[brendan]

Ugh, definitely ugh.

[brendan]

No pictures, but I’m happy at the work being done to get the M St. Cycle Track put into place on M St. West of 18th St. NW. That said, I’m going to be extra super duper glad when all of the crazy unrelated construction and road work is over in that corridor…it’s been a rather…interesting…ride for the past couple of months.

Also, I’ll be glad when/if they make it clear the new cycle track isn’t extra parking.

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[brendan]

Erin and I rode the ten-ish blocks down to Busboys & Poets (Mt. Vernon Triangle) BTWD stop. Had coffee, got shirts and swag ziplock baggie, discussed keene bike sandals and the weather (of course) and then biked…back home, since today is a work-from-home day for us (beach trip this afternoon).

My second BTWD, and the first one where I got in early enough to get a t-shirt.

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[brendan]

I keep thinking this thread is about non-English-threaded bike gear…

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[brendan]

@cvcalhoun 85243 wrote:

Someday I’ll be telling my grandchildren, “In my day, there were none of these fancy bike racks. We had to lock our bikes to parking meters and signs, the way the Good Lord intended!”

“Grandma, what’s a parking meter?”

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[brendan]

@brendan 85172 wrote:

Maybe I’ll just gift him one of my extra cables. Or kickstands…

Ok, as fate would have it, the guy came up to his bike just after I started unlocking my bike from the sign post and the conversation naturally opened the way for me to ask the favor of him locking his bike perpendicular to the rack. “Oh, no problem.”

Turns out mstone was right and he’s a newbie.

That was easy.

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[brendan]

@consularrider 85193 wrote:

Now you’ve gone and done it, a pasty followed by frozen custard. Just the thing on the return trip from Purcellville.

Ahem…a…what?

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[brendan]

@cyclingfool 85168 wrote:

There seems to be a bit of this going on these days. Over the weekend, my wife read about a female jogger who reported that occupants of a car tried to abduct her after stopping her to “ask for directions” somewhere around Crystal City if memory serves. After reading this, my wife implored me not to stop and give directions if asked. I kinda shrugged off my wife’s concern, knowing the statistical likelihood of this kind of crime happening, especially to me (a bulky 6’1″ male), is rather low. I still think statistics are on my side, but sad to see that this happened. Glad your coworker escaped relatively unscathed and the police were able to respond.

IOW, this sucks. Exercise common sense, all.

I seem to recall a post a couple of years back from a forum member who was mugged on Key Bridge during a very early morning bike commute inbound. I mostly recall it because of the discussion of the government owned laptop that was was stolen, and the presumption that some people that you don’t want to cross were going to track down the laptop the next time it connected to the internet.

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[brendan]

@mstone 85163 wrote:

First page of google: http://www.parkitbikeracks.com/outdoor-bike-racks/inverted-u-bike-parking-racks.html (make sure you look at both pictures). When you have a 6 or 8 bike wave it’s less ambiguous. But with all the wacky bike parking you see these days I don’t think any roughly square bike parking facility is intuitive.

And if the rack is rarely utilized then it’s better at any rate from the cyclists point of view to use it in parallel rather than perpendicularly because that style of rack is fundamentally flawed: you can’t securely lock both wheels and the frame to it without taking your bike apart, and your bike is extremely likely to fall over anyway. Yeah, it reduces the available spots, but I can think of several of those sucky wave racks where I’ve never actually seen a bike parked, and where I’d probably park parallel if I for some reason needed to park there.

Yes, this is actually hard.

Meanwhile, I’ve had my cargo bike locked to it perpendicularly for the past 6 months. It’s kind of hard to miss. Also, the markings on the parking lot for the bike parking area are large enough to indicate you could/should park perpendicular. So either he’s a new hire or a jerk. Or a newbie, ok, fine.

Today, I locked my bike to its old friend from the pre-bikerack days, the smoking area sign post

If the obnoxious parking continues after I leave a note and I feel particularly dickish, I’ll take the recommendation of a friend, remove his front wheel, ensure the front dropout remains above the ground, hang the wheel from his handlebars, and lock to the left side of the rack.

Actually I won’t do that (it’s not safe to mess with other people’s bikes). But the recommendation made me laugh an evil evil laugh.

Maybe I’ll just gift him one of my extra cables. Or kickstands…

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[brendan]

@mstone 85143 wrote:

to be fair, that rack design is the suck

True, but it’s no excuse.

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[brendan]

@creadinger 85134 wrote:

I disagree. Humans are no smarter than cows or sheep when it comes to groups of us. Get us in a herd and we’ll just do what the guy in front does. Ever seen video of those black Friday mob scenes?

Or any medium to large group social ride in DC?

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[brendan]

Speaking of public shaming…

To the Jerk at work: don’t be a Jerk.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]5585[/ATTACH]

[brendan]

@Emm 85103 wrote:

I pulled a spider off of my face yesterday on my ride home.

And H.R. Giger just passed away…coincidence?

“Oh no…not again….”

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[brendan]

@Steve 85077 wrote:

I always wondered who owned that bike, as I would ride by it with jealousy.

I got in the habit of parking it outside full-time after breaking my collarbone made it difficult to carry/maneuver up the stairs into the apartment, even after “healing”, then later surgery to affix a plate, then actual healing (this was over a year or so).

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[brendan]

@PeteD 85063 wrote:

Sorry I sat on your wheel all the way up from Lee Hwy to Great Falls, didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable that a guy and his kid on a trailer were keeping up with you. Oh, and your wheel needs some TLC on a truer.

–Pete

Secretly, this is why we ride the heavier bikes…

[Author]

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