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Del Ray –
Swag: none that I could see
Food: peanuts, powerade, coffee, and water
Raffles??? Hahahahahaha
Entertainment? You mean more than just meeting new people and friendly early morning conversation?

Suitland –
Basically, same as above.

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@bobco85 115730 wrote:

It’s also illegal to do both at the same time: https://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+46.2-1078.1

Hah, when’s the last time something being illegal ever stopped anyone?

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I don’t know about pads specifically, but that seems reasonable. Alternatively, you could wrap your bars in barbed wire, to force you to use your back and ab muscles to hold your upper body up.

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Put on another layer of bar tape to make them more cushiony?

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@KWL 115315 wrote:

I was counted twice by creadinger. Could have made it 3 times, but I thought that would be pushing it.

Thanks for stopping by! All in all, not a bad 2 hours.
My final tally was:
Male Cyclists 91
Female Cyclists 24
Male Peds 34
Female Peds 49
Other Peds (babies) 8

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@lordofthemark 114460 wrote:

Note to all that far right lane, on SE bound side of Maine, is NOT a cycle track. It appears to be a conventional traffic lane, though traffic seems to avoid it. I took it SE bound this AM, but I have seen cyclists salmoning in it, and I think people walking in it. I wanted to take a closer look to see if it actually was blocked to motor vehicle traffic, but it is not.

Yeah, I rarely see drivers use it anymore because they have to merge later anyway and there are often buses parked in it these days, but yeah. Salmoning there = bad idea because it’s not officially closed, and there’s no where to bail out if you get caught out.

My question for this area is – when will things actually start to get better?? There are all of these plans for how it will look in 2 years, but ever since they closed Water St, the conditions of everything over there has gotten progressively worse and generally more fucked up. On Wednesday I was surprised to see only 1 lane of Maine Ave going NW was open because they poured some fresh concrete, blocking even peds and cyclist too. The frustrated drivers didn’t seem too willing to share their one lane with me for the 15 yards that I had to merge in with them.

I hate that area. I’ve already detoured my commute to using Case Bridge, instead of going past the fish market but it’s getting ridiculous.

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@rcannon100 114294 wrote:

It is time once again to join the Federal Bike to Work Challenge!

Da Federal Cyclists Commission Will Crush You!

http://www.luum.com/challenges/88/bike-month-challenge

Suitland Federal Center team is up and running again. I’m the lone member so far, but I’m hoping we can get more than the 3-4 we had last year.

If you commute to Suitland (Raymo!) then please join the team.

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@consularrider 114244 wrote:

No tornado crossing northern Indiana today, but with sustained winds in the 20s and 30s and frequent gusts in the 40s, I had to abandoned my planned ride when I kept getting blown sideways.

You’re just riding the wrong direction.

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@DismalScientist 114112 wrote:

Lightening and actual tornadoes are dangerous. Hail is merely uncomfortable and perhaps painful, but not dangerous per se. Helmets are useful in hail. Accumulation of hail can be dangerous, but presumably you can just stop riding on a surface covered with ice marbles. Unfortunately, lightening tends occur simultaneously with hail.

Is that what you learn in Econ classes?

That’s a sweeping statement considering hail can be larger than grapefruits and destroy cars. I wouldnt want to be caught out in hail as large as quarters. That would cause some damage to humans whether they have helmets or not.

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@Crickey7 114099 wrote:

Has anyone on the board ever gotten caught out in a hailstorm before? My car has dents from one hailstorm, so I imagine it would hurt.

Ooooo – good question! I have not. I would guess that medium sized hail would hurt more and do more damage than even a weak F0 tornado, unless of course it happened to blow through Pricks-R-Us Toothpick and Needle factory right before hitting you.

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@Liz 113519 wrote:

I think it’s great that Crystal City is doing this. It just stinks for Crystal City residents who don’t work in the area. I live in Crystal City and I like it a lot, but I leave between 6 and 6:30 so I can make it in to work with enough time to eat, shower and get to my desk by 8:30. Is there any way that BID would be able to open earlier to catch Crystal City bike commuters who bike out rather than bike in? The neighborhood is already significantly better for those employed in the area with mid-day activities and the majority of businesses closing between 5 and 6 (ex: I’ve never seen the corner bakery cafe open before, and it’s directly below my apartment building). Please do more for Crystal City residents as well as Crystal City employers.

Thank you!

A Crystal City resident and avid cyclist.

Thanks for speaking up. I won’t be stopping either. I leave Del Ray by ~6:20 to get to Suitland by 7:30. It’s like all the Friday coffee clubs around here starting at 730-8am. Do people even work on Fridays or what?

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Reposting these from the commuters thread where I had put them recently. I guess the point of poetry is that you’re not supposed to have to explain it…. but just in case.

This one describes how I hate the face full of grit and pollution you get while riding across the 14th street bridge when the winds are from favorable (actually unfavorable) directions.

Southern winds blow strong
Dirt and dust on fourteenth bridge
Fast cars, gritty teeth

This one is a reference to all the glass in DC and especially in SE. As a protest I’ve been buying beer in cans lately.

Blossoms great on trees
On the ground they obscure glass
Glass shards cause punctures

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I guess that other lady was not a fan??

I liked it.

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I was reminded of a type of cyclist bahavior on my commute yesterday riding south into the wind on the MVT.

Unless there’s already a word for this(?) the word I’m thinking of is Barnacle – A cyclist who is so terrified of actually riding into a headwind on his own, that he (it’s usually hes, unless it’s a charity ride where I find lots of shes doing this too), will ride so far up your butt that you can hear his poorly tuned derraileur and squeaky pedals with every stroke, and you feel like you have a barnacle on your ass.

He’ll never pass you, because if he did he’d actually have to do some work. Despite demonstrating that he’s sufficiently strong enough to ride into the wind on his own, he’ll follow you everywhere you go OR if a faster rider passes both of you he’ll glom on to their rear-end. When you finally part ways sometimes he’ll yell out “nice pull”…. yeah that’s a brush-off, intended to inflate your ego a little bit, but in reality he’s thinking “Hah! I made you do all the work!”. My current passive aggressive reply is – “I wasn’t doing it for you, little man”.

Give me a Cat-6er any day. These guys are annoying!

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Musings from recent commutes…

Southern winds blow strong
Dirt and dust on fourteenth bridge
Fast cars, gritty teeth

Blossoms great on trees
On the ground they obscure glass
Glass shards cause punctures

[Author]

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