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I have the Thule T2 platform rack. It’s been great! When I was researching I was deciding between Thule and Kuat.

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@LeprosyStudyGroup 190867 wrote:

I’ve been given advice to loosen my shoes a bit after a few hours in the saddle because blood begins to pool in your feet and they swell which may cause them to rub and bruise in places that are usually fine. It’s not something I naturally think to do and usually by the time I notice something is going wrong it’s a bit too late anyways. The sweet spot may be socks with a bit of cushion like you guys are saying and actually not over tightening the straps.

Yeah, I’m sensing some counter intuitive ideas in this, but I think you all are right.

Thicker socks for more padding as said above, and after a few hours I do need to tighten the main strap, but maybe I should loosen the lower 2 straps near my toes. My instinct Saturday was to tighten them all which probably made it worse.

The thought of wearing a wool sock in the heat of summer makes me a bit queasy though. Ugh…

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@dbb 190107 wrote:

Maybe driver’s ed needs to be lengthened by 5 minutes for a short lesson on going around the block.

I had a somewhat similar thing happen to me at King St and Cedar. I was pulling up to the stop sign on Cedar to make a right on King. Some driver coming up King St pulls up, stops, then starts backing down Cedar where I am currently occupying space. I took a couple frantic steps to the right to get out of the way. I yelled and waved and cursed at him. I still don’t know if he ever saw me or not. He just decided he was going to make a 3-point U-turn to go back down King St no matter what.

Why not just make a right on Cedar, and a right on Russell?! Hey look! You’re back where you want to be! #$%ing idiots these days don’t have any clue about how streets work or where they are without their GPS so they pull this crap.

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I didn’t get to know Dave, but I did follow him on twitter. Through his efforts and from many of you I’ve learned a lot about bicycling advocacy, how difficult it can be to get enforcement, and generally how to make cycling in a city safer. Aside from a couple of complaints here or there I can’t say that I have spoken up on these things to any of the local jurisdictions, but I’m sure as hell going to make more of an effort. I figure the least I can do is actually stop for 5 seconds to take a picture of the driver parked in a bike lane and send to the jurisdiction who should care instead of just going around etc..

Did he also have a presence on this forum?

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Is there an official PP final list yet? I’m curious about how some of them went – specifically LordoftheMark’s Alexandria Infrastructure quest.

I’m annoyed I had to miss it, but I knew I had a 50/50 chance going in.

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@AlanA 189236 wrote:

I’m sure the technology is there. Maybe every rider could get one of those personal weather reporting stations mounted on each bike that they ride. And then we could just upload that to a database. It seems like an easy fix to me! :rolleyes:

A friend of mine from college is a scientist in the Netherlands now. And they installed little pollution monitors on bikes to get microscale data on pollution levels in and around cities. It sounds like an awesome experiment that I wish they would bring here to the US.

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It seems like problem we’re trying to fix is the team leaderboard wire-wire winner issue and how there’s very little movement once the standings are established? We saw before how without a mileage cap the top 1-3 teams run away with the win. And this year it seems like with a mileage cap, it was too difficult for any teams to make up for missed miles to catch up. It could just be that there’s just no solution to that issue.

Take the NFL, which has implemented some really tough “fairness” based rules likes salary caps, player incentives, the draft, scheduling, etc… to even up the teams and even with all of that, they can’t seem to keep the stupid Patriots from winning or near the Superbowl every season for the past 15 years. Ugh… Or, I’m not a huge English Premier League follower but in their table after the first month or two the teams seem to fall into 3 categories – those competing for Champions/Europa League, those in the middle, and those avoiding relegation. There’s very little, if any movement from one category to another right?

I’m definitely a fan of some tweaks to make it more interesting but I just don’t know if this type of competition is capable of big swings on a leaderboard. The fun part should probably be left up to the Pointless Prizes and the creativity with that but the leaderboard is the leaderboard.

