[DSalovesh]

It was in Martin DiCaro’s followup piece:

“The original proposal was to put a bike lane across the street from the church and there would be no parking and would eliminate a travel lane,” said Rev. Braxton. “The church didn’t want the bike lane, period. The bicycling community wanted it and it didn’t seem to matter to them that it would eliminate a travel lane.”

…and…

Met. A.M.E. spends about $25,000 per year so its congregants can use nearby parking garages, Rev. Braxton said. “The issue is larger than parking.”

http://wamu.org/news/13/08/20/cycling_advocates_push_back_on_dc_for_changes_to_m_street_bike_lane

[DSalovesh]

@Terpfan 65022 wrote:

The most galling thing that wasn’t mentioned is the parking garage next door to the church. They keep complaining about a lack of parking, but there is a garage literally adjacent to the church. And if you count other paid garages, there are 6 within 2.5 blocks of the church.

Actually, in two places on the MAME site they direct people to park in the garages. There’s no mention of street parking, and I’m pretty sure the church self-regulates who can drive up and park there. (Not like the two private security guards they post could actually prevent public parking, but that wouldn’t stop them from trying.)

As the pastor said, this isn’t about parking and they didn’t want any bike lanes at all. Nobody clarified if that opinion was limited to just their block – my guess is that it’s more general.

[DSalovesh]

Contour stuff will quickly go out of stock unless someone buys their patents and starts production. I kinda wish they would because their mounts were awesome, but they would have to take on GoPro, Garmin, this, and a bunch of cheap and barely useful alternatives. That said, REI still has some in stock at 25% off.

To me the super-interesting feature of RIDEYE is how it automatically overwrites older rides if it needs space. Memory management has been the biggest hassle of running a cam for every ride – it’s nothing to plug a camera into a power supply so it’s fresh in the morning, but there have been so many times I would get three blocks into the ride and hear the camera shut down for lack of storage. And hardly any of the daily ride videos have been at all remarkable.

I’m not sure the crash detection feature will help anything, and I can imagine some ways it could screw things up. But as long as it can save the file without stopping the recording it might protect the evidence better. (If nobody turns the camera off after it crashes it’ll eventually run out of battery and/or space, which corrupts files.)

[DSalovesh]

I’ve never had a rim failure like this. Other factors have caused rim damage or loss before I’ve had to worry about wear and tear.

Other variables beyond thickness may come into play. Smooth road surfaces would put less stress on rims, while potholes, cracks, and curb bumps would put more – and we definitely have more of the latter. Spoke tension might have an effect on how much flex rims are subjected to. Brake design may allow higher or lower clamping pressure requiring more or less rim strength before failure, and the use of brakes to modulate speed versus stopping quickly in traffic would also change the forces involved.

This falls into my broad category of things I’d rather not lose sleep over. While it appears the effects of brake track failure aren’t especially catastrophic to the wheel itself (similar to tire bead blowout), the effects of potentially losing control in traffic are incalculable. I turn to the other side of the equation: what is to be gained from keeping these rims in service as long as possible? Replacement is somewhere in the future regardless, and you’re approaching the point where failure wouldn’t be surprising, so I tend to think it’s at least time to start shopping around.

Seems like the exact replacement rims would cost about $100 total, plus the meditative work of transferring them over spoke by spoke and truing them up, so there’s not much downside.

[DSalovesh]

@DaveK 61097 wrote:

What I’m suggesting is that DDOT should have explained to them a year ago that because this is in the greater public interest, it is going to happen. Period.

An ultimatum like that could happen at any time with no change in outcome. It won’t.

The fact that the church doesn’t believe communication was adequate is unfortunate, but the claim barely holds up since this has been in planning for almost a decade. Even without debating what they knew or when they knew it, DDOT’s role is to mediate such conflicts creatively, not to abandon whole blocks when conflicts arise. There are several options that would preserve protection and parking, not reported to be under consideration.

In addition, October/November is the perfectly wrong time to open this cycletrack. If L Street and Pa Ave are any guide many posts will be removed right after installation, not expected to return until April or later. In essence, this setback already pushes the final opening to spring 2014 – so why not use those 8-9 months to further develop a plan that keeps the fully protected full length cycletrack and addresses parking issues?

The reason, I fear, is that DDOT isn’t running this show.

[DSalovesh]

Looked to me like the GPS guidance they showed was for Whitehurst Freeway, not Water Street. GPS doesn’t do well with elevation differences or slight displacements, so it wouldn’t recalculate or warn.

[DSalovesh]

Working across the street from FBI HQ does make some things interesting, but not this. There are bike racks along 9th between E and D, and there’s a BikeShare station on-street at 10th and E, all facing the Hoover building.

This is 100% on the aesthetic sensibilities of our building’s owners, who have also painted the utility access covers on the sidewalk to better blend in with the cement.

[DSalovesh]

I asked MoveDC about this through twitter, and the response was that they’re not collecting that information at that fine grained level, just bike parking policy suggestions. Though even for that the eventual product is mainly a long-range master plan, not necessarily specific implementation tasks.

But another branch of that conversation may lead to using their tools (such as http://www.wemovedc.org/howsitmoving.html ) to collect suggestions to be submitted to the Downtown BID.

