[huskerdont]

I bought panniers and was going to try them, but the rack is only on one bike, and I only use that bike when it snows. Can’t (won’t) put a rack and panniers on my road bike, which is what I normally commute with.

[huskerdont]

I’m sitting it out this year so that I can engage in other outdoor activities I love without feeling like I’m letting team members down, but I’ll say hey when I see the ankle bands around.

[huskerdont]

@Crickey7 211636 wrote:

The old backpack/pannier war. I’m team backpack.

I wouldn’t call it a war. Just different ways of doing things, and if we talk about it long enough, being cyclists, there’ll be a … skirmish.

[huskerdont]

I carry the laptop in a Banjo Brothers waterproof backpack. Carefully situated there among all the clothes, it’s cushioned enough unless I get run over.

[huskerdont]

The trail is fine for toodling along, but it would in most cases not be safe for a cyclist (and especially a group of cyclists) engaged in a training ride to ride on it.

I’m not that fast, but still wouldn’t want to mix too much with dog walkers and strollers when the road is right there. Now, going eastbound when the trail is right next to the road, I’ll drop onto it for a while if there are no pedestrians, especially if I hear cars coming up.

[huskerdont]

@Henry 211377 wrote:

Wouldn’t that make them .38 Specials?

(Thanks. I’ll see myself out.)

I feel this deserves more likes, but perhaps BA readers are not of that period.

I have never owned one of their records, but that song does come into my head often in MTB or gravel situations where I’m reminding myself not to grip too tightly.

[huskerdont]

@mstone 211318 wrote:

Current specialized diverge (for example) is spec’d to run up to 47mm in 700c or 53mm in 650b, and isn’t exactly a mountain bike. Road bikes with decent tire clearance are getting a lot easier to find these days (they just like to call them “gravel” or “all road” or somesuch).

Correct, of course–I was being a bit facetious.

[huskerdont]

@mstone 211314 wrote:

I think the same about 33s vs 38s If I had clearance for 48s I’d probably feel the same way about them.

Then you’d have a mountain bike.

I do find the 33s a bit squirrely in loose gravel, such as the brief downhill on the towpath just south of the beltway. I generally find that if I hold on loosely to the bars in those situations (allow a little play, but not too much), its usually okay.

[huskerdont]

@Steve O 211290 wrote:

I rode from DC to Pittsburgh on the C&O and the GAP on my Fuji touring bike with 25mm road tires. All good. Fun, too.

25s, that’s mental for that distance. I mean, can be done, sure, but doesn’t seem worth the hassle dodging all the rocks and muck when 33s will go right over and through them.

[huskerdont]

I have a bunch of different shoes and shift around all the time to alleviate different pains and pinch points. I find this true for running, cycling, even work shoes–that if I wear the same shoes all the time, pain points will arise. For toe pain, the toe box on the left shoe could be too small (many people have one foot a bit larger than the other). Cycling sandals as an alternative could be nice there.

I wouldn’t throw the old shoes out though. I find that in moving to other shoes for a bit usually allows the old ones to work.

[huskerdont]

For all the angst about front lights blinking on the trail, and I get that some of them strobe too much and sometimes I do have to resist getting annoyed, yesterday morning the sun angle was so low that, even with my cycling cap pulled down, the only reason I saw one cyclist coming the other way was their (he/she–who knows?) blinking headlight. The cyclist was completely invisible to me at about 15 feet except for that blinking. I had slowed down anyway since pedestrians don’t typically come with rear blinkies, plus there was debris on the trail to dodge, but it was still a shock to realize just how blind I was riding at a particular angle of vision.

I mention this because we sometimes may tend to get into you’re-doing-it-wrong mode just because someone is doing something differently than we might, but there could be perfectly reasonable reasons for the difference, which brings me back to the OP’s title of chilling out a little.

[huskerdont]

Yes, Lake Fairfax Park has nice looking camping. If mountain biking or using a gravel bike, it’s doable via access near the Fairfax Ice Rink off the W&OD. (Also accessible from Great Falls, VA–trails from Leigh Mill Road–but you’d have to be comfortable biking the roads out to there.)

[huskerdont]

I fit into that category as well. More miles but almost no commutes. At the start, I enjoyed the reduced traffic on roads I had not previously attempted (McLean, toward Great Falls, Vienna/Oakton/Tysons), but as things got back toward normal with car traffic, I’ve done a little less of that and done more miles on trails–maybe 50/50 now.

[huskerdont]

Personally, I don’t think the pole placement is bad, but they probably should have done a touch better with the painting. Still not terrible, and better say than on East Basin Drive, where carelessly following the white line would take you right into the curb.

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8799032,-77.0359904,3a,75y,48.96h,87.88t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s7I3xKFaPliy14gxZrZ4i8A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

And please to not be talking about your death on a bike please.

[huskerdont]

Beautiful. Welcome to the orange Soma club!

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