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@skreaminquadz 3000 wrote:

Looking forward to joining you on one of these upcoming KB rides!

I suggest you jump in before V7 goes live. My guess is that one might require harnesses and ropes…. or at least a parachute.

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Yup. The original Kill Bill had around 150 turns. New versions have almost doubled that.

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I so need to work on my Miss America smile. Gotta get my teeth whitened too.

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I miss this thread. I thought I’d use it to share a quest that I’ve been on for the last few weeks. While tweaking a few things on the Kill Bill loop to incorporate a few lovely little hills identified by Tim for Version 4 of this ride, My friend Sean made the sarcastic comment that I should plot a century ride with 10,000 feet of climbing that doesn’t leave the beltway. My quick response was, “What do you think I’ve been working on for the last year????”

We’re getting close. The most recent version of the Kill Bill loop (without the West Arlington/Falls Church Extension) is a hair under 60 miles with roughly 6200 feet of climbing. When doing that ride a few weeks ago, I realized that I had to also ride into work and get my laptop that afternoon. That alone got me dang close to the 100 mile/10k ft goal. Since then I’ve been working on perfecting the West Arlington/Falls Church Extra Credit lap. My first iteration was rough. The hills were great, but there was too much flat between. In doing that ride I also found additional hills that need to go in. Brcire made some awesome suggestions for stuff around Lake Barcroft too. I have been scouting ways to link that in and found some tasty hills between Bluemont and Barcroft.

My rough estimate of where I am in the process is about 85 miles in length and close to 8500 feet of climbing. Finding fun, interesting mileage isn’t a problem. There are not a lot of additional hills to be added in. I have two areas that I need to tap into.

1) S. Walter Reed Dr. and the roads around it are great, but connecting it in makes for a lot of flat areas;
2) 14th/15th Rd. in Rosslyn above Arlington BLVD is good and can be added in pretty easily to the loop. (Thanks Tim); and
3) Brcire also suggested 8th, near Columbia Pike. I need to explore that.

Including those will get us to 100 miles and over 9000 feet of climbing. The 5-700 feet of climbing can be picked up by looping back for parallel streets that go up nasty climbs. I avoided that in many places, but some hills are sooooo lovely that they need to be included.

Some links:
Original Kill Bill loop from Potomac Pedalers:http://www.bikepptc.org/node/3731
West Arlington/Falls Church Extra Credit lap: http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/30554466
Kill Bill V5: http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/29839008

One basic comment about MapMyRide.com. Their elevation estimates are useless.

Trying to navigate these loops by cue sheet is almost impossible. It is extremely difficult to navigate them with GPS. The route includes many hundreds of turns and some come very quickly.

Once I get a route that I’m happy with, I’ll share it with the world.

Pete

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2 ways to go with this. You’ve been doing it for a while and haven’t had a problem. You can pretend that you didn’t get the memo and keep on going. Change your behavior when you are forced to. The second is to push for better bike parking. There’s plenty of good information on the Interwebs about bike friendly businesses. I know that this is more likely not an issue with your employer, but with the building management. In a way it is easier to ignore building management than it is your employer. It is also more difficult to get building management to change.

Another thing you might explore is if a neighboring building has better bike parking. I think WABA had a good thing on Bike Friendly Businesses lately.

I usually leave my lock at work so I don’t have to carry it every day. I have a second lock that I use when I’m out shopping.

Hope that helps or at least gives you some good things to explore.

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@acc 2972 wrote:

Maybe I’m fortunate that I can take out my pent up feelings of hostility on my children because generally nothing I see out on the trail irks me too much. Perhaps I have low expectations of my fellow man.

You have the right idea, ACC. Taking your frustrations out on your children is AWESOME!!! (Just kidding!) It was the other thing that you tapped on that was the right idea. Having the right attitude yourself is the best way to deal with these things. In actuality, it is the ONLY defense against the ugliness that we encoutner day in day out. I guess I’m living proof of that. I had a change of attitude a few years back and just decided to not let myself get so pissed off at how others behave. Rather I embrace my god-given silliness and have fun all the time. The best reaction to hostility is goofiness because it often completely disarms the person with the hostility. If it doesn’t, who cares? I’m still having fun.

Of course being wise and safe is important. I haven’t been faced with someone pointing a gun at me while cycling yet, but I hope that when I do, I have the grace, poise and peace-of-mind to keep my natural “Neener Neener! You’re a weiner!” comments to myself.

Love,

Pete

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@eminva 2968 wrote:

Wow, you guys are in rare form today! Thanks for the humor.

While there is a some silly content in my post here, I actually do sing psychobabble when the trail is really busy and people definitely get out of the way. During low traffic the jingle bells and me yelling is enough.

@eminva 2968 wrote:

Anyway, I kept count on the commute this morning — I was passed by three cyclists, and two called out warnings. So I stand corrected — I am getting 66.7%. I wonder why I perceive that I get a higher percentage of warnings than others?

