[GovernorSilver]

@PotomacCyclist 117872 wrote:

The DC Office of Planning noted that the number of people biking to work in DC increased by 389 percent, from 3,035 bike commuters in 2000 to 14,854 bike commuters in 2013.

http://op-inions.com/2015/05/21/biking-to-work-more-than-quadrupled-in-just-over-a-decade-in-dc-2/

It’s true that the total population has increased in DC over the past decade, but nothing close to 389 percent. DC’s population increased from 572,059 to 649,111, an increase of 13.5% from 2000 to 2013.

Interesting. It was last year or maybe 2 years ago that I found out about WABA’s “adult how to ride” classes. Before that I didn’t have any inclination to learn how to ride. Unfortunately, every single class was fully booked, every time I looked. I then gave up and didn’t think about riding again until the failed attempts to teach me to ride earlier this year.

Fully-booked adult how-to-ride classes for multiple consecutive months would seem to indicate a lot of people learning to ride for the first time. I don’t know though how many of them went on to become bike commuters.

[GovernorSilver]

@Terpfan 117835 wrote:

I took this way home last night. It’s actually a lot longer of time than I thought between the beg button and traffic from Rt 1 southbound actually catching up (about 2 minutes). In fact, I was literally almost up to the Cityside sign by that Urgent Care by the time Rt 1 southbound traffic had caught up. And you’ll see, I was going really slow as I was pretty tired yesterday. I should add, the pavement on Rt 1 there is also nice and smooth. Sorry for the jittery image–I turn a few times to glance left to see when traffic is coming. The very end of the clip shows the start of the Rt 1 traffic catching up with the cab, etc.

[video]https://youtu.be/ILFiUzAbg9M[/video]

Enjoyed the video! I’ll try that route sometime, coming from MVT, for a changeup. Whether I climb through the apartment parking lot to Mt. Eagle Park or go the Huntington Ave. route, I got a hill climb to deal with either way.

[GovernorSilver]

@Terpfan 117738 wrote:

I don’t know if I would say brave. I do it in a manner where I have little interaction with actual traffic. The Kings Highway part is actually a tad more nerve-wracking as the one hill is kind of blind for anyone cresting it and I don’t trust local drivers all that much.

You’ll build up the strength. Then again, I do the Beacon Hill climb on my way home and it never seems to get any easier or maybe it’s just i’m a tad faster at it.

Oh yeah, you did say that you timed your descent down Rt.1 with the light at the Kings Hwy & Rt. 1 T-intersection, so that you got a head start on the cars. I’ve started thinking I could use the red light at Huntington Ave. & Metroview to similarly give myself a head start on the cars – of course this would only work when the light turns red before I get to the intersection – otherwise just use my relatively slow speed to encourage the cars to pass me, so there aren’t any behind me when I make the cut onto the sidewalk to get the Eisenhower mixed-use overpass.

I’ve developed enough skill to ride on our scenic bike trails with low risk to myself or others (pedestrians, cyclists, dogs, etc.). I guess the next skill to work on is my climbing. I can make it up the hill to my house, but I think I’m using too much quad muscle in my pedal stroke. It’s always the quads that end up sore and this has led to more tightness around the knees than usual. It takes me 2 min. to climb to my house and I’m totally gassed when I arrive. My friend just competed in some kind of mountain bike event in which he was climbing for 45 min. No doubt he’s much better conditioned than me, but I figure his technique is better too.

I didn’t know about the heel-drop mentioned here – I’ll try it and the other suggestions (except the pulling part – my pedals are platform and I don’t wear cycling shoes – yet) next time I climb: http://www.bicycling.com/training/fitness/uphill-ease

[GovernorSilver]

@Terpfan 117689 wrote:

I should add that I tried something new and went down Rt 1. from Kings Highway (the T-intersection portion, not the weird five-angled one) all the way to Ft. Hunt. My theory was that the timing of the lights would make it work to my advantage. I was largely right except for the red light at Quander. When I saw that red, it would have been wiser to just stand at the top of the hill heading northbound rather than go down it and have to pedal hard to maintain a good speed on the way back up. But the Rt 1 traffic behind me never caught up to me. So just an observation there. I’ve now ridden on Rt 1 at almost every point except over the actual 495 bridge and the stretch in Hybla Valley.

Wow! I’m not quite as brave.

My top speed on the flat so far is only 13.5 mph – not fast enough I think to survive Rt. 1. I don’t think I’d be much better on a real road racer. My climbing in particular still needs a lot of work, although I still climb the hill going up from Huntington to get home.

[GovernorSilver]

@CaseyKane50 117695 wrote:

Here is a video http://youtu.be/eeDDYfUP4BU made by the City of Minneapolis that might help.

This is good. Thanks.

[GovernorSilver]

What is the difference between an “advisory bike lane” and a “conventional bike lane”? The two types look the same to me.

http://www.peopleforbikes.org/blog/entry/a-field-guide-to-north-american-bike-lanes

[GovernorSilver]

One difference I notice in the Dutch version is that the advisory bike lanes are a different color than the motorists’ section.

I don’t know if the two-color scheme is feasible to implement on the scale of Alexandria (the City and the Fairfax county sections like). Still, I wouldn’t mind if these were added to my neighborhood.

[GovernorSilver]

@vvill 117663 wrote:

lol, fight? This is a general discussion (is it not?). My original post was in response to the OP article and the follow up posts. My second post was just a reply to your reply. (And yeah, surely we all agree we can get better infrastructure.)

