DSalovesh
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DSalovesh
ParticipantParticipantI’ve had a few racks. The one on my bike now is the Topeak “Super Tourist DX with Side Bars”
It has a tubular frame and all the blah blah good stuff – it fits, it works, etcetera and there’s an alternate version for disc brakes too.
The deciding feature – the one that made me replace the last rack that was otherwise identical – is the side bars. With those I can hang my panniers there and still put things on top of the rack, be it a trunk bag or a milk crate or a carefully strapped down pizza and some beer. I do have a Topeak trunk that uses the MTX track (and I’ve had my eye on the folding milk crate with wheels) but it works fine with non-MTX trunks too. It also worked fine with my Novarra commuter panniers and is working… okay with my Jandd really big bags – heel clearance is close with those, but that’s mainly because they’re so big.
Price is about as good as it gets, though I bought mine semi-locally at HTO for a few dollars more than the Amazon listed price.
February 20, 2013 at 3:29 am in reply to: Hand and toe warmers don’t work very well in 15F wind chill #962939Participant@vvill 44181 wrote:
Where do you order them usually?
(Sorry, I think the gerbils ate my reply…)
I picked up a pair at Target (cupcakes!) and a pair at REI (circles) to figure out how they worked for me. When I decided they were fine I found hotsnapz.com where they came out to about half the price.
February 18, 2013 at 5:01 pm in reply to: Hand and toe warmers don’t work very well in 15F wind chill #962797ParticipantThey’re not quite as compact or insertable as the single use ones, but I’ve become a big fan of the reusable sodium acetate “HotSnapZ” variety of hand warmers.
I like that they have a definite reaction and don’t get TOO hot, and that they aren’t bothered by water like sweat or rain, but they’re bulkier than disposables and get hard when they’re spent. They need to be protected against puncture (though the chemicals are basically harmless if they leak – same stuff they use for vinegar flavoring on chips) and once used they need to be boiled to reset them.
I’ve seen them on retail shelves at outdoor stores, which isn’t bad if you just want a pair to test, but mail order is definitely the way to go if you like them.
Participant1) I ride the Pa Ave lanes between the Capitol to 9th 8-10 times per week, typically twice a day M-Th. Fridays are variable. Morning rides are between 7:45 and 8:15, evenings are between 5:30 and 7:00.
2) I see U-turns on almost every ride, so 6-8 times per week. They seem to cluster, so when I notice one I often see several.
3 & 4) I’ve never seen MPD monitoring for U-turns. A few months ago I never saw MPD there at all. I’ve never seen a U-turn made and police action following it.
I’ll add that in recognition of how little I can observe while moving through this stretch for five minutes, I’ve taken several opportunities to stay in one place and observe for 15-30 minutes. I’ve seen as many as one U-turn per minute, and I’ve never gone more than 15 minutes without seeing one. I occasionally ride Pa Ave at odd hours – very early in the morning, very late at night, middle of the day – and even at those times I see U-turns.
February 11, 2013 at 8:57 pm in reply to: How many miles are each of you commuting to and from work and how long does it take? #961028ParticipantTough to define when I started bike commuting.
Was it in college when I rode 3-4 miles between my apartment and campus a few times a week? I drove a lot back then too, but biked to stretch my gas budget so I didn’t have to cut my beer and pizza budget.
Was it after college when I was struggling to find work as a theater designer and riding my bike was the only economical way to entertain myself? Because this was Chicago I still drove a lot and took the el – and for a lot of my work I was hauling far too much stuff to even consider biking.
I did all that riding, sometimes 15-30 mile round trips per day plus 30-50 of “training” some nights, but I didn’t think of myself as a “bike commuter” because there were so many excuses not to ride and I used them all. Especially when I got out of theater and started working in offices – can’t be sweaty and gross, gotta be clean and well-pressed…
By my definition, I guess I started commuting by bike when I stopped using any other means to get there, which would have been 2003 or 2004. I was working as a technology consultant to non-profit organizations, many of which had offices in parts of the city that are difficult to reach (in a hurry anyway) by public transit. Also, I billed (and was paid) by the hour, so time spent on a bus, transferring trains, or waiting for some mid-day track work delay was time and money I would miss out on.