When I ride, I get people that call “on your left” or ding at me to pass. I hear it too. I don’t hear it as much when I run or walk. I haven’t really done a scientific count.

@eminva 2968 wrote:

I also wonder why all the animosity in our area? Are we that stressed out?

I have theories, but I’m working on being kinder and nicer in my behavior. It is the first step in becoming an actual kinder/gentler me, instead of just appearing to be kinder and gentler. For that reason I’m going to keep my thoughts to myself and work on thinking the best about those who I share metro-area trails and roads with. I honestly do love y’all.

On an only slightly unrelated topic: YOWZA are the Ninjas back out in full force. I’m soft-pedaling at 10mph and STILL barely seeing people in time to miss them. This is true for cyclists AND walkers/runners, though the numbers of Walkers and runners are higher. It is as though people are actively trying to conceal themselves.

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@brendan 2961 wrote:

I’ve actually been surprised at the number of joggers/walkers with headphones in who actually gesture the “pass signal received” gesture. A minority of them, to be sure, but I guess some folks don’t leave it on 11 like I do…

I share that observation, sir. I find a lot of people pretend to not hear.

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@Mark: I’m an International Man of Mystery when it comes to ensemble changes.

@Brendan: I came so close to ordering matching green rims. In the end I went with yellow. The wheels you see there were the ones that were on the bike that had a broken frame a few months ago. The only new stuff is the frame, bar and stem, bar tape and chain. Pretty much all of the serious components were just stripped off of the bloody corpse of Mutant Snow Bike.

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Assaulting people’s eyes seems to be a habit I have with my bike builds.

As bright as that color looks in photos, it is 10x brighter in person.

It also rides real goodly too.

Hugs and kisses,

Pete

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During my Tour of the American Health Care System on Friday, I noticed that there are quite a few good signs that point to local bike shops close to the MUTs. I also rode past 2 different air stations. I’ve never actually tried to use them, but I have seen people arrive at one with no air in their tire and ride away.

That is a bit of a start.

Definitely a cool idea!

Great post. Thank you!

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I’ll preface this by saying that these are my own personal observations. They have been gathered by riding about 10,000 miles per year for many years in many parts of the US and in Canada, Europe and Central America.

@donkeybike 2923 wrote:

Cyclists have to realize that they have a bad rap–that I don’t think is deserved, but we must be ambassadors until society catches up. The disdain that drivers have toward us is really scary.

It is an us-versus-them world out there. There are three main groups of people using/intersecting with the places that we ride: cars, bikes and pedestrians. No matter what group you’re in at a given moment, we seem to have the attitude that the OTHER 2 groups are the problem. The cool thing is that this conveniently shifts when we shift modes of transportation. Riders complain about the peds and cars. Cars complain about cyclists and peds. Peds complain about bikes and cars.

Bottom line: The vast majority of us behave like spoiled children when we’re in transit. We all probably deserve the reputations that we have. We’d do much better to understand that and behave with a bit more civility.

Interestingly enough, when I travel around the US and the world, I find that there are relatively few places that I encounter this much animosity towards others.

Pete

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I stopped using a bell a few years back. I was getting repetitive stress injuries in my thumb. I installed jinble bell son my handlebars which helps a little. I also maniacally sing show-tunes out of tune and off the beat and replace 7 out of 10 words with the word “meow” and do so at a rather high volume. The trail opens before me as though I was a particularly good prophet parting the red sea.

While the prophet comment above is a feeble attempt at humor, the psycho-babble/singing effectiveness is definitely the best way to let people know that you’re coming. People with headphones on that “couldn’t hear” my bell or calling out “on your left” in the past quickly move to the right and are attentive to being passed when they hear me belt out “Meow left meow heart in San Meow-sisco”. I also seem to get a certain amount of aerobic workout value from it too.

While on the topic, does anyone know the words to “Tie me kangaroo down?” Never-mind. I’ll improvise.

Love,

Pete

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Lovely new bike! Have fun with it. It is tooooo beautiful outside to be inside today.

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I’m sorry to come to this discussion so late. I have one suggestion. When doing a rebuild like this, it might be a good thing to have City Bikes do a little bit of extra work to get the bike ready for the season. It will likely have additional cost, but will greatly improve the way the bike works for you this year.

Having them replace the cables and housing will cost $20-40 (including labor) and will make the bike ride and work like new. It might be a bit more than that, but not too much. Putting old cables back on the bike will likely work, but not perfectly. You might want to call and ask if they can put new cables and housing on the bike when they build it.

They may come back and suggest that some parts are worn… specifically drivetrain parts. Keep in mind that if they suggest to replace the chain, you’ll likely have to replace the cogs (gears at the back) and chain rings (gears at the front). Those components wear together and if you replace one and not the others, the chain will skip and not shift correctly. Things may be working perfectly well. Just keep in mind that chain rings, cogs and the chain often need to be changed together.

Hope that is a little bit of help.

Pete

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