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@Steve O 136643 wrote:

So back to the original question

I’m not sure I can answer the why for you, but if you are looking for commiseration from the devoted people who ride bikes on this forum, then I think you’ve gotten it. Although I can’t speak for everyone, I’m not going to second guess your feelings.

One thing you could try is to consider an occasional ride to and from work more as an adventure than a chore. Pick a day with great weather or other positives or something and decide to ride that day–not as an obligation but as a change of pace. Also framing it as just-this-one-time and knowing you aren’t going to do it again tomorrow or the next day may make it feel more satisfying–not just a grind. Anyway, that’s a thought.

This is exactly what I plan to do. And thanks to everyone for all the great suggestions and support for this (“difficult”, first world problems) decision. Haha. Definitely if my wife needs the car, or the weather is too beautiful, or a shitty drive stresses me out too much, I’ll take to the bike.

I feel good about it. Like vvill said, I can focus on 200K+ brevets and more fun rides instead of stressing out about my commute.

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@ginacico 136595 wrote:

That was gonna be my input. That route does look pretty awful to ride. Does it have to be all or nothing, or are there transit or multimodal alternatives (say bike to a Green Line station and metro to work)? Find someplace for coffee before you hop on a train, suddenly your day looks better.

I wish this scenario made more sense for my situation, but it just doesn’t. The main reason being that there’s an added 15 minute walk to get to my building from the metro station. In good weather it’s a fine walk but hot, cold, rainy, etc? It would just be silly when I can still drive to work/home in much less time. I go against traffic for the most part. Metro’s track record these days isn’t great either. Who knows, maybe a better situation will present itself. Unfortunately, I think it will have to be as drastic as Hozn’s suggestion of a new job. Haha. I’m considering everything!

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@mstone 136636 wrote:

If you live in the city you can save significant money not having a car. If you live in the burbs and/or far from your job then bike commuting is a lifestyle choice, not a rational financial decision if you’re on the upper half of the income scale. (You might save a couple of bucks, but not enough to really matter–and that’s if you’re excluding the value of your time.)

I couldn’t have said this any better myself. Saving money (I’m skeptical that I was) is just not a significant reason for me to ride to work. Our household budget isn’t influenced in the slightest by my bike commute. And let’s be honest, I was only riding on average 2x/week anyway. I wasn’t a hardcore rain or shine 5x/week commuter. I can do more or less the same mileage through evening rides around NoVA. Also, driving will allow me to make more regular visits to 530am yoga practice, which isn’t possible during a bike commute so that’s another plus (also not cheap).

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@Steve O 136603 wrote:

I will readily admit that I don’t know this area at all, so you’ve probably already looked at this, but is there a way to get there via the Woodrow Wilson Bridge? Looks to be a similar distance.
Or is that just trading ugly for uglier?

Unfortunately all the bikeable routes are through DC. MD has been terrible about linking the Wilson bridge to anything bikeable on the east side of the river. Maybe some of those suburban highways are OK on weekends, but not a regular basis during rush hours. It’s pathetic really.

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@Crickey7 136597 wrote:

Just curious, how could it not save money?

That’s easy. Gas is super cheap right now, and I drive a Honda Civic. Conservatively say 25mpg, for a ~25mile round trip commute and gas is less than $2/commute right now. And with the amount of money I’ve spent on gear, and bike parts… yeah, I’m definitely not saving any money by biking. For example, just one bad experience last year when a driver pulled out in front of me I shredded a $65 tire when I had to slam on the brakes and skidded for about 50ft.

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@Lt. Dan 136372 wrote:

Anybody have experience recently riding the length of Route 55 to Front Royal and back? Was thinking it would make a fun trip out for some pizza at Melting Pot, and then back…

We use part of it on DCR brevets out that way. Mostly between Markham and The Plains, with Marshall as the center point. We’ll be out there in a couple weeks in fact.

It is a higher speed main road (55mph speed limit) without much of a shoulder. I’m sure traffic can be bad at times, but if you pick the right time of day it might not be terrible. It’s not an enjoyable road, but it should be doable for what you’re proposing. I don’t usually like getting passed by a lot of cars going that fast, because it raises my stress levels.

Unfortunately I don’t really see any alternatives. I did notice the train tacks parallel the route there. Maybe strap on some rail compatible wheels and ride the rails out that way?

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@lordofthemark 136440 wrote:

Douglas Bridge, or 11th Street Bridge? I am confused. edit: wait,did you mean 4th Street SW?

Definitely the Douglass Bridge. It’s hard to believe that the Memorial Bridge is in worse shape then that one. Yeah, the new bike lane is on 4th St. SW. It looks like it’s only one way though? I don’t go that way on the way home.

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@mello yello 136436 wrote:

Sounds like you have almost my commute in reverse! How do you get up to Alabama SE from Pennsylvania and 295? I hate the Penn/295 intersection on a bike, I avoid it when possible by coming up Nicholson St, or coming up Good Hope Rd to Alabama. Of course, on the VA side I’m going to Rosslyn, so other direction on the Mt.Vernon.

From Pennsylvania and 295 I immediately cut north on Fairlawn SE to K St. SE to Randle Circle and begin the climb up Mass Ave to Alabama. It’s a detour from my destination in Suitland, but I prefer that to the sidewalk along Penn Ave. Mass Ave has the bike lanes too. Also, I used to go up Good Hope Rd for a while, but the neighborhood over there is even sketchier than Fairlawn, and another Suitland commuter said someone showed him a gun at one point. Not to mention Good Hope Rd is a harder climb than Mass Ave SE.

If you use Nicholson, how would you cross Pennsylvania then? That’s why I brave the ramps of 295, because there’s potentially too much sidewalk riding after getting marrooned on the wrong side of Pennsylvania Ave.

