[Brandon]

Mine is correct as well, thanks!

[Brandon]

@historygeek 196652 wrote:

Hey– I’m an east side river rider, though all of the other team members I met last night at happy hour were Virginians! I live in Hyattsville, commute to the Palisades, and haunt the Anacostia trails on the weekends. This is my fifth BAFS (in six years. I skipped once). Though I’m HistoryGeek here, I’m Christy in real life (and on Strava)

Well one more Virginian checking in! I live in Vienna and commute to the DC Wharf/L’Enfant Plaza area. Sorry I couldn’t make it last night, but I’m looking forward to racking up some miles for the team!

[Brandon]

@bentbike33 196473 wrote:

I was wondering about that. The leaderboard has all of the loops I’ve done, but does not seem to be picking up others’. Are all 8 segments showing up in your Loop rides?

Yes they are. Just checked my commute this morning and hidden efforts showed Arloopccw’s 1-5 as it should.

[Brandon]

I just wanted to highlight that there might be something wrong with the data pull and/or leaderboard. It’s not displaying any of my CCW loops and the whole counts seem to be low in general.

[Brandon]

Not to be *that* guy, but “international” winter bike to work day? Shouldn’t it be the Northern Hemisphere Bike Winter Bike to Work Day? 😎

[Brandon]

Honestly, I’ve never seen this section of the trail that “packed” before. The only time I’ve had issues was when local HS cross country teams decided to start holding after school practices between Brandywine and Patrick Henry because they run in huge groups side by side and let’s be honest, HS kids typically aren’t that aware of their surroundings. Is this going to try to pay for that Sycamore/Roosevelt overpass from East Falls Church metro and Brandywine?

[Brandon]

@Henry 194174 wrote:

FMR Trail through Benjamin Banneker Park will close for construction the week of Nov. 18, 2019 and remain closed through 3rd Quarter 2020.

View the detour for pedestrian and bicycle traffic.

Learn more about the project.

Henry

For what it’s worth, it was still open this morning when i went through around 7am

[Brandon]

@Hancockbs 193787 wrote:

Did they have a light of thier own? It seems that the people without a light are often the most offended and I wonder if it is because thier eyes are adjusted to the darkness more than those who are using a light.

Yes they did.

[Brandon]

@ginacico 193731 wrote:

I freak out for the opposite reason. On a dark trail at night, see an oncoming cyclist. Suddenly he disappears, having “politely” covered his headlight. WTF where’d he go?!? How am I supposed to avoid hitting someone I can’t see? Am I past him yet? Terrifying. Far worse if I reciprocate and we’re both groping around in the dark with only one hand on the controls. I just don’t get why we’ve developed different protocols for driving cars and riding bikes. The answer, as mstone says, is because we’ve made up this dumb rule as a twitchy reaction to bad designs and lazy adjustment, then berate each other for not doing the light-fiddling gymnastics. Please stop.

So I tried an experiment this morning on my commute in. I purposefully DIDN’T cover my light at all when approaching joggers, cyclists, etc. even when they covered their light, based on this logic. Here’s my report. In the first 20-25 min I passed roughly 10 bikes and 25 jogger/walkers with the light on the HIGHEST setting (I leave early and it’s pitch black on the W&OD west of falls church). Not one bike or jogger seemed phased at all, I have it appropriately pointed (down a bit and to the right to help light up the tree line for deer). I turned it down to the medium setting from Virginia Lane to Banneker park and passed maybe 10 bikes and 10-15 joggers. In this group I had TWO cyclists VERY aggressively yell things at me about my light and not covering it. I’ll be honest, the aggression was worse than I get from 99% of cars for taking the lane. No one else seemed bothered by my light other than these two so my take is that they take not covering a light as more of a personal affront. Or they have super-attenuated vision beyond everyone else.

So in the true manner of this thread, if you find yourself bothered by every headlight on the trail, look inward, it might not be the light that needs adjustment, but you.

[Brandon]

@chuxtr 193345 wrote:

1. What did you think of the mileage cap (for team points, not individual points)? Scrap? Keep? Keep but up the mileage?

I wasn’t really a fan of it. I live FAR out of DC in Vienna and am an everyday commuter for the most part. Family and kid commitments typically limit my participation on weekends for group rides and with the length of my commute, it makes any sort of coffee/happy hours difficult as well. Basically, my participation has been limited to my commute for the most part. My first year I really felt like I was able to contribute to my team with the high mileage i racked up commuting so I didn’t feel awful if I missed days on the weekend. But with a mileage cap my contribution to the team is limited, especially since I’m not able to partake in the many social aspects of the game (which was the goal I realize for the cap anyways). And I don’t care about the individual points, I’m not out to “win” anything, I just want to let some others take advantage of my high miles to the benefit of a team.

@chuxtr 193345 wrote:

2. What do you think about trying to make the teams more “local,” i.e., teammates from the same area? But still trying to “balance” the teams (based on past Freezing Saddles participation) so that no one team is “stacked” with high mileage riders?

The more “local” a team is for me raises the likelihood that I could participate in some of the social activities
@chuxtr 193345 wrote:

4. What do you think about smaller size teams? Last year we had 19 teams with 10 riders each. It’s been suggested that Freezing Saddles is more competitive with smaller teams because every team member’s miles (or lack thereof) count more. Is something like 6 riders too small for a team?

I like the current team sizes
@chuxtr 193345 wrote:

5. Keep the current point system? 10 points for the first ride mile of the day (as an incentive to ride) but 1 point for every mile afterwards.

Yes

[Brandon]

I think the most interesting part of that segment was the commuter connections survey data at the end. It said that car/van pool commuters make up 5% of commuters in DC and bicyclists make up 4%. For roughly equal numbers of commuters, far more resources and infrastructure are dedicated to car/van pools with the various DOTs. Imagine if they closed down Rt 50 into the city (a la I-66 HOV) during rush hour for bikes. It seems ridiculous, but literally this survey shows that the populations being served are equal.

[Brandon]

@dasgeh 193242 wrote:

All the way to the east side of Sycamore. The official detour will (almost certainly) to cross Sycamore at the light at 19th.

So as a FFX County resident, I don’t pay too much attention to the goings-on in Arlington, but I just looked through the plans for the Banneker Park redesign. And their long term goal is to move the W&OD traffic outside the park? I mean, the official W&OD already technically goes down that hill on 19th/Tuckahoe to enter the park by the playground, but NO ONE actually goes that way. Does anyone know HOW they plan to shift W&OD through-traffic outside the park long-term? or is that just something they’re saying for the NIMBYs?

[Brandon]

So unfortunately it looks like they DID make this a beg button at the S Walter Reed Dr intersection. I was stopped and waiting for the crosswalk this morning and the 4MR traffic got the green but no crosswalk light, even with no left turn traffic and light. I almost missed it while chatting with another cyclist. So make sure you push that button when you get there . . . 😡

[Brandon]

From Vienna to DC today: W&OD was clear, watch out for leftover mud/silt though on all the underpasses between the Custis and Columbia Pike. One spot in my usual line almost caused me to wipe out. There was a tree down in the Vienna area but it was only blocking a small portion of the trail. 4MRT was all clear too, they came in and cleared out the Glebe road underpass which was surprising.

[Brandon]

So I just signed up! (and used Judd’s code) This is actually my very first group ride of any kind and also my first “event” outside of Bike to Work day. I’m really excited! See you all tomorrow morning! – Brandon (formerly NovaEbike)

[Author]

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