[brendan]

@vvill 19801 wrote:

On a slightly different but related topic – anyone have tips for washing helmet straps? Mine are starting to look and -smell- significantly less than clean, to the point where I took my spare helmet today.

+1 on shower + working shampoo into straps and pads and rinsing. If it gets really bad and you can go without it for a few hours, you can always use the mentioned method, squeeze out any water and then give all surfaces a spray of disinfectant (e.g. Lysol). Let that sit for an hour, then rinse thoroughly, rewash using skin-friendly shampoo and rinse again. I’ve had to do that in the hotter summer months from time to time to fight off helmet funk.

Brendan

[brendan]

Heh, CaBi users don’t seem to like hills, MV.

Brendan

[brendan]

@Greenbelt 19552 wrote:

This was our experience too — a great day. Only issue was with a couple of douchebags showing off their mad climbing and descending skills (instead of slowing down for all the wobblers and newbies) on the GW parkway. Was my first time doing this ride and I really enjoying seeing all the (tens of?) thousands of people on bikes!

Oops. In my defense, if the “on the left” didn’t work, I did slow down and wait until it did work. And was very lucky to have a huge open gap in front of me all the way down the GW Parkway hill (wheeeeeeeeee!).

Anyway, sounds like my initial impression of what happened was incorrect. There may have been a collision at 110, but if so, it only closed that portion of the course for a short period. I had thought the course had been closed for a while since there was a 30 or so minute period from 9ish to 930ish when I didn’t see any returning riders at the finish, yet when i crossed back into VA at the memorial bridge around 10am (?), I saw tons of riders on 110.

I still don’t understand why the choice was made to have most of the VA course have a flipped opposing traffic directions layout (ride on the left, opposing traffic on the right). That ended up increasing the danger right before the pinch point as returning riders are yelling for everyone who just showed up in VA to move to their left (non-intuitive) right before the returning riders…are forced to cross bike traffic and move to the right to cross the bridge.

Or maybe somehow things got reversed for a while then sorted out by marshals?

Brendan

[brendan]

I don’t think rootchopper mentioned it above, but he seems to have been close to where the incident occurred (excerpted from http://rootchopper.blogspot.com/2012/05/bike-dc-on-fumes.html ):

We passed Rosslyn and then doubled back on US 50 to take the exit near the Iwo Jima Memorial. A left hand turn took us to the road along side Arlington Memorial Cemetery where we (and I mean at least 200 cyclists) were stopped and turned around. I was told there had been a nasty accident, two cyclists collided head on near the bottom of the hill. So hundreds of cyclists found themselves riding into hundreds of cyclists. Brilliant!

Brendan

[brendan]

@Riley Casey 19455 wrote:

I’ll be there all night and then some. Interesting that this is the first mention of BikeFest on the forum with just a day to go. Not sure that augers well.

I’ve noticed the WABA events circle (the people I know from events and social rides in DC) and the WABA/BA Forum circles don’t seem to overlap all that much?

@eminva 19458 wrote:

I am going and working the same shift as Ann. I love that the reminder email advised us not to show up for our shift drunk. I guess the rest of the volunteers are a good 20-30 years younger than me. Or have much more adventurous and less corporate lives.

Maybe us older fuddies are the only ones still using forums instead of the social medias?

Brendan

[brendan]

That sucks, Jim.

In the interim, talk to the docs weekly about what activities you can do when: they’ll adjust this based on how your recovery is going. But make it clear you were active and want to be active again, sometimes it affects their treatment techniques. And as you start becoming more active, check with them on how to watch for too much too soon.

Look forward not just to the start of riding, but how strong you’ll be again six months after you’re riding again.

I crashed hard on a lobster-pot sized pothole at the construction at 18th and Florida on Halloween, struggled to get back home to Clarendon to pick up my costume and only then realized my knee was swelling so much I couldn’t ride back into DC. A few days later, I was diagnosed with a fractured patella and had to be in a locked-at-extension brace for a month and no biking for two months.

Riding *was* my mood stabilizer and just *what I did*. So I got myself to a shrink pronto. That helped.

Slowly working back up to the fitness level I was at last summer and looking forward getting there.

Brendan

[brendan]

@Arlingtonrider 19290 wrote:

…evasive manuevering (quick turns, emergency stops, and how to best quickly go around unexpected small obstacles)

That last one is my favorite because it is called: ROCK DODGE!

Brendan

[brendan]

I’m a fan of strobes for daylight-only city biking (where a) everyone’s pupils are already tiny and b) you don’t cause people to lose their night vision). The problem can be that the stroke always blinks at the highest lumen level. Some recent light have a set of alternate “walking mode” settings (requires you to hold the button for a while when turning on the light) one of which is a lower-power strobe for walker’s night use, which, might be acceptable for night-time city biking. Maybe.

