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Very interesting and a pretty cool idea. It seems like it needs some tinkering in the hinterlands though. Peach Tree Rd out near Poolesville is high stress? I don’t think so. And Big Woods Rd? Moderately high stress? I’ve seen less cars on that road than the number of times I’ve ridden on it (3).

Most of River Rd is either High or Very high. I could see it being moderately high, but it’s one of the only useful routes west in MontCo and there’s a lot of bike traffic on it.

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I have to assume this is already on some list of improvements, but one thing I need to see ASAP is repaving Commonwealth north of Reed St. I’m assuming they’ll do it once they’re done upgrading whatever facilities are down there, but that road is terrible now! A bike lane on Glebe doesn’t seem totally necessary to me.

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@scoot 137873 wrote:

I would have thought so too, but Google Earth shows Glebe’s elevation ASL at Commonwealth = 14 feet and Rt 1 = 37 feet.

It looks like the road is only about 32 feet wide gutter to gutter. Unless the parking lane is removed, any bike lane is doomed to end up in the DZ, no?

It’s definitely not flat. While it’s not a “hill”, it rises enough that it would slow most cyclists down a bit. And it’s not a bad idea adding an E-W lane in that area seeing how Reed street is now a hellhole, and everything south of there are neighborhood streets with only Custis and Monroe actually crossing Rt 1.

What are they going to do with that “traffic calming” pedestrian island which separates and narrows each lane at Montrose? I hate those things. They may be good for pedestrians, but I don’t like being forced into a narrow traffic lane like that. It’s an unofficial merge, and you know how much people like merging in general… ugh.

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@cvcalhoun 137754 wrote:

Me: Going down the CCT, calling out pleasantly, “On your left!” to the small child on a bike.
Him (indignantly): I am on the right!

Not having time to stop and explain the whole concept, I just cheerfully said, “I know. That was just to let you know.”

I get the feeling that a lot of adults feel this way too. When we say “on your left” instead hearing, “just a heads up that I’m coming”, they hear, “you’re in the way and get off the trail.” Which is totally not the point.

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@dkel 136754 wrote:

It doesn’t matter how small the difference is between your speed in your minivan and my speed on my bike, if I can reach out and touch your car, you’re too close! (Idiot!)

I can piggy back on this a little from Saturday….

Raven Rock Rd up the mountain a little way from Ft Ritchie. I was riding to the right and you slowed down to pass me at the same time two cars were coming the other direction. It was a close pass, but definitely not the closest I’ve had in the past month. After you passed though I shook my head to show my disapproval. To my surprise you slowed down and stuck your hand out the window in a “what??” gesture.

So to the driver in northern MD who’s not sure what I was saying – I appreciate you slowing down to pass me, and I appreciate the fact that you seem to care about what you did wrong. But as I tried to show, the law says you need to give 3-ft to pass a cyclist. All you had to do was slow enough to wait for other cars to pass and then you could get by giving us both plenty of room. Again the fact that you seemed to care what was up gives me some hope that other drivers are like you, but most importantly I hope you figured out what I tried to say and didn’t feel angry/defensive about it.

The other positive thing from Saturday’s ride was the large amount of drivers that moved completely over into the other lane to pass me. Not totally necessary, but I’m happy to have the space.

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@creadinger 137793 wrote:

I will be there with my pointless prizes. Probably not til 6.

Ok, nevermind!! I’m not gonna make it. On my way I had a major failure of my derailleur and instead of taking forever to jimmy something or scooter it there I got picked up at gravelly point.

So anyway, I will announce my winners on the Prizes thread and post pictures and figure out how to get the awards to the winners. Sorry.

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I will be there with my pointless prizes. Probably not til 6.

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Oh cool!

That should be a good tour up to Philly. I did a trip from Boston to DC, and I definitely deviated from the Adventure route in places. I also took the NCR trail between York and Baltimore.

It’s also definitely worth checking out the signed Bicycle PA routes. I think you would use Route S – East-west across the southern half of PA. They do a decent job of using main roads with shoulders, or lesser roads, but they’re not so country that they avoid all towns (food/water), or are like a maze trying to follow them.

