[Brendan von Buckingham]

He’d have to have been going slow enough to make the EB curve. But if the stroller came up off the sidewalk from behind the overgrown chain link fence, it would have been like being doored: zero reaction time.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

I think the term used here to which some aspire is to be agnostic on ebikes. I try to be agnostic too. But it’s hard when you walk into Revolution in Clarendon for a quick bike part and you see that all the bikes for sale on the first floor have motors. It’s like a 100 year time warp and Indian Motorcycles are all the rage again.

Sigh.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

I hate these. Cattle chutes eventually lead to the slaughterhouse. Just a matter of time. I am not taking the bike lane between parked cars and the sidewalk just to get right hooked by a car that can’t see me.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

Car tootling along in the bike lane on 9th Street was too slow for me so I passed him. He decides the other car tootling along in the bike lane was going too slow too. So he changes lanes in front of me and yells at me that I’m supposed to be in the bike lane.

1. No, but I might give it a try if you weren’t in it,
2. With every polite fiber in my body, f that guy, and
3. You know that I gave a lecture about irony to him at the next light.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

@rcannon100 161424 wrote:

I’m Fine!!!!

I’d be careful. I don’t think he ever turned off his rant mode.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

I love board games. Could talk the whole 50 States Ride about board games. I’m so incessant about it when I get going that you’ll finish the ride faster than ever just to get away from me.

But another bicycle game that came out recently is Flamme Rouge. It’s a bicycle race game where you control a team of two cyclists and decks are used for movement. Here’s a video review of Flamme Rouge. The review if from Shut Up and Sit Down, a very popular game review site. They’re a bit extra goofy in this video, but get past that and they give you an excellent idea of how the game works. They recommend it.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

@AT_Hiker59 161143 wrote:

I don’t live in the area but visit family who do frequently. Many times this spring I have been on the Sligo Trail. I have noticed only 7 bikers calling out their passes. Bikers who do not call out their passes whizzing close by me are too numerous. I am not used to bikers not calling out. Is this a DC area norm? Sligo Trail is too narrow to be speeding by. Is there any educating bikers to sensible courteous trail usage?

One biker gave me the finger when I called out “hey”. Boy did he change his tune when I and my daughter’s pit bull caught up to him at Colesville Rd. red light.

I don’t know, but according to your story you were standing right next to him afterwards. Why didn’t you ask him?

[Brendan von Buckingham]

@AT_Hiker59 161146 wrote:

I did not threaten I just stood next to him with my very friendly pit bull sniffing him.

Why would you ASSUME I threatened him!!!

I want to hear from Sligo bikers about the problems with bikers not calling out.

I call out based on conditions and perceived competencies of the pedestrian. For dogs with too much slack in the leash, I don’t call out and go wide. A call out would just make the dog unpredictable. I’d rather pass the dog before he even know I was there.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

@Crickey7 160698 wrote:

I’ve now spent way too much time on this, and while it’s not specifically forbidden, it’s also not specifically allowed. So the default interpretation would hold, that as a “vehicle” a cyclist has to follow laws of general application to vehicles. So, in conclusion, you probably can be ticketed in Maryland for filtering.

Couldn’t a smart cop just use an amorphous “reckless driving/operation” citation without getting stuck in the ambiguous weeds of specific cycling regulations?

[Brendan von Buckingham]

@cvcalhoun 160641 wrote:

When I respectfully suggested he might want to check on the riding on the sidewalk thing, he gave me a long lecture on how he has a police officer of course knew the law. And threatened to give me a ticket.

And the thing is, if he gives me a ticket (no matter how unjustified), I have to take off from work to contest it. Whereas he can either show up (and get paid for it), or not show up (and thus not even find out he was wrong). So I really had no recourse.

Lots of cops don’t know the regs as they apply to cyclists and take a posture that they know the regs more than you. But sometimes you know them more than they do. Few years ago I got pulled over in Arlington for failure to stay to the right. I knew the cop was way off and wasn’t in the mood for a lecture and bunch of empty yes ma’ams. I asked for the ticket. I got the ticket.

