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In this area, layers are a must for commuters. You’ll ride in wearing winter gear, but in the evening temps may be in the 50s and you’d boil yourself to death if you wear your winter stuff. It’s nice if you have a couple of layers with zippers you can move up or down depending on whether you’ll be climbing or descending.

For comfort, cold rain is way worse than snow.

If you wear cycling shoes designed for summer weather you may want neoprene shoe covers. Especially on rides over an hour in really cold temperatures. The covers keep the wind off of your feet, while wool underneath help to make them warm. Shoe covers are reusable too unlike hand/toe warmers.

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@lordofthemark 169760 wrote:

“The Happy Wanderer” (“I love to go a-wandering, along the mountain track…”) is about the thickest hiking song I know. REI should definitely have it in stock.

I was thinking this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FshU58nI0Ts

Especially since it was Judd who posted it!

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@lordofthemark 169612 wrote:

Quick update – progress on this is being made. I have made a spreadsheet of all the places I want segments, and have identified existing segments for the places in the City of Alexandria (still working on Arlington and DC) The existing segments are pretty much all shorter than I want (I care about the whole piece of infra, not the ride to the crest of a hill) so I may make new ones anyway, though I suppose in some places riding most of the infra will do.

I have NO places specified in Fairfax, or in Maryland. If people in those places know of any that would fit the bill for this (controversial pieces of seg infra) please let me know very soon, or this will be an Arlington/Alexandria/DC game.

Is there a Maine Ave segment for the finished PBL? I’m curious as to how many cyclists take a lane on Maine instead of the PBL, but I suspect the right, southbound lane of Maine would be too close to Strava to distinguish them. The northbound lanes may be far enough away though?

I’ve only taken the PBL once. Northbound when Maine Ave traffic was backed up to the Arena Stage.

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@Jessica Hirschhorn 169472 wrote:

However, I realized that between 1 January and April I will be out of the country for 3weeks total, unable to cycle.
I certainly want to support my team.
Do you suggest I withdraw my registration?

Hi Jessica,

I’m not sure what the organizers will suggest, BUT, if you keep up your 100 miles/week while you’re here, you’ll put up plenty of points. 2 years ago I was away for all of January and half of February so I decided not to join FS. I put in a lot of miles when I got back and I ended up near the 40th percentile for points, despite missing half the competition. Sure, it would be really tough to break the top 100 riders, but don’t under-estimate the number of slackers as well.

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@Judd 168928 wrote:

“Yo gurl? You ever heard of randoneuring? Yeah, I’m doing a 200k sleaze ride this weekend. No big deal.”

You’d be surprised, but spending most of your waking hours planning long bike rides, or most of your weekends actually riding long bike rides is not the turn on you’d expect. The looks my wife gives me when I tell her, no, I can’t help you with that house project next weekend because I have an all-day bike ride are not from the “on” switch.

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OK, one more from last evening’s commute….

On the MVT (of course) right at the overpass for the car traffic connection from Crystal City…

Kudos to the jogger with balls the size of basketballs who pulled a reverse Crazy Ivan! He didn’t cut me off because he failed to look back and see me coming. No, we were coming at each other and he still decided to do a U-turn and cut me off. A reverse frickin Crazy Ivan… maybe a Crazy Gustavo?

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Two from Anacostia Dr. SE

1) Me in the afternoon riding south. You cruise by in your car and honk at me, then point indicating that I should be on the side path. Do you have any idea what the speed limit is? It’s 20mph. I’m going 19. Only one of us is obeying the law, and it’s not you bud! Oh, you think since I’m on a bike I should have to navigate the group of 6 people with dogs on 10 foot leases, or the lady with a 150lb dog that actually lunged at me, or the group of Police cadets doing fitness tests, or the moms with strollers, or the…. all on the side path? Did I really inconvenience you that much? You deserve the middle finger you got in return for being so clueless.

2) Completely opposite story… The past few mornings riding north toward PA Ave., there’s a REALLY friendly jogger who from the side path actually looks over, has a big smile on her face and lifts her hand above her should to wave at me. She HAS to think I’m someone else right? I mean I appreciate the nice gesture and in return give a smile and head bob but I’m a nobody, and does she do the same for every cyclist she sees? Here’s to hoping she keeps it up when she realizes that we don’t know each other. Haha.

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@komorebi 168730 wrote:

But there’s still time to bribe me with cookies to get me to change my mind.

Alright Kitty, you’re up!

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If your options are:
A) sleaze ride on an icy, snow covered road/trail in the cold and dark with significant potential for a fall with spring-season ending injuries like wrist or collarbone.
Don’t do the sleaze ride, lose out on 11 points and live to fight another day.

ALWAYS choose B!

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Also, if the 2017 Mileage list is any kind of indication (how did that data come about anyway? Is it all participants ever? There are 400+ entries). There are more than 100 people with 0.0 recorded mileage. There are enough No-Shows every year that if we do a better job of culling them off and getting actual participants on teams, that should help a lot.

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Cycling snowplows! They can be neon green I suppose… $50 and a LOT of jury-rigging to set them up.

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I was thinking about putting this in the found connection, as in I FOUND a $^&*load of glass on Naylor Rd just up from R St SE this morning.

There’s about 2 full windshields worth of shattered glass in the road. Don’t think taking the sidewalk will help you get around it either. Somehow, even the sidewalk is covered with it. Some driver(s) had a really bad day there some time between Wednesday evening and this morning. Does DC clean this sort of thing up? Or do they just let nature turn it back into sand over years and years? If the latter, I’m going to have to re-route my commute for a little while.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8691222,-76.9715615,3a,43.9y,312.22h,78.8t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1szDhtZSNJ7am1zvW_eVxWNQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

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@secstate 167080 wrote:

On recent visits to NYC, I’ve noticed a remarkable number of e-bikes — and not the pedal-assist kind — in spite of their being banned in the city. It definitely changed my perception of how popular they’re likely to become. Given how heavily they are being marketed, it doesn’t seem crazy to me that within a decade a large percentage (though perhaps not half) of bike sales will be electric or e-assist.

https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/illegal-electric-bikes-will-get-restaurants-slapped-fines

edit: Seems many of these bikes are for restaurant delivery

This is what I witnessed in Sydney, Australia too. A lot more e-bikes than expected, (WAY more than here) and a large proportion of seemed to be for local food deliveries. Deliveroo, and Foodora were two companies I remember seeing on the backpack or trunk cubes. I imagine it will only be a matter of time before they come to our large cities too.

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@ursus 166753 wrote:

Should this thread be combined with http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?12357-Maine-Avenue-is-Combat?

I think they can be.

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Looks like there’s a new shattered bottle on 4MRT just east of the Rt1 overpass. This is close enough to the area of assholery that it could be the same guy…. I’m so over this crap.

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