[invisiblehand]

@KLizotte 21900 wrote:

Even if I were not interested in promoting biking, as a transportation economist I am against on-street parking, in most instances, on economic grounds.

But anyway, your point seems to be that American citizens lack the willpower and desire to create this kind of bike friendly environment. I agree with you on that point. It’s sad since the technology exists and the infrastructure can be built in most places. Unfortunately I think a lack of support is due to ignorance of existing alternatives that are alive and well (but CaBi should help in this regard).

There is a long list of things that I’d like to chalk up to ignorance. But the lack of support is more likely, IME, due to arguments that are simply unconvincing or undesirable to constituents in face of whatever effort it would take to change. I’d argue that the fundamental problem is that people don’t pay for a host of things on the margin. If they did, it’s unclear to me that segregation solution is what people would choose.

BTW, shouldn’t on-street parking just pay market rates for spaces? FWIW, on-street parking seems to slow down motorized traffic noticeably.

@Mark Blacknell 21896 wrote:

Perhaps I lack imagination, but I really can’t imagine a United States in which this is a politically viable solution.

Almost certainly not a US-wide solution. But allowing for people to sort themselves into areas they like, I can imagine certain qualities being broadly applied to municipalities.

[invisiblehand]

@chris_s 15991 wrote:

Anyone have any experience buying a bike online? Since this bicycle commuting thing appears to have stuck, I’m looking to upgrade to a better bike and I’ve picked out one I really like the sound of – but the brand (Spot) appears to not have a single dealer in the area (closest – Roanoke!) so I guess online would be my only option?

I’m nervous about the idea of paying several thousand dollars for a bike I’ve never ridden. I know it’s a quality bike. It’s well reviewed and all, but so much comes down to feel and fit and whatnot. I’ve gotta put it together myself right? Has anyone successfully returned a bike they bought online?

Other thoughts?

Fit is the most important aspect of the bike. Unless you have lots of experience with your likes/dislikes, I think you’ll get more value buying at a good LBS. Although you’ll probably get the best value from finding a used bike, learning more about fit, and tinkering.

[invisiblehand]

@eminva 15826 wrote:

I agree with everything you say, but what is wrong with “The Arlington Loop”?

+1

It’s been called the Arlington Loop and/or Arlington Triangle for years. It’s silly to change things just for the sake of changing thing.

[invisiblehand]

@eminva 11615 wrote:

“I had a bad day and you just made it worse.” I moved my bike to the sidewalk to write down my contact information, but he got back in his car and zoomed off.

Liz

For what it’s worth, sometimes people simply need to vent. Your response let him get something off his chest but defused the situation.

While trying to rationalize it is likely a lost cause, I’d guess that he realized that there really was nothing done to the car and wanted to stop wasting time.

[invisiblehand]

@KLizotte 11129 wrote:

I wish we had these kind of signs here – a little hard to miss by drivers.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]486[/ATTACH]

Except that isn’t the sharing — cyclist on the corner of the road and sharing laterally — that gives drivers “problems”. They have problems sharing sequentially.

[invisiblehand]

Stop looking. You’ll stop buying.

[invisiblehand]

@consularrider 10531 wrote:

I’ve been using the Schwalbe Marathon Winter studded tires (a 26X1.75 on one bike and 700X35 on another) for three years now.

In another thread, I wrote the following:

@invisiblehand 10542 wrote:

Here are my thoughts on studded tires.

http://washingtonwheelman.blogspot.com/2011/01/schwalbe-winter-tires.html

http://washingtonwheelman.blogspot.com/2011/01/schwalbe-winter-tire-follow-up.html

In short, for riding during icy conditions they make a huge improvement, in my experience. Moderately deep snow with slush, the studs probably don’t do much and I would have preferred tires wider than the Marathon Winters (~44 mm wide). I think that the Marathon Winters are perfect for winter commuting on roads … conservatively, I spend > 90% of my rides on roads. They are durable and the studs are replaceable.

You can find studded tires in 20″, 26″, and 700c. See Peter White.

In your shoes — I believe both 27″-wheel bikes have cantilever studs and will have a hard time converting to 700c … but I could be wrong — I’d go with the MTB. If you stick to roads, then the ~44 mm wide Marathons are a good choice. If you’re going to ride everyday on trails — or have an easy option of doing so — then I would take the speed penalty on the roads and go wider.

[invisiblehand]

@eminva 10516 wrote:

So, for those of you who have done this before, do you install the studded tires on your winter commuter and leave them there for the season? Do you swap tires as conditions merit? Get another set of wheels to make the process faster?

If the trails are snow and ice free, I can ride my road bike. My mountain bike wouldn’t get much use over the winter except for snowy and icy commutes, so I’m thinking I can get by with leaving the studded tires on for the season.

What do you all think? Thanks in advance.

Liz

I leave them on for the season. In your situation, given that you rarely ride the MTB, I’d be even more inclined to do so.

