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My RSVP is a tentative – All day meeting with follow-on the next day may not allow me time to attend. But I will try.

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Snow Flurries!!!!

And as I was approaching the IOD, I was slowing down due to the now single digit countdown and cars were turning. Then the cars in the two turning lanes stopped to allow me and at least one other cyclist behind me (there may have been two) go through. A nice start to the week.

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I prefer not having my screen name linked with my name.

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@cvcalhoun 130200 wrote:

In theory, you should have received a confirmation. However, in some instances e-mail providers seem to be blocking the e-mails. I can confirm that you are registered.

I never received a confirmation either. Nothing in my spam folder. I did get one from Strava and I have been able to see that I am included on there with my manual entries.

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@LeprosyStudyGroup 129988 wrote:

Yeah I really scratched my head when they recently rebuilt that area on the east side of the street (that will eventually be a covered bus stop I guess?) with seemingly zero consideration of the fact that it is directly next to one of the busiest trail entrances in the entire area, and there is no reasonable way for cyclists to exit from the trail and either head south to the access road or safely cross the street without bumbling through a maze of pedestrians and poles and cars and curbs.

So, is it possible to make sure all road-related construction plan approval processes in Arlington have a “bicyclist” approver in the mix, like Bike Arlington approves it or the ABAC? It seems that all sorts of recent plans are not doing well on the bicycling front.

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The IOD has definitely improved, but still not perfect. Lots of folks are not looking up when the no right on red comes on and so try to turn. When crossing so that you are head on to the drivers, I have made gestures of “stop” and pointed to the sign and not been run over, although a noticeable fraction still turn (nearly once a week). When crossing in the other direction I move up to be almost in the intersection when the no turn on red is supposed to start in order to grab their attention. I have had folks honk and me and give me the finger should I start crossing when the countdown starts (still double digits! Would they not go through an intersection that just turned yellow?). I think it has been better at rush hour than on weekends because (1) there is little chance to turn on red anyway and (2) more people are daily users of the intersection.

I think the cops have helped a lot. I think the no turn sign needs to start sooner – or have a permanent sign that indicates that there is a potential no turn on red – “No Turn on Red during Walk Signal” or some such thing.

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Heading north on MVT, south of Memorial bridge near the cut-off for crossing the parkway, a cyclist was approaching me. Once in my light beam I saw it was Santa! Full outfit and (fake) beard. I greeted him.
Then I turned to look at him as we were passing and someone filtered between us without a call or other warning. Since Santa actually witnessed this, I presume that cyclist will be receiving coal.

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@rcannon100 129524 wrote:

Might need a crazy thread

I meant to mention there was – what appeared to be a homeless woman – down at Trollheim – who was leaving her bags out in the middle of the path – in the dark. When asked to move them – she started screaming. I mean I have no idea – but what was running through my mind is that she was leaving those bags in the middle of the path in a dark spot on purpose in order to cause a crash.

I went passed her the other night. She was moving bags around (could have been the slow transport of them) when I rang my bell and she yelled something unintelligible (at last to someone biking past) but moved to the railing. I was wondering what she was doing, but the bridge seemed to be the wrong place for whatever it was.

If we are doing a crazy thread.. there is a white bearded jogger heading north on the MVT that I pass between the 14th St Bridge and Gravelly Point whom I often hear yell or loudly mutter “{different expletive each time} cyclists.” I always call out a cheery hello when I pass (heading south). Some days he grumbles again.

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@Crickey7 129472 wrote:

I’m kind of unclear on what you expect us to do here. If finger wagging toward the offending cyclist is the goal, then consider it wagged.

I did the wagging – don’t feel like riding on someone else’s private property is your right (and I liked the original suggestions to keep it from happening again) – and then I was answering questions folks had. Nope, not much else expected.

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In trying to respond to many of the posts:

I was not actually there. My neighbor described the situation as a cyclist coming up the road seeing the blockage deciding that my yard and my neighbor’s yard were a fine alternative to the street. No slowing down or checking if there were other issues or even if the route would work. I do not know if there signs, and if there were not, the street isn’t long and you can tell pretty quickly when it is blocked like that (there have been quite a few things recently on the block like this and a driver/cyclist looking ahead would notice an issue) and decide to take another route – and the detour would not be huge.

