[eminva]

Here are a couple of action shots. Sorry there weren’t more; these are surprisingly hard to capture — in a parking garage with a phone camera.

Lydia:

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jopamora:

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Liz

[eminva]

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Made my first loop of Rosaryville early this morning. It was fun!

Liz

[eminva]

Thanks, Pete! It was fun. Made me late to work, oh well.

It was an action packed a.m. after my stop at Swings — Arlingtonrider and I witnessed a car hit a cyclist’s trailer as she turned from 17th onto G. She did roll down her window but was totally unapologetic. She got out of there in a hurry when I got my camera out. I think the cyclist was okay, he rode on.

Then, as I was about to ride into my parking garage, a limo in front of me stopped to discharge passengers. Guess who got out? Richard Gere!

Liz

[eminva]

@vvill 65127 wrote:

From http://www.diamond-derby.com/schedule-of-events/

1:30 p.m. Registration opens in Crystal City
2:00 p.m. Event opens
2:00 p.m. River Ride gathers in DC (meeting point TBA)
2:15 p.m Kids’ Race
Awards
3:00 p.m. Open Challenge
Awards / River Ride arrives
4:30 p.m. Gran Prix
Awards
6:00 p.m. Team Relay
7:30 p.m. Final Awards

But which one are you in? Team Relay? What’s the difference between “Open Challenge” and “Gran Prix”?

Liz

[eminva]

Thanks for the great replies, everyone. I think I’ll let the little guy have more fun with his balance bike, as it sounds like that is what he will prefer for a while anyway. To say nothing of his parents. No need to rush it. I just looked at a 45 second video clip of my son riding his pedal bike for the first time (age almost 4) and he was having trouble, even with training wheels, negotiating changes in terrain (there was a rubber mat at the playground where he was practicing, and he was riding on and off it).

Although it was tempting, my brother is coming from Europe for Thanksgiving and he could have brought over one of those non-CSPC approved models.

And good for those of you getting your kids wrenching early!

Liz

[eminva]

What time will our fearless BA-forum members and teams be racing? It was hard for me to tell from the schedule. The event goes from 2 to 8; highly unlikely I can get there for the full thing, but I’d like to see some people I know racing. Thanks!

Liz

[eminva]

@Rod Smith 64929 wrote:

Top placed woman All-Star, second placed woman in the State of Virginia.

Congrats Cyndi! And all the other Diamonds glittering in the platinum setting I am providing.

I just want to give a shout out to another local cyclist, who is the TOP woman in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Kerie Hitt is not a forum regular but she is the first lady of Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling — a tireless advocate and tremendous asset to our local cycling community, very generous and friendly. She is riding for Team FABB, where she is the top rider. She has logged 3450 miles during the challenge. Allez Kerie!

Liz

[eminva]

All right, excuse the dumb question, but so much has changed since my now 12-year-old was going through this rite of passage:

How do you know when a kid is ready to graduate from the balance bike to the pedal bike? Just gave my friend’s kid a balance bike for his third birthday. I went over yesterday to check out how he is doing and he looks to be a master after only one week. He seems to be able to coast indefinitely with his feet off the ground, balanced perfectly. He understood and carried out instructions about how to stop, pick up speed, slow down, turn, etc. Plus he was having a blast. When does one up the ante with the pedal bike? I don’t want to rush it. His parents aren’t super bike geeks. But I don’t know how long they keep having fun with the balance bike. Thanks.

Liz

[eminva]

University Terrace in the rain! Sufferfest!

Congrats to all. 50 States Ride is a nice trophy to have.

Liz

[eminva]

@dasgeh 64556 wrote:

*Team McGregor*

Shall I bake a pie?

[eminva]

I’ll confine my remarks to Arlington, in keeping with the spirit of the inquiry.

First, Arlington students are already heavy users of the trail.

I would have no hesitation sending my child out by himself on the trail network in Arlington during regular before and after school hours. He is in middle school. The few constraints I might impose would concern:

– hours — I generally am not alone on the trail very late at night and I would extend the same caution to him.

– age — Given the heavy use of the trails, there is probably some minimum age for which children should be accompanied by adults to make sure they comply with basic trail expectations (such as staying on the appropriate side of the center line, etc), for their own safety and everyone else’s.

May I suggest bike trains to elementary schools. We have them in Fairfax County, you know!

Liz

[eminva]

These Ride-Thru Teller Machines are so convenient.

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Liz

[eminva]

I just shepherded 15 scouts to completion of the Cycling Merit badge this summer. Here are my recommendations:

-Indian Head Rail Trail — flat and quiet, lovely scenery. It is only 13 miles so you’d have to do a couple of loops.

-The Torrey C. Brown & Heritage Trails — these trails together are about 40 miles, so you could go 25 out and back. We found them much quieter than the W&OD, Mount Vernon and other local trails.

-W&OD from Purcellville to Four Mile Run Trail to Mount Vernon Trail (whatever distance you need to get to 50 miles) — yes, there are some uphill sections, but net downhill (this requires someone to do drop off and pick up).

-I wouldn’t rule out the C&O; we had 14 scouts and eight adults ride 54.2 miles on the C&O from Brunswick to DC in 7 hours, 37 minutes elapsed time (5 hours, 22 minutes moving time per Strava) on the fourth day of our C&O Trip. That was the leg we used for the 50-miler for the badge.

-The Cross County Trail was good for the shorter rides (we used that a lot for our training for the C&O trip) but not so great for the 50 miler. There is a section between Thaiss Park and Rolling Road (in Springfield) that is passable for an occasional cyclist, but it is only 11 miles, so you’d have to go back and forth a lot. There are water crossings, deep gravel, and other things to slow you down; I’d not recommend this.

-Fairfax County Parkway Trail: NO.

Is this just for you and your son, or a whole group of scouts? If the former, where are those other boys?!

Let me know if you need blue cards signed.

Good luck!

YIS,

Liz

[eminva]

What time do you all usually meet up and what time is this convoy? I will try to make it if I can motivate the kid to get moving early enough.

Liz

[eminva]

@americancyclo 63613 wrote:

I used Strava’s new “Create Route” feature to map this. They have two toggle buttons for “Minimize Elevation” and “Popularity” I turned Min Elevation ON and Popularity OFF. Let me know if you can see the link:
http://www.strava.com/routes/21319

I like this in theory, but it includes a long stretch on Georgia Avenue — probably not a fun adventure towing a kid in a trailer. Probably not a fun adventure period. But there are probably parellel side streets; this could be used as a starting point.

@Terpfan 63629 wrote:

I would imagine Rock Creek Park following Beach Drive up to Military to Piney Branch would be the least hilly. The only problem is I don’t think there is a connection from RCP up to Military. Maybe via Joyce, but I think that has a not so nice hill. Flip side, this route avoids most of the big hills and leaves you with really just with one long medium one (essentially from Beach up to Piney Branch and GA would almost all uphill).

Getting out of the park is the problem. Don’t know how fit the OP is or wants to become, but doing that every day could make for some Olympic level conditioning. Also, the side path is kind of impassable north of Broad Branch, so he’d have to ride in the road. He could exit at Blagden and go up that and take Colorado the rest of the way . . . come to think of it, that might not be too bad. I would recommend the OP test this route without the kid first, though.

Liz

[Author]

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