Yeah, I feel like I’m trying to make up for wasted time. I didn’t ride much in State College, or Lancaster (college) either.

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@iCycle 137475 wrote:

I’m new to NoVA and cycling. Originally from PA…

Welcome to the forum. Where from in PA? Did you do much in the way of touring or long rides up there? I’m constantly trying to piece together routes to places and I’m trying to do more in PA as I grew up in State College.

I haven’t done any touring south of here so I can’t offer much advice on your idea. It sounds awesome though!

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I’ve just begun exploring this area a lot more on evening rides, and with the new Wegman’s near Beulah and Telegraph I’m hoping to head down there more often. I need to get a cycling jersey with REALLY deep pockets so I can fit 14″ subs in there. So far I’ve crossed 495 to get to Eisenhower using Eisenhower connector/Clermont, and Van Dorn/Oakwood. Maybe I’ll try the Telegraph one next. I was down there last night in fact, and made a wrong turn. I turned off of Beulah too early onto Manchester instead of Franconia. I can report that Manchester, while just another suburban highway, wasn’t terrible to ride on.

One question I have is that I have always feared Eisenhower Ave, but the 3 times I’ve ridden on it so far it’s been pretty tame. Is that typical? Or are there times when it’s REALLY bad to ride on Eisenhower?

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I’ve just begun exploring this area a lot more on evening rides, and with the new Wegman’s near Beulah and Telegraph I’m hoping to head down there more often. I need to get a cycling jersey with REALLY deep pockets so I can fit 14″ subs in there. So far I’ve crossed 495 to get to Eisenhower using Eisenhower connector/Clermont, and Van Dorn/Oakwood. Maybe I’ll try the Telegraph one next.

One question I have is that I have always feared Eisenhower Ave, but the 3 times I’ve ridden on it so far it’s been pretty tame. Is that typical? Or are there times when it’s REALLY bad to ride on Eisenhower?

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@cvcalhoun 137271 wrote:

I can’t count the number of times that a motorist has honked at me for taking the lane, for example, even though that is allowed in all local jurisdictions if the lane is too narrow for a motor vehicle to pass in the lane while honoring the three-foot rule. (And virtually all of the lanes in DC and its suburbs are in fact narrow enough for that rule to apply.)

Unfortunately I bet these drivers probably do know the rule. They just don’t frickin care. They’re automatons in a hurry and you’re in the way. It’s legal for you to take the lane, it’s also legal for them to honk at you and act like bratty children.

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@hozn 137029 wrote:

Oh, ok. That is pretty easy. I can also give you longest (elapsed time? moving time? distance?) ride with the coldest temperature for that ride. I.e. avg ride temp lowest and longest. Not sure how exactly we would sort.

But can easily just find longest-distance rides on a specific da of that is what you want.

This is how I stated it in the beginning…. “1) awarding the coldest overall temperature ride.. pretty self explanatory unless there are ties. Longest ride wins. 2) Longest ride on the day with the coldest high temperature. So, that would be 2/14.

And by longest I mean distance.

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@Steve O 137030 wrote:

This is already on the Freezing Saddles website. Scroll over to get time of the ride.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]11276[/ATTACH]

As a non-freezing saddles participant I didn’t think I’d have access. What is the link again? As I recall, the website is blocked here at work, so I’ll check at home. Something probably about how saddle could mean many other things, and freezing saddles… well obviously that’s some fetish site not related to bicycling in winter.

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@hozn 137010 wrote:

We obviously have the data, “accessible” depends a bit on familiarity with SQL. I am happy to get people DB access. For queries like this, I can also run it, as it should be trivial. (Just finalize exactly what you mean by “longest”, obviously. )

For my cold prizes, I have pretty specific information that I need:

1) The ride during the coldest recorded temperature (doesn’t have to be local, and if there are ties, then distance will break it).

2) I looked back through wunderground data for IAD, DCA, and BWI and it looks like 2/14 was the day with the coldest high temperature. So I need the longest localish ride on 2/14. Or, if non-local rides occurred on 2/14 in lower temperatures elsewhere, I’ll consider them as well.

Thanks!

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