[GuyContinental]

@KelOnWheels 27948 wrote:

Man, what a great day!
Didn’t see anybody out on the trail this morning except for a My brake pads appear to be water soluble and solubed all over my rims.

Awesome that you got out! I weenied out myself… Just take note that that goo on your wheel is likely mud, grit and tiny bits of aluminum- a fantastic grinding paste that will eagerly grind your wheels to nothingness. Take a sec to wipe off your pads & braking surface with a rag. Once home I’d also clean and re-lube my drive train, grease my pedals and lube my cables. Water is fun on a bike but pretty destructive…

[GuyContinental]

I’m still logging for MA…

[GuyContinental]

@krazygl00 27857 wrote:

I have a different take on this scenario. Too many times I have declined to be that “follow-up” rider and have treated the crossing as a four way stop, only to have the hackneyed and farcical “Alphonse and Gaston” scene play out in slow-motion as my stomach begins to turn. The drivers are waving me through, I’m waving them through. THEY’RE insisting, now I’M insisting. Meanwhile, another rider has come up from behind and, with a snort, bypassed the entire tragicomic melodrama that we have decided to stage, and has simply blown through the intersection. Finally either I or the drivers have to relent and accept the others’ courtesy. As I’m fumbling, cursing and clipping in, I’m sure all involved are thinking, “geez, it would have saved me time if you had just GONE!”

So now, if I see drivers stopped, with a healthy dose of good judgement and discretion, if I can follow-up and save everyone some time, I do. I figure some assertiveness just expedites the whole exchange.

Dang if I didn’t have a really close one of these yesterday just hours after chatting with ya’all about it- Van Buren St in Herndon (2 lanes each way, bike specific light, usually not a big deal) For once there was plenty of traffic so came to a complete stop- oncoming traffic in lane 1 (a big SUV driven by a small lady) stops at the crosswalk and waves me on despite her ROW, I see more SUV monsters in lane 2-4 so smile, point to her green and wave her on- at which point a rider from behind me (nice bike, no helmet, no shirt, double ear-bud Fred) jets into the intersection, oblivious to SUV in ln 2, I screamed something along the lines of holysh*&hedoesn’tseeyou and Fred nearly goes down standing on his brakes as Lane 2 SUV makes an emergency stop. Fred recovers, stumbles through the intersection and goes on his merry melanoma way. Lots of honking follows- Lane 1/2 are now stopped and clearly don’t know what to do now… everyone is gesturing for me to go but lanes 3/4 aren’t clear and hell if I’m going out there. Eventually, I fully unclip put both feet on the ground, back up on the sidewalk cutout, make lots of eye contact, smile, point at the stale green and wave them through.

What I find really interesting about this situation is the social/psychological dimension- Lane 1 was doing something she thought was nice and despite the context I felt compelled to acknowledge her courtesy by following her cue. I actively had to resist the urge to do something incredibly stupid because I’ve been socially conditioned to respond in the affirmative to random acts of kindness.

@krazygl00 27857 wrote:

So now, if I see drivers stopped, with a healthy dose of good judgement and discretion, if I can follow-up and save everyone some time, I do. I figure some assertiveness just expedites the whole exchange.

All in all I generally do the same as krazy but it’s super bad form to be the second rider in such a situation where a pattern is already messed up and to chose to “expedite” the process. It’s also a good way to get dead.

[GuyContinental]

@carmeetsu 27884 wrote:

Before I used to use my bike everywhere I go but when I experienced not so good I tumbling down from the high place down to the lower part I got some injuries, so from that day I just enjoying walking than biking. Any way aside from that do you know commercial snow removal Brampton?

I sooo want to know what a commercial snow removal brampton is but I’m sooo not going to click on that link. I’m picturing a folding bike with snowplow and towed gas snow blower… maybe studded tires…

[GuyContinental]

Glad that you are OK!

One that I’m seeing (or paying attention to) more and more is the behavior of follow-up riders/runners after a car has waved me through one of these intersections. It’s a total crapshoot if the car intended to stop for one ped or many, especially given that they have already treated the intersection as a 4-way stop- reasonably, they yielded to me and now expect the next crosser to yeild to them. When that doesn’t happen, bad things tend to…

#1 Be predicable. #2 When in doubt, yeild and make eye contact and STILL assume the worst

[GuyContinental]

@FFX_Hinterlands 27835 wrote:

I have a bob who wears matching black clothing, helmet and rides a black E-bike 20mph Easbound on W&OD through Sterling and Herndon. Funny thing is that he’s been on an old hybrid this week. I guess he’s slumming it. He also rides just as slowly as I do when not on e-power, apparently.

Is it this guy?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1517[/ATTACH]

[GuyContinental]

@Certifried 27759 wrote:

The scary thing is, I actually have pepper spray on my bike at all times. It has about a 4″ wide velcro sleeve that wraps around my top tube right in front of my seat post (where I chose to put it, can go anywhere) then the little bottle of pepper spray has another tightly wrapped sleeve with the other side of the velcro (it’s really stuck on well). Ostensibly, it’s for dogs. I’ve only had to actually brandish it once when some hooligan kids were on my lawn…er I mean screwing around in the bike path and trying to cause mayhem. They clearly saw the little black bottle with the bright red cap and quickly figured out what was fixin’ to happen. They apologized and scampered off under the rug.

