[jhr]

This wasn’t a missed connection with me, but I just saw a cyclist twice try to overtake the person front of him on the 14th st bridge in a particularly astounding fashion. The first time he nearly hit an oncoming cyclist; he still had the cyclist who had been ahead of him on his right but I think the oncoming cyclist saw him in time to slow down. The second time he actually did hit (or at least clipped) an oncoming cyclist, who had luckily just managed to swerve to the right enough not to collide head-on and barely keep control without crashing. It really looked like it could just as easily have turned into a possibly fatal three-way collision.

[jhr]

If anyone else is thinking about doing the Pumpkin Ride tomorrow, it’s apparently currently like 10 degrees colder in Warrenton than DC, so you may want to make sure you’re looking at the right weather forecast in the morning and dress accordingly!

[jhr]

@jhr 66695 wrote:

Either way, I’ll post an update when I get the premade driver circuit and I can test it.

I got the circuit in the mail today and I haven’t tried to figure out soldering yet so I can actually attach it for real, but I tested the setup with a bunch of wires with alligator clips and the wheel in a truing stand and it works!

Now I’m sitting around in the dark spinning my wheel and blinding myself. I feel like a mad scientist.

[jhr]

@cyclingfool 66679 wrote:

My knowledge of electrical circuitry is not what it should be, but this sounds like a cool project. Any ideas how you’d make it work? I think dynamo hub output is AC and battery powered lights run on DC. Voltages are all a little different, etc.

Keep me posted on how it goes if you do try to wire it up!

I don’t really know what I’m doing, either, so it may not end up working, but from something I found an another forum this may do the job, and it should hopefully be small enough to fit in the existing housing. If it doesn’t end up working with the cree xm-l led, or if I decide I need standlight functionality, this page has various circuits that should work.

Either way, I’ll post an update when I get the premade driver circuit and I can test it.

[jhr]

@PotomacCyclist 66426 wrote:

As I was riding to the Cinema & Drafthouse for the BikeSwell movie, I dropped down into a steep ditch. On the temporary asphalt sidewalk/path. I thought that maybe I wasn’t paying attention in the nighttime rain. But when I stopped and turned around to take a look, I saw that the asphalt path drops down about a foot, with no warning sign at all. There were a couple orange construction barrels next to the path, but not in front of that steep drop-off.

This is a serious safety hazard, especially at night. The days are getting shorter so people riding in the evening will probably be riding in the darkness. They aren’t going to see that deep ditch in the middle of the path. This is on the north side of Columbia Pike, either at crosswalk just to the east of Washington Blvd. or the crosswalk on the ramp to S. Quinn St., to the west of Washington Blvd.

http://goo.gl/maps/3ShZT

Even if this was just a temporary condition of the path, it should have been blocked off or a very large sign should have been placed in front of the ditch. There’s no excuse for leaving a sidewalk/path in such a condition. Especially on a rainy night.

I’m posting here just in case the problem isn’t fixed very soon. I’ll try to email VDOT. I believe they are in charge of the Washington Blvd. bridge project. Not only does the problem need to be fixed, but they also need to instruct their employees and contractors that serious hazards need to be fenced off.

http://www.virginiadot.org/projects/northernvirginia/route_27-244_interchange.asp

The sidewalk on the north side has basically been impassable for months (maybe a year?). I think they had the whole thing blocked off before. Considering that the construction may not end for multiple years I wish they would put more thought into handling pedestrian/cyclist safety in the meantime.

(For pedestrians it would probably suffice if they actually took advantage of the traffic light they just installed to add a crosswalk so you could safely cross over to the sidewalk on the south side, but for cyclists who want to be able to ride on the sidewalk it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to route them counter to traffic.)

[jhr]

@PotomacCyclist 66428 wrote:

Chemical foot warmers don’t seem to help that much when it gets below 25-30F. (Above 30-35F, I don’t really need the chemical warmers.)

I wonder if the problem is that inside shoes under shoe covers they don’t get enough oxygen?

I have cheap sugoi shoe covers for rain that don’t really work that well in terms of ensuring water doesn’t get in but at least keep my feet warm enough while wet in fall weather (it also seems like the part on the bottom isn’t that durable, but I’m careful to avoid walking on them whenever possible so they’re holding up for now). For winter I just bought a pair of Pearl Izumi neoprene covers that I haven’t tried yet.

