ginacico
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ginacico
ParticipantUnsure…. I’m leaving for a GAP-C&O bike tour on Friday. If I’m packed and feeling organized, I may join you, however the likelihood is low.
ginacico
ParticipantYesterday, at about the height of the squalls, Peter and I had decided we had enough of work and headed outbound on the W&OD. Not as crowded as rush hour, but still not without interaction aggravation.
I can’t even adequately describe the near miss by a guy in front of us, who swerved and shouted to avoid a woman and her dog who’d suddenly gone in separate directions. Fortunately she reacted in time by dropping the leash, otherwise he would’ve been clotheslined or worse. He stopped, they chatted and apologized.
Then there was eminva, in the oncoming lane somewhere past Vienna, shouting in full sentences to warn us about a guy teaching his kid how to ride a bike on a very crowded trail (by then it was rush hour). We watched the kid, who was wobbly but upright, and his smiling dad go by with no incident. Thanks for the amusing heads up!!
The prize though, goes a pedestrian just as we approached the climb up to Virginia Lane. She was fine at first, unremarkable and easily avoidable, I called the pass (going hoarse by that time) while trying to gain momentum for the hill. Then as I was in the oncoming lane to go by her, she inexplicably wandered to the left, and despite my utterances and gyrations to alert her, just kept closing the gap between us. By that time I had both brakes locked up, fishtailed and skidded within inches to her left. And I swear, she barely looked up. She was nearly catatonic, there was ZERO situational awareness whatsoever. Somehow I did not hit her, I did not go down (yay bike control), and by further miracle Peter was sufficiently behind me not to be affected. He witnessed the whole thing though, and confirmed that when he passed her and glared, she barely acknowledged his presence. Downright creepy that someone could be that oblivious. I cursed, we moved on. If you find 25mm skid marks on the pavement at one of the entrances to Idylwood Park, they’re mine — that extra bit of pavement is what saved me.
Some days, I get home just thankful there were no injuries or calls to 911. I suspect they’re just normal days. The joy was worth it — trading pulls in squirrelly winds, poking around Vienna Hardwoods and the Clock Shop, finding the Great Harvest Bread store open (for a change) in Herndon, and drinking coffee at Green Lizard — a perfect weather hooky afternoon.
ginacico
Participant@Fairlington124 141090 wrote:
I can’t recall instances of license revocation which didn’t involve DUI.
I can’t recall an instance of license revocation, PERIOD. In Baltimore, the woman who killed Tom Palermo (a friend) will be free to drive with an interlock device when she’s done with her sentence. If her offenses (multiple) weren’t egregious enough, what is?
@scorchedearth 141113 wrote:
The authorities really dropped the ball on this one.
My sympathies.
ginacico
Participant@Fairlington124 141065 wrote:
Sounds like you were going too fast for that corridor.
Um… As I said, I stopped well before the crosswalk. The point is it’s not at an intersection, and completely obscured by heavy traffic. Riding in a bike lane next to traffic, we pass cars all the time; the trick was determining why they were slowing down. “Too fast” by definition means you don’t have time to react to clues, and I did, even though the clues were hidden.
ginacico
Participant@bobco85 141039 wrote:
Is it really a crime for a driver to hit a pedestrian/cyclist anymore?
By all indications, no.
ginacico
ParticipantThe worst are crosswalks that are NOT at an intersection and cross multiple lanes of traffic. As said above, the crosswalk may be obscured by stopped vehicles. True even if you’re not the one in the crosswalk.
I had just that situation the other day, coming down Clarendon Blvd. I was flying downhill past Courthouse. As I’m in my blissfully clear corridor of a bike lane, I saw cars in the vehicle lanes slowing down just before N Scott St. I figured the cars were just bogged down in traffic as usual, until I saw the stripes for the crosswalk, and I instinctively hit the brakes. Sure enough, a woman with a stroller appeared and finished crossing the road. Gladly, I’d stopped before I ever knew she was there.
ginacico
Participant@huskerdont 140948 wrote:
Bewildering though that the secret service chooses this time with all the extra cyclists to close *both* the Lafeyette Park pedestrian plaza and the Ellipse.
They choose any time they damn well please to close that area. Apparently security within the perimeter trumps the safety of everyone trying to maneuver around it. And you never know it’s closed until you’re amidst all the honking chaos, and some guard is giving you the wave-off.
Our campus is on M Street between 16th and 17th, and I have yet to find a low-stress way to escape that block and exit the city in the afternoon. No matter which direction I go, bike lanes fail to provide an uninterrupted connection to any bridge. I always find myself taking the lane and/or filtering in dense traffic, either through Georgetown or past Farragut Square and across the Mall, trying not to become a vehicle sandwich. Great job, Tania — I can’t imagine what that was like yesterday for new bike commuters.
Yesterday I was feeling the Mondays big time, and hopped on Metro (early enough to avoid the rush hour bike ban) just to multi-mode across the river. The rest of my ride was great, but the DC portion has been getting on my last nerve. It shouldn’t be necessary to micro-strategize for every commute.
ginacico
ParticipantI ride through this intersection regularly, and any improvement would be welcomed. Eastbound from the Bluemont Trail to the bike lane is sketchy, because it’s a blind entrance to any cars pulling into that Holiday Inn. Crossing Glebe, and westbound getting onto the Custis connector are not for the fainthearted.