[invisiblehand]

Here are my thoughts on studded tires.

http://washingtonwheelman.blogspot.com/2011/01/schwalbe-winter-tires.html

http://washingtonwheelman.blogspot.com/2011/01/schwalbe-winter-tire-follow-up.html

In short, for riding during icy conditions they make a huge improvement, in my experience. Moderately deep snow with slush, the studs probably don’t do much and I would have preferred tires wider than the Marathon Winters (~44 mm wide). I think that the Marathon Winters are perfect for winter commuting on roads … conservatively, I spend > 90% of my rides on roads. They are durable and the studs are replaceable.

You can find studded tires in 20″, 26″, and 700c. See Peter White.

In your shoes — I believe both 27″-wheel bikes have cantilever studs and will have a hard time converting to 700c … but I could be wrong — I’d go with the MTB. If you stick to roads, then the ~44 mm wide Marathons are a good choice. If you’re going to ride everyday on trails — or have an easy option of doing so — then I would take the speed penalty on the roads and go wider.

[invisiblehand]

@DismalScientist 10495 wrote:

and I would have completely deserved it.

Lots of police monitoring the standard bad behavior on inbound Clarendon and Wilson. Anyways, I was coming down Wilson to take a left on Lynn (from the left side of the leftmost through lane to avoid the grate of death) and the light turned yellow with about a half a block to go. Given my speed, I decided to go for it and entered the intersection about a second after the light turned red. (Even though I ran the light, I could easily clear the intersection before traffic from Northbound Lynn entered the intersection.) There was the traffic cop telling me to stop.

We had a one-sided discussion about how cyclists are vehicles and need to obey the rules of the road. I got the impression that he thought I did what I did because I was a cyclist and I thought I was above the law. I wanted to tell him that I agreed with what he said, although classifying all cyclists of having this superior attitude is over-broad. Of course, I was in no position to say that, as a cyclist, I don’t run red lights given what I had just done. Furthermore, had I said that I might have done the same thing if I were driving, that would seem to be just asking for a ticket. The truth was that I had just misjudged the light. I did what I did, and deserved the ticket, but didn’t want to ask for it.

In the end, he told me it wasn’t worth his while to write me a ticket. He also gave the impression that cyclist behavior would right itself as more cyclists became roadkill through their bad behavior.

So, thumbs up to the police department if there presence is intended to scare the crap out of misbehaving cyclists. I hope they are out there doing it to drivers as well. However, please don’t paint cyclists with such a broad brush. Sorry, I wasn’t a better example for my fellow generally law-abiding cyclists this time.

That is my commuting route too. Although lately there is a line of cars making a left when I approach so I just queue up.

I assume they were there primarily for cars turning after the red light.

[invisiblehand]

@Terpfan 10470 wrote:

Correct, I was heading away from the White House past the Department of Veteran Affairs (it may technically be called Vermont from that side of the road). The cycletrack is located on the southbound side so in this case it’s the left hand side, which is going against traffic in it’s design. I Street is one way running west there so he was turning right onto that street.

The civil suit is an open possibility. But honestly I would be happy with an apology and promise not to do it again. My fear is more that if he doesn’t think their are any consequences that he will do it again. I think I got lucky with just minor scrapes, but it could’ve easily been landing another way and missing a few teeth.

Yes. I think so too.

[invisiblehand]

@washcycle 10176 wrote:

It’s rude to intentionally and unnecessarily block traffic.

It’s impossible to prove that it’s intentional and debatable as to what is necessary.

Thus you can never know if they’re being rude or just more cautious than you’d like. I guess we need to change the saying “You can never be too safe” to “You can never be too safe, unless it inconveniences drivers. Then you can be too safe.”

I concur.

Figuring out what is in someone else’s head is difficult. And more often than not, if you allow for some uncertainty on the part of the “rude” driver/cyclist/pedestrian ahead of you, their actions may not be so “rude”.

[invisiblehand]

@PrintError 10182 wrote:

ftfy

I’m with you bud; but I figure everyone can pick their poison.

[invisiblehand]

Panaracer Pasela TGs are my standard. If you’re really flat adverse, go with a Schwalbe Marathon or one of its variations.

Schwalbe Big Apples are awesome tires. But you need to fit at least 50 mm wide tires and if you’re commuting in all weather, you might want fenders.

[invisiblehand]

@chris_s 10092 wrote:

Confident City Cycling 2 covers panic braking as well as emergency turns and rock dodging. That class rocked my world. CCC1 is really, really basic – waste of my time unfortunately – but that’s mostly my fault for not reading the course description carefully.

In the old Road 1 and Road 2 courses, there was a section on it. But I’m talking about a real practicum where people show up and do test runs in a controlled environment, instructor tells you what to do to improve, and later everyone does several more test runs. I’d give everyone a week and test the following week then maybe try a wet coarse. (At least back when I was interested 20 years ago, there was driving courses like this.) FWIW, I hardly ever hear of someone practicing full-blown braking … giving the front brake as much as you can where the rear wheel almost lifts off the ground. A little bit of practice goes a long way into improving performance, IME.

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