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So my first commute of 2016 saw a lot of the same, and some new….

Guy I passed politely going northbound on the MVT north of gravelly point said, “ooh oh oh oh a big guy”… What? Hard to tell by your tone, but you kinda sounded like that guy from Dumb and Dumber who really wanted to use the pay phone. I’d like to point out that, yes, while I am a “big guy” I did lose 10lbs while I was away.

DC waterfront is still a mess, but slightly worse than it used to be as construction guys are taking up more space than ever before.

Whoah, there’s a bike lane on 4th St. SE south of M St. now. Kind of unnecessary, but I’ll take it?

Douglass bridge still sucks balls and passing joggers on it is still a pain in the ass. Especially ones who refuse to acknowledge my existence after a few dings. You know my dog ignores things she doesn’t like or is scared of. Are you a dog? I’m passing you anyway.

And DC is finally fixing the sidewalk/curbcuts along Pennsylvania Ave SE where the 295 ramps are. That’s great! But did you leave space for peds or bikes to get around the work by NOT walking in the highway? No.

Asshole driver in the big F-ing SUV going up Mass Ave SE almost hits me with his side mirror… I’m awake now and looking for someone to throatpunch. And also see 2 cars driving in the bike lane on Alabama Ave because drivers in SE don’t give a shit about a little paint on the road.

Overall not terrible and a little weird, but I hope the return trip goes better than this morning. At least the weather could not be better!

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@jrenaut 136086 wrote:

Which is, in practice, completely absurd. Can you imagine if we made someone in a car wait two minutes for a light? No one would do it. And the buttons generally don’t change the timing of the cycle, right? They just make sure the next cycle includes the pedestrian walk signal. It would be different if hitting the button made the traffic light turn yellow immediately. Though that might invite abuse…

Beg buttons are like right on red – they only make sense in places that have just a few pedestrians or cyclists per day.

Not that it actually matters for your point or the point of this discussion, but I do know of several intersections around here where the green light W/walk signal cycle is significantly longer than the green light only.

I think in these cases engineers figured that the green cycle was WAY too short for slow moving pedestrians to actually cross 8 lanes of road in time, so when the beg button is pushed the walk cycle begins and the parallel green light signal is lengthened accordingly.

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Did anyone else hear the new news today from NPS that if the bridge doesn’t get a complete rebuild of the undercarriage it will be a pedestrian/bike bridge within 5 years and get a little excited??

Of course, that’s not going to happen. They’ll get the $250,000,000 from somewhere and all the other projects for improving ped/bike infrastructure will likely suffer as a result… like that gravelly point by-pass or maintaining the boardwalk near TR Island.

On the other hand, it would be a very nice way to cross the river.

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@gibby 130063 wrote:

@creadinger 129949 wrote:

For your entertainment, I’m just going to leave this here….

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273793754_CARBON_FIBRE_MASCULINITY

The corelations and conclusions of this paper are so bizarre (?, i can’t even think of the right adjective) that I couldn’t look away and had to keep reading… and re-reading.
Perhaps the writer is trying out for the Pistorius defense team or looking to become a trial expert in the burgeoning field of carbon fiber insanity defense.
Here’s someone who tried to de-crpyt the logic-
https://medium.com/@yooks/when-feminism-meets-carbon-fibres-d4f5ef89b21a#.snu4n7x5q

Wow! I can’t believe someone actually wrote an in-depth critique about the paper. Thanks for posting. This whole topic is really ridiculous.

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@ewilliams0305 129434 wrote:

In and I agree. But you have to promise to ride that 200k route on the ice shelf while your there! I elected myself for this one so I can’t win:) hoping to maybe motivate so newbies (or vetrans) to do what I did last year without actually doing what I did last year.

Cool! Sounds good. You would be eligible to win at least one of my prizes, but only if you’re tough enough. We can discuss them all again in early March or something.

The problem with riding a 200K on an ice shelf, is that I would be willing to bet that it’s “illegal”, against base rules, or at least highly frowned upon, as in – ‘don’t ever come back’. Since it’s such a dangerous place, I think to limit the number of people-doing-stupid-shit deaths (like riding 200K on an ice shelf) they make rules about going out on your own.

Feel free to picture me riding one of these though… I think traditional time cut-offs would be virtually impossible.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]10241[/ATTACH]

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@ewilliams0305 129392 wrote:

In addition to a climbing challenge I’ll also do the longest coldest ride.

Here’s how I think it could/should work. Take the number of miles ridden and divide it by the temperature.

So a 210 mile ride ridden at average 17 deg would yield what I’m calling the “frozen toe” factor of 12.35

A 210 mile ride at 36 degrees would yield a frozen toe factor of 5.83.

Get it, the person with the highest number and the most frozen toes wins! I think all the data is already collect so it shouldn’t be much work.

The prize, a lifetime supply (or whatever I can afford) of toe warmers for next year (hopefully the shelf life is good for one year, I’ll confirm)

This is kinda similar to my plan of 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.

Do you want to work together on this? Or Maybe 3 prizes for cold temps actually makes the most sense given that this is a winter riding competition called Freezing Saddles.

It would be nice though if we made it so that one or two people didn’t win all three prizes.

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I can sponsor a pointless prize this year! If possible I’d like to award the coldest ride or something similar… Maybe the most miles in the single digits or something like that. I can’t participate this year because I’ll be gone for all of Jan-Feb, but where I’m going will be a perfect place to pick up prizes.

I’m thinking 2 prizes:
1) The ride during the coldest recorded temperature of the contest
2) The longest ride on the day with the coldest high temperature

As I recall, the program recorded temperatures for semi-local reporting stations right?

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