The ground was not hard. I still have the tracks from the car and the bike days later (I had wondered what the smaller tracks were until the neighbor mentioned the cyclist), that won’t go away easily, meaning the dirt has been compressed. I have been working hard on that part of my lawn to remove the weeds and grow grass.

I agree that there should be sidewalks everywhere – I grew up with that and find this area odd that way. I have no choice in walking to and from my house to be in the street. My neighbors have commented in the past that the county has an easement on the other side of my street for a sidewalk that has never been put in (70-some-odd years after the houses). So, technically, they could have done that on the other side of the street, not mine.

What would I expect the cyclist to do? I know when I have seen blockages, I usually either go up close (slowly) to see what is the status and either walk my bike around on the smallest non-public area possible, or just go another way. And usually it would be the latter. The person could have walked over a smaller area and not done as much damage as on a bicycle itself. I doubt the road blockage was on the curb itself and walking along that would have been better – riding in the middle of the lawn is disregard for personal property. Note that the car had not known about the cable on the ground and ended up yanking down cable from the telephone poles because it got caught somehow on the car. Cyclist could have done the same. I know I occasionally trip over it and I know it is there (it isn’t mine). My neighbor was shocked at the behavior that appeared to be completely disregarding the fact that it was private property.

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@scorchedearth 129266 wrote:

I find it especially interesting that the APD repeatedly tell us that they can’t enforce violations of traffic laws (3 foot passing, aggressive driving) without witnessing said infraction yet in this case, the officer took eyewitness testimony from a single eyewitness to write a ticket.

In reporting the car portion of folks driving over my lawn (http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?9641-Bad-cyclist-yards-are-not-for-riding-on&p=129337#post129337), I was told by the Arlington Co. Police officer that what the driver did was reckless driving, he could not ticket because he did not witness – it is the type of offense that needs a witness – however, a witness could go to the magistrate to swear that so-and-so was driving the vehicle and the vehicle did X. Then action could be taken against the driver. The police would help with locating the person (since we had a license plate number). Could this also be done with the 3 ft rule? If you had a way to locate the driver (license plate) and recall seeing the driver (perhaps all from a movie), then perhaps this is a way to actually have offenders fined.

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@jrenaut 129398 wrote:

It’s going to get a little complicated for the rides with negative degree averages, though there shouldn’t be TOO many of them.

Convert all temperatures to Kelvin and there won’t be a negative average. (and you will feel warmer by knowing the temperature is over 200 deg!)

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@AFHokie 129342 wrote:

Claymores…directional; limits damage to your siding.

Actually, I had discussed mining the lawn with the next door neighbor who also had their lawn driven over (and lost their FIOS over this).

The bollards are a good idea too.

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@americancyclo 129338 wrote:

but really, why aren’t we worried about the car that was driving on the lawn (and sidewalk?)

I have called the police about the car. The neighbors got a photo of the license plate and the county workers also reported it. I have no sidewalk, so that wasn’t an issue (and a cyclists on the sidewalk would have been fine). But this was ridiculous. Apparently the county workers had folks blaring horns at them earlier (although not going around) in the day and this is what happens to them frequently. Which is ridiculous! I was hoping cyclists were a little more reasonable.

So, let’s just get the word out that they need to be more reasonable and show we are better than car drivers!

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I have kind of like the idea of the winter riding I do anyway “counting” towards something. So, it looks like I could sign up for BAFS and continue doing the riding I regularly do – commuting and one weekly fun ride – and perhaps not join in on other rides (although the occasional happy hour) because I already ride about as often as I can now. However, I have a dumb phone and no GPS device nor really want them (yes, I know I sound like a curmudgeonly Luddite). Can I enter the rides in strava manually and still do this? (which I think means I cannot do any of the time or location challenges since it looks like the strava manual entry is simply length of ride and comments (no real start and stop time or location, unless in comments)). Does it make sense for me to join in under these conditions?

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