Today I rode to Ballston for lunch, and there was a big truck making a U-turn from westbound Fairfax Dr to eastbound. Because he swung wide, cars in the westbound lanes veered into the bike lane (where I was waiting at the Wakefield intersection). Then, when I had crossed Fairfax and was waiting in the narrow bike lane at the Glebe traffic light, the same damn truck passed me in the right turn lane about 6″ from my shoulder.
In good news… Signs are going up all over the Martha Custis, directing Metro riders how to get there by bike! I saw lots of them being put up parallel to the Orange and Silver line, and the friendly people mounting them to posts even waved at me. They’re installed in both directions.
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ginacico
ParticipantWoohoo, CaBi in EFC!
For people this affects, be aware there are some proposed changes to the bus routes to and around EFC as well.
The 1E will be discontinued by WMATA, but is (hopefully) being picked up by the ART system. ART is proposing to change the Dominion Hills route so it actually delivers passengers to East Falls Church metro station, instead of Ballston.
Always good to know your car-free options.
ginacico
Participant@wheels&wings 140739 wrote:
So out pops your [Bike]-in-the-Box, you spend a couple hours assembling, and then what do you do with the box itself? Seems like it would be quite cumbersome to hitch to a rack…
My case has a handle and wheels, Peter’s case conveniently fits inside mine. So when they’re empty, it’s one “box.”
For this trip, we pre-shipped (before we left home) the cases via UPS to a bike shop in Harrisburg, who held them until we arrived. I opened a UPS account and have gotten wiser about the shipping routine.
After we picked the “box” up at the bike shop, we briefly tried towing it behind his bike, but that didn’t work out too well. Instead we hopped on a local bus to the Amtrak station, where we disassembled the bikes on the sidewalk. There was an hour or so where we locked them to a bike rack, just so we could go get lunch, and worried the bomb squad might think they’re suspicious packages!
On other trips we’ve done the opposite, where get to our starting point and assemble the bikes, then have to ship the cases back home.
The cases are a pain, for sure, we spend a lot of energy worrying about them.
ginacico
ParticipantThanks! 😎 I haven’t had much practice packing yet, but so far about 1.5 hours to break down and maybe 2 hours to reassemble. Certain things have to be done in the right order, but it’s pretty straightforward.
The wheels are 700c, and I’ve got chunky 40mm tires, which have to be deflated to zip the case closed. The case is 26x26x10, airline regulation size baggage, which doesn’t leave a lot of tolerance. And because the Vaya has a wide rear hub spacing, it’s a tight fit to get all the pieces into the box. We sewed neoprene + Velcro wraps for the frame, and I made a special “cozy” for the brake disks, which get removed. I wound up carrying the rear rack with my panniers.
I’m sure every time we do a trip like this, I’ll refine the process to get it all to fit and be better protected. This time I learned that bar tape may be sacrificed while wedging the handlebars in between wheel spokes. Eek.
We like the potential of doing one-way and/or car-free trips made accessible by public transit, but a whole lot of logistics (pre-shipping the cases, having all the right tools) have to be worked out.
Amtrak has changed their baggage regulations, technically these are too big now, but as carry-on luggage nobody asks questions. Amtrak also claims they’ll have roll-on service for ALL routes within a year (…not holding my breath).
ginacico
ParticipantBikes? What bikes?!?
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Open box, out jumps bike. Cool trick! With new, metallic blue bar tape no less (bar tape tends to get mangled in packing).
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ginacico
Participant(…Continued)
Once in York, about a mile of the trail was closed for improvements, but it was very well marked. By then we were well within the city street grid, exploring and sniffing around for breakfast.
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From York we rode across the Susquehanna to Columbia PA. This is Peter taking a selfie on the Wrightsville-Columbia bridge.
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There we picked up the Northwest Lancaster County River Trail, which took us a good distance towards Harrisburg. We hit the “undeveloped” section in Conoy PA, and after my PQSFCOT trying to negotiate rough singletrack on a loaded bike, we opted for roads the rest of the way.
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Somewhat of a surprise to me (Peter was navigating), our route took us right past Three Mile Island, where the nuclear meltdown of 1979 was marked with a historic sign, and the Exelon campus is welcoming with shade trees and picnic tables. We didn’t linger long, or drink the water.
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Harrisburg was having a big holiday festival along the river, which we got to just before it closed and vendors started packing up. We found ourselves at a brewpub, being served burgers and beer, during the only real rain of our trip. A bike shop in Camp Hill had held our bike cases (shipped via UPS) until we picked them up, packed up our bikes, and rode Amtrak back to DC.
ginacico
Participant@Steve O 140647 wrote:
Not quite. That’s the “Post-Quick Stop, Forgot to Clip Out Tipover.” (PQSFCOT)
We don’t teach that one specifically. It’s homework.Are there extra credit points for those?
Did a PQSFCOT this weekend. We were touring, Vaya was loaded with panniers, and our lovely crushed gravel trail suddenly degraded into a rough dirt singletrack (trail “under development”). As I was approaching a wooden bridge, I noticed too late that the step up was a couple inches and I wasn’t going to clear it. Came to a quick stop, weight on the wrong side resulting in a PQSFCOT.
I do know how to ride a bike. Usually. :rolleyes:
ginacico
Participant@KWL 140300 wrote:
So the Key Bridge sidewalk users lose half of the sidewalk so drivers can be told there is a small bump from the pavement milling. Shouldn’t 1/2 the road be blocked to give this information?
Yeah, that sucked. I basically flintstoned behind some girl (yakking on her cell phone) trying to get around that sign.
Was it just me, or did the barriers at the Whitehurst crossing encroach further onto the sidewalk also? It was like navigating a maze tonight.
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