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I’ve done a few tris — olympic and sprint distance. (Not quickly, just finished). I could see wanting to invest in the bike gear to train, but I’ve never understood the appeal of bib shorts. I’ve never tried them, but they seem fussy and hard to get off during, um, nature breaks. Sorry I can’t help there.

As far as what to wear in the tri, plenty of ladies wear a one piece swimsuit for the swim, then throw on shorts for the bike/run, especially for a sprint distance. I tried running in my swimsuit and chaffed in places I don’t like to chafe, so that wasn’t an option for me. I’d recommend doing a few “bricks” of swim-run and swim-bike in the swimsuit-shorts set up early in training, and if it works for you, increase your distance. If that continues to work, awesome. If not, try to borrow/buy a tri suit. Personally, I wouldn’t bother with 2-piece tri stuff (shorts/top) because things ride up or down and get weird, especially when wet. Oh, and most of these tri suits are made for warm weather (just ask the salespeople).

Finally, once you know what brand and such you like, http://www.theclymb.com/home has pretty great deals on this stuff. It’s one of those limited-time deal sites (though I just went on and they have a ton of “events” right now).

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@CCrew 18150 wrote:

If you were a responsible rider you’d obey the signs that say “no motorized vehicles” don’t ya think? :p

Of course, if you build a bike that meets the requires of Public Law 107-319, then you will by federal law not be riding a “motorized vehicle”.

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Would families on bike (who can’t take CaBi b/c child seats) be welcome in the group?

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Oh, right, bus connections. Look into the 3Y. It doesn’t run often, and only during rush hour, but it runs down Lee Hwy (I think from Lee Heights) to DC (I think Farragut Square). So it’s a few blocks away from you on either end, but otherwise a straight shot, and a good non-bike option.

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Or just Wilson/Clarendon from Veitch to Highland.

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Good point about getting buy-in from the churches. We go to Clarendon Presbyterian, which is just off of Wilson, and I’m sure the church would be supportive. I don’t know of any churches directly on Wilson/Clarendon/Fairfax. There would also have to be some n/s crossings that weren’t closed, but you could line those up with the churches (e.g. Highland). You could set the lights on any closed intersections to green (for the bike street), then set the lights on the open intersections to yellow and let the cops control traffic.

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I don’t know anything about the Alexandria location, but we’re moving to Cherrydale next month, which is just a few blocks east of your ARL location (btw – it’s “Lee Hwy” and “Glebe” around here). I agree that the R-B corridor (Rosslyn-Ballston; basically, the streets above the Metro line) is the “coolest” place to hang out, there are lots of great little retail options along Lee Hwy. We LOVE the Lee Heights shopping center — it has the Kiwi Cafe, Arrowine (yummy wines, beers, cheeses and cured meats), the toy store, even a Starbucks (though why you’d go there over the Kiwi Cafe is beyond me). Metro 29 is a delicious diner. Pasha and Portabellos (over in Cherrydale) are AWESOME. The guys who own Liberty Tavern, Lyon Hall and Northside Social (all in Clarendon — if you move to Arlington, you will get to know and love these) bought the Alpine at Lee and Glebe — I can’t wait for that to open. AND HOW COULD I FORGET HEIDELBERG BAKERY (Culpepper & Lee)? BEST BAKERY EVER.

The Lee Hwy stuff is more strip-mall-y and less attractive (and bike friendly) than the village-y atmosphere of Clarendon or Shirlington, or the colonial-coolness of Old Town. Still, it has its merits.

Oh, and with a kid, there are lots of little parks near Lee and Glebe, and you won’t be far from Chestnut Hills Park (on Harrison St) which is AWESOME. And we know lots of families with little kids (we have an 18 month old) both in Cherrydale and in the neighborhood near the hospital (which I think is Brandywine). And there are some really great holiday lights around there.

Ok, now I’m just throwing things at the wall. I’m an Arlingtonian and love it.

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Internationally, there seem to be two approaches that work — one is to pick a road that doesn’t have a lot of businesses/residences, as people have suggested here. People set up tents to “serve” those out on bikes. Bogota kinda takes this tack.

The other is to pick a road that has lots of businesses, and just accept that, on a Sunday morning, those businesses won’t lose a lot from banning cars, but could gain a lot from the bikes along the route — bikes, I might add, that are a lot easier to stop and shop, and that are proven to contribute a lot more $$ to local business than stinky cars.