You mentioned Dutch cruiser bikes several times in your replies to me – I’m guessing you did that because someone else said more people should ride Dutch cruisers. Just pointing out that it wasn’t mel.

[GovernorSilver]

@sjclaeys 117598 wrote:

Shhhh, don’t let people know that an 8-speed can be a gateway drug to cycling longer distances!

Heh, my bike is an 8-speed – a commuter bike with rack, fenders, etc. Handlebars designed for more upright posture instead of drop bars.

My longest ride so far is 23 miles, but I’m sure I’ll do a longer one before too long. I love riding the trails here.

[GovernorSilver]

@mstone 117641 wrote:

Well, the point is that it’s really hard to enable short trips unless you have a comprehensive network that happens to also work with long trips. It’s very unlikely that you can implement a network entirely of tiny disconnected segments that manages to actually connect all the places that people are trying to go. (Listen up, local jurisdictions!)

Well, I never said segments shouldn’t be connected.

I live in Huntington, where the road is the only way to get to any bike trail – no bike lanes or sharrows here. Any improvement is fine by me.

[GovernorSilver]

@mstone 117623 wrote:

Yes, there’s a lot of dutch bike infrastructure, but that’s to enable a lot of arbitrarily chosen short trips (i.e., things people decide to do organically rather than specifically planned destination pairs), not primarily to enable long trips. It’s certainly possible to take long trips, but that’s more for leisure than for daily commuting.

I’d be fine with infrastructure improvements to make short trips easier and safer for everyone – even better if the same infrastructure can be used for a safer work commute, say between DC downtown and a neighboring municipality like Silver Spring or Alexandria.

[GovernorSilver]

@vvill 117627 wrote:

I think the bike infrastructure over there is laudable and worth taking cues from, and I also support anything to get more riders on bikes. I just think it’s silly to directly compare ridership/rider culture – that, and most who buy into a cruiser/etc will be more practically limited to those flatter, slower, 3 mile type journeys which is actually not that practical around the hilly parts of DC.

Of course it’s not possible to exactly reproduce their rider culture over here. I’m just saying we can get better – closer to their standard.

I have no comment on the Dutch cruiser bike thing – I believe your opponent in that fight is a different person.

[GovernorSilver]

@hozn 117599 wrote:

I may have misunderstood, but I think the point was more that riding 10+ miles is more than just a quantitative change: you need to deal with sweating, comfort on the bike (spandex), etc. You can wear whatever you want if you are just hopping on the city bike for a couple miles.

The thing is some of the Dutch cities are actually large enough in size that one could ride over 10 miles over the course of a day, just going about one’s business (shopping, going to coffee shops, meeting with friends, etc.). Also, there are villages outside the city limits that people could be cycling from to get to the city center.

[GovernorSilver]

@vvill 117590 wrote:

For transportation it’s an even greater barrier though, especially for cities with a lot of sprawl. I think the Dutch/Danish/etc examples are a little overwrought because most of the bike transportation trips there are based on people who really do live within a few idyllic flat miles of everywhere they’re going. If they wanted to go 10+ miles they probably wouldn’t use a bike.

I’ve never been to Denmark, but if someone wants to go 10+ miles in the Netherlands, they have a wide variety of public transportation options – buses, light rail, trains, etc. – all of which run consistently on schedule like clockwork. But if that person wants to cover the same distance on a bicycle, chances are excellent he/she can – due to the infrastructure, and feel safe doing so. The bike lane networks there are amazing, even in smaller municipalities like Middleburg. I saw stuff like this just about everywhere I went in NL:

https://bicycledutch.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/junction02.jpg

https://bicycledutch.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/junction05.jpg

https://bicycledutch.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/junction03.jpg

Source article: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/state-of-the-art-bikeway-design-or-is-it/

[GovernorSilver]

I support any press that gets more casual riders on bikes, which in turn will hopefully lead to continued improvements in cycling infrastructure to get us closer to the standards set by the Dutch. I ride our local trails for pleasure, though coming and going from my house gives me a climbing workout, occasionally fetch groceries, commute to work maybe 1-2 times a year, so I consider myself a casual rider. I (reluctantly) started working on improving my speed, only because some peeps are saying that riding more than 10mph is safer for being on the road with cars.

As a resident of the “wrong side of the tracks” Alexandria (south of Cameron Run/Beltway, part of Fairfax County rather than the City of Alexandria), I feel like our biking infrastructure is 2nd class compared to City of Alexandria bike infrastructure. I don’t see any bike lanes or even sharrow markings on the roads in our neighborhood. We have the Eisenhower overpass mixed-use path but we have to bike on the road to get to it.

My friend and I made fun of the spandex clad when we were walking on the MVT (years before I learned to ride a bike) because every cyclist we encountered wore it and shouted “Left!”, which we thought was a bit obnoxious. We quickly learned to walk only on the right lane of the MVT but we still got the “Left!” yells from cyclists. We were getting the vibe that the cyclists own the trail and have the right to go as fast as they want, and us puny pedestrians better get out of the way or be killed (which is exactly what happened recently to an elderly lady on Four Mile Run). Now that I ride a bike myself, I try to be nicer to pedestrians I encounter on trails. I haven’t reached the level of prejudice though that I feel when I see somebody wearing a Bluetooth earpiece… when I see someone clad in sportive cycling wear.

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