What I want to know is if you can use your spray as an air cartridge for flats- no unitaskers on my bike!…

…oh wait that’s a horrible idea…

[GuyContinental]

@jopamora 27677 wrote:

I had that problem with the Randonneur Cross tires on my old bike. I think I broke a finger or two in addition to a few tire levers. The install/removal of Randonneur Pros on my current bike has been really easy. Not sure if it is the tire or different wheels that made the biggest difference.

Make that three of us- I use Vittoria Diamantes (not durable enough for commuting!) and Rubinos- the Diamante’s were, bar none, the hardest tire I’ve ever had to mount. Ended up having to leave one stretched across the rim for 48 hours and then using a soap lubricant on the rim. Went through 6 tubes too… the second trip to Revolution was kind of embarrassing. The Rubinos went on with *only* a busted lever and a bloody finger.

On a side note, I’m amazed that the Vittoria internet trolls found this thread that quickly! That’s an amazing social media response… too bad they came off sounding like the bot that they probably are…

[GuyContinental]

After my brief chat with Dirt I nearly got skeeshed on Fairfax by someone heading to one of the rides (pickup with a shiny c’dale in back)- note to folks driving to a group ride- it’s bad form and reeeealy bad karma to run over other riders on the way there.

[GuyContinental]

If I carried a backpack or a panier I’d have room for a dust broom! Alternatively, come October I could be the riding Warlock with one of THESE shoved in my jersey.

We are all stewards of the trail- if you see a dangerous situation with debris or downed branches, take the minute it takes to clear it a bit.

[GuyContinental]

Don’t get me wrong- thanks in part to participating this forum, I call 99.9% of passes and say thank you whenever someone makes a move to clear the way. It’s just that I get frustrated with the earbud crowd not hearing even shrill announcements and I *consider* not bothering.

Also, I don’t have an issue with a r-ear only bud as long as the left ear is totally clear. I use one myself to hear podcasts and training prompts from my phone. I buy the cheapie ($12) over the ear but not in the ear canal style and immediately clip off the left bud. This means no stereo sound (since I scissor off the left channel) unless you buy a 2-channel single ear bud (which is tough to find)

[GuyContinental]

@Terpfan 27624 wrote:

And your answer that I couldn’t hear it because of my earbuds (while amusing to me since they weren’t actually on for once and when they are, they’re on low volume) is sort of a poor argument anyway since the point of calling the pass isn’t for you to hear yourself.

/curmudgeon on

You had me until this… on or off a bud has no business in your street-side (left) ear. Really. My numero uno with a bullet MUP irritant is folks not hearing my pass call because of buds. Would I start a fight over it? Heck no, but I *might* not bother to warn a bud-wearer of my pass since 95% of the time they don’t hear me anyway. You are right- his calling the pass is largely for your benefit but you hearing it is for yours…

/curmudgeon off

[GuyContinental]

@Dirt 27621 wrote:

Tons of sightings yesterday…

New one was Guy. Camera battery was dead by then, so I couldn’t document it. He was heading home and I was heading to Freshbikes to lighten my wallet.

Nice to finally catch you at a stop as opposed to blowing by each other on the WO&D. I admit, I was disappointed to be unworthy of a snapshot especially since I was covered in grime from pre and post-work CX romps through LFP… glad it was just the battery and not my filth

[GuyContinental]

@eminva 27618 wrote:

Hello —
For what reason have they spread gravel along the sides of the W&OD? First they did it in Vienna after the repaving, and now they’ve done it on the bridle path in Falls Church, which is immediately adjacent to the trail in some spots. I realize with repaving there is a steep drop off at the edge of the trail, but is gravel the best solution to that problem?

I’m pretty far from a civil engineer but I think that the problem is twofold- drainage and wear. If you think back to when the Vienna section was rebuilt you’ll remember that the drop is fully 10″ from the paved surface to the bottom, a gap that is now filled with gravel. The gravel + trench probably forms a french drain that clears water from the trail. Without the combo you would get standing water which erodes the sides of the trail and pools in low spots. Worse, add a zillion runner ninja footfalls and now you have a hard packed, non-draining trench.

As for the lose gravel- I actually have a real answer for that- twice now I’ve seen utility/tree trucks in the Vienna section running (albeit slowly) with dual wheels in the gravel which kicks out a ton of loose rock. Both times they have done a reasonable job of cleaning up after themselves but the debris was substantial.

Over time the gravel will silt in a bit (think the Reston – Herndon section) and make for a better landing pad and be more resistant to spreading debris. Also, there aren’t a whole lot of “bail-outs” on streets, bridges, trails or most other terrain- I’m not sure that they need to be explicitly designed in on MUPs either. Heck, I’ve seen MUPs (in Portland) that dealt with drainage simply by leaving the ditch… if you think that the gravel is bad, imagine launching into a foot-deep rock-lined canal!

[GuyContinental]

A HUGE great horned owl and I scared the bejezus out of each other at dawn this morning on the Colvin Run section of the CCT- beautiful critter, glad I wasn’t towing a toddler, she* might have been looking for breakfast!

*the lady owls are 20% then their menfolk- and this one was the biggest I’ve ever seen

[Author]

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