Still, while Downtown BID is “partnering” with DDOT on this project, it wasn’t clear exactly what that means or if personal input will be considered in the selection process.

[DSalovesh]

(The area for the first set to be installed is just a section of the BID, but later phases will cover the whole area.)

I’m curious how they decided where to put racks. While the Downtown BID leadership is bike-friendly overall, it seems that they’re working with property owners and businesses to decide where they’ll go.

I know my building is adamantly against putting racks along their frontage at 9th and E (in the BID). Guests and services that arrive by bike may be intercepted by security if they try to lock up to the low loop treebox fences, and at least one bike has been removed.

This is public space. Roads get car (etc.) parking by default. Bicycle parking should be just as common, and if placement is in the hands of businesses and BIDs, I’m skeptical that we’ll be getting what we need.

[DSalovesh]

I agree about larger tires at lower pressure. The Trek 7.5 should be able to handle some pretty big ones. Also I agree with padding for your hands.

For tweaks to the bike, there is a LOT you can do. Through bike adjustments, my spouse rode ~20 miles per day all the way through a summer pregnancy:

Softer grips that fit your hands better. (We added a second layer of cork tape on her road bars.)

Bar ends to give you some position variation. (I can’t do more than a few miles without a position change.)

Different bar shapes may help. (Flat, riser, swept back, curved.

Threadless stem riser adapters work great.

Shock absorbing stems (and seatposts) can add comfort with only a little added weight.

Seat position tuning rules are all secondary to your comfort – any angle, any fore/aft position…

Both Bicycle Space and Daily Rider bike shops are trustworthy for this sort of adjustment or replacement need. They’ll steer you right either way.

[DSalovesh]

@bobco85 48325 wrote:

Since we do not hear a lot about drivers who injure cyclists getting prosecuted, cases like these send a message to cyclists everywhere about what kinds of justice to expect should you find yourself in this sort of situation.

My concern is not just what it means to cyclists and other vulnerable road users, but the message it DOESN’T send to drivers.

It can seem petty if you haven’t been on the receiving end yourself, but the spectrum of assaults on cyclists includes when a vehicle pulls up behind and leans on the horn, and the little engine revving that “politely” signals that the vehicle has chosen not to run you over yet. Those sorts of things lead to intentionally passing too closely, and I’ve even been tapped from behind as a part of such harassment.

The prosecutors had the opportunity to make it clear that there is a line that shall not be crossed without serious consequences, even for retired police officers.

I Am Not A Lawyer, but IMHO the precedent has now been set that harassing a cyclist (or anyone, really) and then intentionally driving into them, causing personal injury and property damage, leaving the scene, and failing to voluntarily go to the police until charges are filed still leaves room for cutting a deal without any significant penalty.

So, drivers of DC: don’t give cyclists room, don’t avoid knocking them down, don’t stop when you do, don’t go to the police afterward, hide from them when they look for you, lie about where you were at the time, drag the whole process out – it won’t matter, because unless you do something worse than this you’ll get a soft guilty and you’ll have to take a week off work to get that off your record.

And it’s not too much of a stretch to think that if the system isn’t going to work for us in the courtrooms we’ll have to do more to protect ourselves on the streets.

[DSalovesh]

I also like the “what’s new message-by-message” view, but I’m an old dog and slow to learn. Also, I’m slow on the forum so whole topics can blow up and blow over between my visits, and this view starts with the latest messages.

Fortunately for me, the old view is still there as it was:

Instead of clicking the “What’s New?” button at the top, click “New Posts” under it.

Or,

Click “What’s New?” and then the “New Posts” item, second from the left in the line under the buttons.

Now I’m going to hop into my time machine to see if the current default “Activity Stream” was always available and this is simply a change in the default view…

[DSalovesh]

I’m Dave, @darsal on Twitter, and usually DSalovesh or DaveS on the various discussions & comment piles & forums. I do most trips on a matte black Cannondale Bad Boy Ultra with a disc brakes and a rack, but you may also spot me on other bikes from time to time. I don’t regularly get far from my daily commute, between Capitol Hill & Penn Quarter.

[DSalovesh]

Mine, biked = 10 (average, PR is 5)
Mine, driven = 15 (not counting street parking search)
Mine, bus = 25 (door to door)
Mine, Metro = 35 (door to door)
Average for my zip = 30

I go 20002 to 20004, so…

[DSalovesh]

@baiskeli 45336 wrote:

I just found out after reading some of the links here that AAA has bike roadside assistance too.

Specific link?

I see BikeLeague lauding AAA Washington (State) for adding bicycle coverage, but I don’t see any mention of it for AAA Mid-Atlantic.

That’s part of the problem, to me: people don’t join to support the national lobbying group, they join because the garage where that nice mechanic figured out that strange noise that one time (and fixed it cheap!) also runs an AAA approved tow service. That one tow that one time was $100, which more than covers the cost of AAA, and AAA lists more services offered too, so why not have that peace of mind, save money, AND feel like your favorite local garage is going to take care of you wherever you go and whatever you do?

Never before have I felt as strongly that I should join an organization just to help tear it down. We can keep the roadside assistance stuff, but I can’t threaten to cancel my membership over their anti-bike lobbying if I don’t actually have one.

[Author]

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