My route was varied, my distance too. Often I’d start off using Mass Ave or Florida Ave from NE to NW, some of the nastiest roads we have for casual riders. I had clients in Chevy Chase, Silver Spring, Courthouse, Ballston, and Hybla Valley (and a bunch right in the center city too), so I’d do at least 10 miles on a light day and as much as 50 if a client needed an unscheduled or emergency visit. Most days I could anticipate, but not all.
Weather conditions didn’t matter, so I rode in rain and snow and ice and heat and humidity and a bunch of really nice days too. I started buying office clothing for its wicking properties – polyester shirts, convertible pants/shorts, padded undershorts, SPD shoes that look like normal footwear. Waterproof sling messenger bags gave way to waterproof backpacks as my neck got sore, and I started searching for just the right set of all-weather gloves.
(For some of this time I was also hauling a kid in a trailer, which meant no matter what my final destination was I’d always start and end with a two mile jaunt from Cap Hill to L’Enfant.)
When time came to change jobs in 2008, I was dedicated to biking to work as much as possible all year. I was also dedicated to being within 30 minutes of my kid’s school, even if that meant I couldn’t take the slightly higher paying jobs I found early on in Reston, Rockville, and even Bethesda and Alexandria were on the edge. Fortunately I found work much closer, though it took an extra couple of months to do so.
What was the question? Oh yeah…
For the past few years my commute went from home to kid’s school to the office, then office to school to home. Total was 6 miles a day, and most of them were sprinted. Now I’ve cut that in half (new school!) and almost all of it is at kid biking intensity – so, 3 easy miles split into two rides.
ParticipantThis is pretty much what we did back in – was that November? – with The Assembly. My idea was essentially that we’d occupy the bike lanes as much as possible with the people who attended, so if we had 20 people we could completely fill 1-2 blocks in a constant loop, and if we had 40 we could expand by a block or two, and so on. Thank goodness wiser people opted for a more friendly approach.
It would take a really huge number of people and bikes to stretch end-to-end – not an inconceivable number, but one that would take a significant amount of effort to organize, and more than we could pull together in a short time. I think we had 40-60 people out there at most (it was hard to tell because there were plenty of people just riding as usual too) and though it wasn’t a solid wall of protesting bikers it was definitely enough to draw focus.
As it turned out, the people who showed up (including MPD bicycle officers) did a fine job of increasing awareness on the street. Other folks (WABA mainly) followed up in the JAWB to let them know that action was required before we lit torches and grabbed pitchforks, and the combination of efforts led to Mayor Gray’s order that went into effect on December 1st (and became enforceable as soon as DDOT finished repainting the bike lanes).
Since then we’ve seen an increase in responsiveness about bike lane concerns. The recent education and enforcement effort didn’t require mobs in the streets, and though it hasn’t been totally effective it has definitely helped. Patience is a virtue, and I’m optimistic that continued efforts over the next few months will really have a significant impact in this particular conflict.
Thanks to notoriety of having the inaugural parade down the bike lanes, it’s best to keep a positive outlook on what we have there. I know DDOT and WABA are continuing to make the case for better protection for the entire length of the cycletrack. We may not get painted pavement (and I’m not at all convinced that it adds to our safety) but DDOT has shown renderings of a pavement-level barricade design that should satisfy aesthetic and practical concerns while increasing protection for cycletrack users.
My dream would be to have that approved and installed in time for Bike to Work day 2013, just as the original installation was meant to celebrate BTWD 2010. I’m hopeful I’m not the only one aiming in that direction.
Participant@bobco85 42849 wrote:
I’m not sure if drivers have responded to seeing it on my helmet, but at least it seems that I’m having less close calls (I might just be riding more alert, but I at least “feel” safer).
A big change for me was thinking about what I’d want people to see if they were watching my video unedited and without explanation. (E.g., if I was in a coma or worse.)