When I went to court I demolished the officer in front of the judge and the courtroom. I’d like to think that the officer learned and hasn’t repeated the error and other cyclists are better off. But this was more than a couple of years ago and perhaps my heroics have doubled a couple of times in the retelling. Still a true story. Not yet a fable.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

I had a site visit in LeDroit Park yesterday on my commute home. To be blunt, after the Masjid Muhammad mosque at 4th and P, black pedestrians or cyclists were unnoticeable until I got to Georgetown. Along 4th, to 2nd and U where my client lives, then outbound on Rhode Island Ave and M Street to get to Key Bridge almost every cyclist or pedestrian was white. It was a beautiful day with swarms of cyclists and pedestrians too many to count.

Then this morning this article came across my desk this morning, The Demographics of walking and biking to work tell yet another story of gentrification. Not too long, charts and maps, and this conclusion: “We don’t have to don a veil of ignorance to formulate transportation policy. Those who can walk or bike to work have already won the income lottery.”

I think they’ve flipped causes and effects in a couple of places, and that the article is looking to justify a preconceived conclusion, e.g. they take a club to the idea of bicycle commuter tax benefits because cyclists are so rich. Regardless…

I’m not saying there’s a link. I just had an evening commute yesterday when I said to myself, jeez, where did all these cyclists come from? and jeez where did all these white people come from?

[Brendan von Buckingham]

@Steve O 160960 wrote:

This thread was top of mind today when I encountered a rider who had stopped on the Rosslyn hill and was staring at her bike. No, I didn’t yell at her, but I stopped to see if I could help. It was a simple fix (she had overshifted her derailleur and the chain had gotten stuck). I was as respectful and kind as I’m capable of (shut up, everyone), but I just don’t know if the fact that I waited until she was up and riding along might be considered demeaning or not. She told me I could go ahead (she had to walk up the hill a bit to get to a flatter spot), but I waited anyway. I’m not sure if I would have with a man.

It seems like a tricky line to tread: did I unintentionally make her feel like a stupid, helpless woman? Or not?

Is just the fact that I was a man helping out a woman create a sexist dynamic a priori?

One sure solution to your conundrum is to just not help people. But that would make for a sh:tty community. If you see someone who needs help, help them. Who cares what others think. Not in this conversation, but big picture, I think there are constituencies that actually think helping people or fellow countrymen is a bad thing, or a weak thing and have constructed entire policies and positions to dissuade people from helping each other. Catch me on a bad day and I’ll call that sociopathic and sick. So I help people when I can. Or I feel bad about myself later if I don’t because those sick voices are inside my head and tempted me into the wrong decision.

Just help people. That is the only decision that has the possibility of being positive. Not helping has no chance of being positive.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

@Sunyata 159838 wrote:

Actually, they are referring to the annual Police Unity Tour, which will be culminating in DC on Friday, May 12th.

The high point of the ride is the arrival ceremony, which will happen around 2:00 at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. If you have never seen it, you should go. It is pretty freaking amazing.

I can’t be trusted with a calendar. They’re too complicated and confuse me.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

@mstone 159818 wrote:

If you’re not sure about the date, I would guess it’s the DC bike ride on Sunday, which will have a bunch of roads closed downtown. They have the same warning for marathons & such.

Thanks. I’m feeling much better now.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

The irony of that fake sign is that it is at precisely the point where a car needs to start stopping in order to stop before the crosswalk. Sign was put up 100 feet before the crosswalk. Speed limit is 35 mph which is 50 feet/second. At 35 mph you have 1 second to decide–should I stop or should I go–and then one second to stop.

The sign at that location should say actually say begin stopping here.

Which gets me to the most important design defect with these ROW xwalks on multi-lane roads: Cars stop too close to them. They need a stop line much further back and away from the xwalk. Presently, when car #1 in the near lane stops 5 feet from the xwalk, they block the line of sight for oncoming car #2 in the far lane. An impossibly dangerous situation. If the stop line was simply 25 feet back (or some other safe distance based on speed limit) then car #2 in the far lane would have their own sufficient line of sight on the xwalk and buffer time/space to come to a stop too. This is so simple it just makes me think the system doesn’t care about non-drivers.

And someone should cut down the underbrush along the trail within 50 feet of the intersection so pedestrians and cyclists can actually be seen as they approach the xwalk. Again, not hard to make it safe if you have the desire.

Or godammit, if we’re going to steal a great European idea like ROW xwalks, can’t we steal the whole freakin’ idea, you know with the zigzag lane marking telling people to stop for a xwalk and NOT OVERTAKE IN THAT ZONE.

So simple it’s already been figured out.

[Author]

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