friday night forecast: “Rain, snow, and sleet likely after 1am. New snow and sleet accumulation of less than a half inch possible.” // saturday is no better: “Freezing rain and sleet”). I might go anyway or perhaps next weekend (or MLK day?)

Open to other suggestions for rides (e.g. if non-weekend nights are better for a happy hour, etc.)

Chris

[Alcova cyclist]

Team 13: https://www.strava.com/clubs/BAFS17-winners

[Alcova cyclist]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]13158[/ATTACH]

[Alcova cyclist]

Welcome team 13ers!

It was nice meeting a few of you at the kickoff happy hour. I hope to meet the rest of you soon
Thanks for playing in BAFS17. A few housekeeping things:
1. Join the strava club (see first link in thread, or if you’re lazy, here it is again: https://www.strava.com/clubs/BAFS17-winners)
2. Give a quick reply to this post so we know who you are and we can get to know our team.
3. Go ride your bike
4. If you have a suggestion for a name, post it in this thread. I’d like to settle on a name quickly, as I still have flashbacks from my first bafs team
5. Does anyone have interest in a team happy hour this Friday? (since it’s our official team holiday, being Friday the 13th?)
6. Go ride your bike

A quick intro of me: I live in central Arlington (in Alcova Heights, hence the screen name). This is my 3rd BAFS, but my first time as a team captain. I am not a high mileage guy, but I try to ride every day (I’ve missed just one day in the last 2 years of BAFS). My goals for this BAFS are to ride every day, get to 1,000 total miles, go to at least a few coffee clubs, and not be a crappy team captain. I credit my first BAFS for turning me from a 50-50 bike commuter to a year-round 100% bike commuter, so I am a fan of the contest.

If this is your first BAFS, let me stress the importance of regular riding. There is no shame in “sleaze rides” (rides of more than 1 mile, but less than 2). Someone who rides 1 mile per day will contribute more to the team than someone who rides 50 miles on Saturday, but doesn’t ride the rest of the week. BAFS is also a great opportunity to meet people in the local cycling community by visiting coffee clubs or going on group rides. I will try to organize a few group rides for the team, but feel free to do so yourself if you’re so inclined!

[Alcova cyclist]

When I first moved to South Arlington from western Fairfax, I noticed some of my neighbors had a bit of a chip on their shoulder about South Arlington always getting shafted by the county in favor of North Arlington. I thought it was silly at the time. But now that I’ve lived here a while, I find I am starting to feel the same way – and somehow, these pictures of the W&OD kind of sum it up for me.

Here’s a picture of where, when heading east, the trail splits — with the Custis (connecting to North Arlington) heading to the left and the the W&OD (connecting to South Arlington) continuing straight. Seems kind of a stark difference – so much so that you might not see a split at all except for the centerline of the W&OD that continues into the untreated, unplowed, still snow-covered trail to Southie. I expect this should be nice and icy tomorrow morning (The W&OD is untreated from Custis to at least as far as Columbia Pike).
[ATTACH=CONFIG]13101[/ATTACH]

Coming from the other direction it looks like this:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]13102[/ATTACH]

Anyone know who made the decision about what stretches of what trails to plow/sweep/treat and why? Are these the trails designated to get snow clearance going forward? The decision doesn’t seem to be specific to County boundaries, because the W&OD west of Custis is still Arlington County. It doesn’t seem to be that the W&OD isn’t treated by the county, because it’s cleared west of Custis. It doesn’t seem to be driven by usage, because (anecdotally at least based on my ride today) I saw more people out on the untreated W&OD southeast of Custis than I did on the cleared part west of Custis or on the Custis itself (or for that matter on the Bluemont Junction Trail, which goes through several north Arlington neighborhoods and was also evidently cleared).

[Alcova cyclist]

I’ll be there.

[Alcova cyclist]

I use the same transit garment bag mentioned back on page 1. It’s not “survive a steady rain” waterproof, but it manages to keep stuff mostly dry in a light shower or w/ road spray. Keeping the dry cleaning bag on helps.

Also an upvote for keeping suits, ties, and shoes at the office and just swapping out shirts. With 3-4 suits/dress slacks in rotation I can usually bring in a new one and take home the oldest one one each time I haul in a load of shirts.

I have found that shirt done at the cleaners w/ medium starch stay a lot more wrinkle free than anything I try to do myself (or maybe the ones I do myself just start out more wrinkled to begin with). I bring in 5 or so shirts at a time just once a week because I much prefer to use my trunk rack than the garment bag pannier.

[Alcova cyclist]

@Judd 148668 wrote:

Since we’re pointing out all of the things that suck about the “trail” on 27, I’ll add this part where the signed bike route (mostly a wide sidewalk) reaches a part where the sidewalk is just totally cut out. The options are to salmon in a lane with a blind curve or take a bit drop from the sidewalk into a gravel pit and hop the sidewalk on the other side to continue on to the trail.

https://goo.gl/maps/4YBtumbovAF2

I hate that spot too, so I switched so that I just take the lane coming down that last stretch of Columbia Pike (from the Pike/Joyce intersection) — actually I take the left lane, since that keeps me out of the highway on/off ramps. With the big downhill, I find I don’t slow traffic behind me much, and there are rarely any cars staying straight into the pentagon lot there anyway. On the way west, I take the lane until I am through the underpass and take one of the curb cuts onto the sidewalk near the child center.

ETA – taking the lane in both directions also gets you out of the too narrow sidewalk in the underpass where it says you’re supposed to “dismount” and walk your bike.

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