When the video is running I disobey fewer lights, and only when I feel the video would illustrate that doing so didn’t lead to a crash or inconvenience for anybody. When running video I don’t yell when I’m wronged, even though neither of my cameras pick up clear sound. When I’m recording I often just think of my bike as a camera platform, so I try to point it at the problem (while staying out of trouble, of course). Just gesturing to the camera and notifying a person that I have them on video has ended many conflicts.
ParticipantI, uh, seem to have forgotten which side of the bike a derailer is on. I had that totally turned around, and what I thought was the back is actually the front.
But yeah, it’s definitely a bit bent, and the solution is what you did – to bend it back a little.
Definitely just a little though, because little differences have a large effect on how it works. You can always bend it more if it isn’t fixed yet, and so on.
Participant(Bike in the bathtub? You’re doing it right!)
Actually, that looks broken to me, for most modern derailers. A side view would help, and without that I’m kinda guessing…
If you look at all these images –
– the outer plate seems longer than what I can see in your picture, and all of them completely loop around the chain. Yours appears to be open. (There were some old designs that worked like that, but they had even longer plates. And they didn’t work as well as the completely enclosed version everyone makes these days.)
This would definitely affect downshifting while climbing, which is already stressful on the drivetrain.
ParticipantI started with a Tachyon bar cam. At $150, it seemed like a good way to get my feet wet.
I didn’t like the resolution, which was only good enough to identify cars by color, make, and model, but rarely enough to read license plates. It didn’t clearly show pavement lines when I was moving, and sometimes I couldn’t even tell if a stoplight was green or red in the videos. And, it wasn’t rechargeable so I went through a ton of expensive disposable AAA lithium batteries.
After about a year of occasional use, the battery holder started losing contact when I hit a bump.
Then I got a good deal on a Contour HD – at full retail it was $200. It has full HD, a good lens, great color, and it’s rechargeable. I can usually read any license plate I pass, and in good light I’ve even caught names off taxi licenses.
That’s also the price of the cheapest GoPro. In tests they’re pretty much equal, so I’ve decided that $200 is about the minimum price of a usable handlebar black box camera.
ParticipantI remember doing loops around the block with training wheels, leaning so far into curves that the tire would go off the ground – that was the secret to winning the races in those days. Then the training wheels came off, and I clearly remember riding down this driveway to get speed, then making the curve into the street. And then falling over once my momentum wore off.
That’s also the house where I lived when we landed on the moon, and those are the steps where we observed the total eclipse – but over the summer we moved to the town I think of as “where I grew up“.
ParticipantThe basement work has begun, and they’re moving pretty quickly. They started Thursday, and between the trash we left down there and the walls they took out they filled a dumpster by Friday.
Our first floor looks like the worst of a reality TV show, and I’d feel bad about it if I didn’t feel so good about the stuff we’ve dumped and fitting the rest into half the space – though we’ve already misplaced a few things in the clutter. Not to mention, if all goes according to plan I’m finally going to have a dedicated indoor tinkering space – room for my woodworking, bikeworking, maybe even a little homebrew setup…
Once I saw how overstuffed the rest of the house was getting it wasn’t hard to find a niche to stow these frames, so they’ve been spared from the scrap bin.
Based on the reported history of the “*** Trek Road Bike 660 Wanted ***” guy, I’ve emailed him. I’m sentimental too (which is why I still have this frame I bought in 1990 and haven’t ridden since 2001) so this will be his if it helps. If not, I’ve had a couple of other folks express interest here too.
Things aren’t looking as rosy for the CCM. Maybe the resuscitation of the NHL season will bring it some good associations and I can find it a home – or maybe it has a future as the first project in the new workspace.
ParticipantFor those of us who are directionally impaired, this is the parking lot near the Summer Theater.
It’s plenty clear on the map, but for me it helps to have a landmark when my brain is barely functional – which is often.
ParticipantNow you say. I spent an hour plus hacksawing a 15mm one a couple of weeks ago. (It wasn’t a super-cheap import or it probably would have gone faster.)
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