Most of the time, I use my front headlight in lowest-power mode. Saves on battery and the current tech is usually 100-200 lumens or so on low.

I am the jerk who uses one of these on the rear of my bikes, mostly because I can set the LEDs to circle in a 360 degree sweep at night: http://www.amazon.com/Aervoe-1185-LED-Road-Flare/dp/B003GAXXUU

Brendan

[brendan]

Heh. I just jumped over to the forums to ask Dirt about the aero bars he had on his Big Dummy a couple of years back, and immediately saw a thread was already started today re: aero bars.

I was headed back from Leesburg to Arlington on the BD this afternoon and the headwind was killing me. Guess other people were having wind issues today too?

Brendan

[brendan]

@jnva 19252 wrote:

Exactly. Voltage=top speed while capacity (watt-hours) = distance. High voltage not so easy to add, so high speed ebikes not really practical. Neither is adding capacity because of the weight of current battery technology.

Note also, just like cyclist wattage output, the wattage required for a particular speed is approximately proportional to the *square* of the velocity (in the atmosphere). Slower is better if you want to maximize your distance.

Brendan

[brendan]

@jrenaut 19132 wrote:

So, I bought my bike the end of May 2011. I started off putting maybe 30 miles a week on it, and worked up to 50-75 miles a week. I do almost all of my riding in the city, and ride in all but the worst weather.

Today I brought my bike in to my LBS for warranty adjustments, and they said I need to replace the chain, cassette, crankset, and bottom bracket. I know I don’t clean my chain and gears much, but does this seem excessive? Aside from cleaning, which I know I have to do better, are there other things to do to get a bit more life out of the drivetrain?

Chain & cassette – probably. Its possibly your chain has worn to significantly beyond the “replace at this wear level” level, which helps to grind down the cassette.

What crankset do you have? It’s unusual to have to replace that entirely but you may have also worn your most heavily used chainring(s) significantly and one or two rings might need replacement. Perhaps that what they mean by crankset?

Is the bottom bracket creaking and/or loose? Is it loose due to misadjustment or wear?

Since approximately the same time (spring 2011), I’ve replaced the Big Dummy’s chain twice, cassette twice, outer chain rings approximately twice and outboard/external bottom bracket components twice. The “crankset” itself aside from the chain rings (a mr. whirly) remains in good, if scuffed, condition. Granted, I think there has been > 8500 miles on the bike since then.

Had I been more on top of replacing the chain as it wears, it’s possible I may not have had to replace the cassette and/or chain rings as often. The last chain was around 3x to 4x the stretch length where they recommend you replace the chain, and the immense slack allowed the derailleur pulley to lay way up against the chainstay. Needless to say, shifting and power-transfer was horrid before replacements. And rather embarrassing for me, really.

Brendan

[brendan]

@Steve O 18972 wrote:

So that then begs the question of why this particular trail intersection is special. How is it different and more deserving of bollards than any of the others?

Short answer: I suspect it is because the park authority was concerned that lost vehicles may see the bridge from the nearby street, drive the short stretch of asphalt around the field and attempt to drive over the bridge and have the bridge collapse.

Brendan

[brendan]

@americancyclo 18941 wrote:

I’ll bet you a beer at the next forum happy hour that the fastest way to continue through across 29 on the W&OD is to take Van Buren to 19th to Vanderpool. :p

Definitely the fastest. You just have to be very careful of the bollard collar at the trail/van buren intersection. That one, plus the unfilled ones on the bluemont trail (where a friend crashed pretty badly at night) make me dislike the collars way more than the bollards themselves.

Brendan

[brendan]

@dasgeh 18996 wrote:

WRT the Lincoln, just imagine how many tourists are going to try to get from the MVT from the North Memorial Bridge crossing if there’s no signage about how bikes should get down there!

Speaking of which, I wonder if they delay on fixing the very very wide sidewalks and getting rid of those awful ramps on the Memorial Bridge is to make sure we don’t get our expectations set too high about the width and congestion of the other Potomac crossing options…

Brendan

[brendan]

@eminva 18983 wrote:

Welcome to commuting on the Key Bridge . . . :p

Liz

Heh, a couple of weeks back, a friend and I witnessed a pod of three CaBi bikes turning left from M St. onto the Key Bridge into VA. In the right traffic lane. I believe it’s a perfectly *legal* option, but I generally avoid doing so unless I’m on my road bike. On a good day. A lesson learned after the time I spaced out while riding the cargo bike and ended up in the left traffic lane heading into VA, pedaling my little heart out and being passed at highway speed by irate motorists in the right lane (giving me no option except to stay in my lane and pedal hard until I reached salvation on the VA side or died trying).

Brendan

[Author]

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