For residents, you just accept that they can drive for the half block or so that would be necessary for them to get to an open road. Not that complicated, especially if you time the closure right.

I like the latter, which is why I think Columbia Pike or Wilson/Clarendon (I was thinking at the top of the Hill – e.g. between Ballston and Courthouse — because I hate hills) would work best. Looking at the map, it seems you could close Fairfax between Ballston and Clarendon, then W/C between Clarendon and Courthouse. There are pretty obvious routes for cars north (Washington-13th-Highland-Key) and south (Wilson-10th-Barton). From Ballston you basically connect to the Custis and Bluemont Trails. From Courthouse Veitch takes you up to the Custis…

It may be too late this year, but wouldn’t this be wonderful to have on the Sunday after the Clarendon Cup (June 10)?

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It would help the situation a lot of if there were clear signage on the DC side indicating that one should cross on the South side of the Memorial Bridge in order to get to the MVT (or generally, in order to stay safe — that crossing after the North side of the bridge has horrible sightlines and often cars are FLYING). I see quite a number of runners and cyclists looking for the MVT over there. Cyclists, if they figure it out, don’t mind the extra mileage to go up to the crosswalk, come back, and get the MVT safely, but for runners, I agree that’s too much to ask.

Or course, that would require NPS to put up signs to help people on foot/bikes get around, which would imply that NPS cares about people who aren’t in cars…

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I had this idea the other day, which is, admittedly, a much more radical solution. But it would address the intersection of doom AND the cluster that is the beginning of the Custis:

Two-way protected cycletrack on the East-bound section of Lee Hwy between Spout Run and Rosslyn.

The idea would be an improved crossing of Spout Run and Lee from the Custis (post S-curve of death) to the cycle track. Encourage commuters and more serious (read: faster) cyclists to take the cycle track, leaving the Custis to recreational cyclists, kids, runners and dogs. Cyclists would end up at the Southern intersection of Lee and Lynn, allowing them to cross with traffic going straight onto 66, then wait on the far corner, then continue on with traffic going straight onto the Key Bridge, either on an improved sidewalk/trail or a cycletrack on that street. Then an easy improvement to the curb cut would allow those cyclists to continue to the MVT or along the sidewalk onto the Key Bridge.

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This month is at the Westover Library, right?
Westover Library
1644 North McKinley Road
Arlington, VA 22205

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Not that I’ll even be in town that day (May 6th, for those who didn’t click through), but it sounds like fun. Sounds like it’d be even more fun to join that ride for the DC-Baltimore portion, then have an early dinner/snack, and bike back to DC.

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I’ve done it on plenty of crowded buses. I just stay near the front for the whole ride (I rarely get a seat). I’ve gotten plenty of looks from people when I squeeze to the side to allow others to go further back, but the drivers have always gotten it. Then I exit through the front door and remind the driver that I’ll be getting the bike. Never had a problem.

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YAY! So happy to hear you liked it!

@Cabi newbie 17694 wrote:

A few observations about the CaBi bikes: The brakes were not very good, which made the big downhill hairy ( I don’t know if all CaBI brakes are not good, or if that particular bike was especially bad). Also they are not fast (which may be a massive understatement but there ya go.) I’ll definitely do this again on nice mornings, I will just need to budget more time to making it to work. All in all a nice change up to my morning commute.

re: brakes, it was probably just that bike.
re: speed, yeah, they’re slow, especially up hill. Once you’re in the city, you’re still faster than cars, which feels good, but going uphill on trails, I’ve felt like I was going slower than walking (though I wasn’t). It gets better. And once you get hooked, you may get your own bike, which will be faster. You can take bikes on buses all day, which makes one-way commuting easier (or at least no-uphill-commuting — you can ride to Rosslyn and have lots of bus choices that will take you + bike up hill).

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@KLizotte 17590 wrote:

I’d be thrilled if they simply enforced the speed limit on the GW Parkway, esp near the infamous crosswalks near Arlington Cemetary. Funny how you never see PP anywhere near the true trouble spots 😡

Oh, I see them _near_ the GWP crossing all the time — they park in the grass, under the trees South of Memorial Circle. I’m often tempted to walk over and ask them wtf they’re doing UNDER THE TREES, when there are 3 not-so-safe pedestrian crossings mere feet away. But I don’t want to get a ticket.

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