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@ChristoB50 189089 wrote:

Personally I’d find the a-ride-a-day earns base points would be a great motivation for achieving daily riding, even if sleazing (though I might want to consider a sleaze ride must be 2 or 3 mi minimum, vs. 1 mi?)

I absolutely agree on this. I proposed a 2-3 mile minimum sleaze in year 3, but it didn’t get any traction. Then the next year I did the sleaze thing and rode EVERYday, but decided that it’s just not for me. I don’t care that much. So yeah, I only rode like 30+ days this winter but I did get over 1100 miles too.

I think the cap was a good experiment, but am open to new ideas for next year, including the cap again.

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I am planning on coming. Thanks!

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@The Five Eight Five 189042 wrote:

It does appear biking to Green Line outbound may be the most viable option…

If you’re interested in exploring the area east of the Anacostia with a small group of cyclists, I recommend doing the BicycleSpace Hills of Anacostia ride. The led ride goes up or down most of the hills you’d consider getting up to Suitland and it’s a good way to see what it’s like over there. It’s not as scary as everyone seems to think.

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I think I’ll make a first appearance at this. I’m teleworking tomorrow, so I can sleep in a little.

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Hey hey! Another rider in Suitland. Awesome! I commute from Del Ray to Suitland.

I have long wanted a route that goes across the Wilson Bridge even just for the change of scenery, but really once you get to Oxon Hill, there’s just no where to go. Maryland hasn’t connected it to anything yet. Not anything useful at least. And roads like St Barnabas, 210 and others just are not bikeable on weekdays. When I drive to work I take St Barnabas and even though the speed limit is 35, and there are useless sharrows painted in the right lane it’s effectively a 55mph highway with lots of aggressive drivers.

My route: I go north to the 14th St Bridge – then go SE along Maine Ave down to Nats Park and cross the Douglass Bridge. From there I go north on Anacostia River Rd to Nicholson St to cut inland. And from there I make my way up the hill to Alabama and Branch, then go down Suitland Rd, up through the graveyard to the Suitland Federal Center.

It’s a a bit of a haul, the hills in SE are significant and there are parts that are really annoying (Douglass bridge for one), but overall it’s not too bad. I don’t commute daily, but I imagine now with bikes on metro during rush hour you could ride to Navy Yard, or Waterfront and metro outbound in the AM on an empty train to cut off some of the distance and climbing. I have thought about trying that. The reverse commute aspect is pretty nice.

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@Emm 188510 wrote:

But if you want to report via call click connect or your other channels, please do!!! The more reports the better.

Done!

I submitted another request to see about getting a large swastika carved into the top of a tree stump removed, so I figured I’d do 2 in one day.

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I’m curious to know what the legal wonks have to say as well.

That is an annoying intersection for through traffic. I’ve not done your route through there, but I know from a driver’s perspective the lights are terribly timed on Mt Vernon probably adding to their impatience. Do you know if any of these right-on-redders are people trying to cut-through the neighborhood to get to Russell or mostly residents of the apartments back there?

Here’s the intersection for those curious: https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8428268,-77.0638662,3a,75y,323.89h,63.37t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sr1KVHWqhCTMVpSdGU4z7mA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3Dr1KVHWqhCTMVpSdGU4z7mA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D131.40092%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

One question: If there’s a lot of known unsafe turning here and the likelihood of getting hit is unacceptably high, does it really matter if a collision could be your fault or not? While you’re perfectly fine and healthy I might just let the right-on-red jerks have their day and find a new route. At the very least call Alexandria for some visible enforcement here. As nearby residents my wife and I would be be happy to call too!

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@ChristoB50 188291 wrote:

But all the while (for this group, plus an even larger group of about 20 riders a week earlier) not particularly staying towards the right hand side, nor even staying contained within the right-hand lane (in order to keep the left lane free for cars to pass.)

You don’t want to know what I would say to a driver who actually complained about being inconvenienced for 30 seconds because I wiped out on the road in front of them.

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