It doesn’t seem like shoe covers are typically good for extreme cold, and my feet get cold really easily, so if this winter turns out to be really bad and we get more 20 degree temperatures I may be tempted to try to experiment with something like taking a pair of down slippers and cutting out the sole to turn them into shoe covers.

[jhr]

I saw many more bikes this morning than yesterday, and tons of runners. The rain was lighter today, but I also wonder if it being the second day in a row and people getting sick of being cooped up inside had something to do with it, too.

[jhr]

@consularrider 66399 wrote:

If I remember right, there was a recall about three years ago on the Magic Shine battery pack because of a fire danger. There was a long gap before a new version was on the market. FYI, the links may be marketing placements.

The batteries on the ones currently sold under other names are possibly the same as those ones that were previously sold under the Magicshine brand (they look identical) and I think the case of one exploding I heard about was within the last year. There are a couple sites now selling the Magicshine branded lights with fancier battery packs which are probably safer. (The cheap battery packs are just four 18650 batteries wired together so you could probably get batteries with built in protection circuits or use a charger that’s more intelligent about knowing when to stop the current.)

[jhr]

@cyclingfool 66326 wrote:

This fall, as darkness approached, I got one of these Magic Shine knockoffs on Amazon. Less than $30 shipped. I still eventually want to build up a new wheel with dynohub and get a nice light again, but for now, I am quite pleased with the new light. It is much better than the flashlight I had been using, and should meet my needs nicely for riding in the dark this winter. I picked up a wide angle lens for it, too, but haven’t tried it out yet. The light pattern as is seems acceptable, though I probably will experiment with the lens at some point soon.

The old flashlight might go on my helmet for the really dark months of winter.

I have one of these from a different site and it’s worked great, but I’ve anecdotally heard about one case where the battery pack exploded while being charged, so I suggest some caution or at least common sense (at least don’t leave the battery plugged in for long periods) to people considering them. I’m not sure they’re all the same, so some of them might have more of a protection circuit in the battery pack. I’m actually hoping to adapt it for dynamo use (for the dynamo wheel I mentioned planning to build in the other thread) so I can sidestep the whole battery thing.

[jhr]

@cyclingfool 66392 wrote:

Nice! Congrats on the wheel build! I know the feeling. I ended up building both the front and rear wheels that are on my bike now. I enjoyed the process, like the results, and saved a ton of $$$.

What kind of wheel did you build up?

A cheap wheel for my singlespeed bike: Sunrims CR-18 rim, straight-gauge stainless spokes, a flip-flop hub from a wheel I damaged before.

(It was the rear wheel but since the hub is symmetrical I didn’t have to deal with dish which probably made it a lot simpler. Next I want to do a front wheel with a Shimano dynamo hub I got really cheap, but it’s the disc brake compatible version so I’ll have to dish the front wheel which I suppose will make up for it unfortunately.)

[jhr]

I thought of taking the bus today, especially since when I first looked out my window at around 7:45 it was raining especially hard, but I feel like it’s actually slightly more inconvenient to deal with heavy rain when dressed for work and waiting for the bus (my work clothes will inevitably get soaked) than to just bike and change.

I also built a wheel for the first time last night and I wasn’t going to let a little rain stop me from testing it out.

[jhr]

I think I only saw one other cyclist this morning, which is probably the fewest in months.

@dasgeh 66368 wrote:

Speaking of that outer layer: I have a waterproof jacket and waterproof pants that are both >5 years old. I haven’t used either in at least a year. Today, they were not waterproof. Thoughts? Is there any hope of reviving them (like this) or is it time to buy more? If so, suggestions?

If it’s supposed to be fully waterproof it shouldn’t leak even if the DWR coating is gone (it just won’t breath at all when wet). However, if the seams just aren’t fully sealed or something, cleaning it and applying more waterproofing stuff to the outside may get it waterproof enough for most conditions.

[jhr]

DismalScientist created a new thread for NPS rants.

[jhr]

I don’t really blame the NPS but it is annoying that all the trails are (technically) closed when it’s probably physically impossible to bike from Arlington to DC without either going through NPS land or illegally riding on a restricted access highway. I don’t know who working where in the government is responsible for that decision, but I wish if they can keep the GW Parkway open then they could at least keep a minimal portion of the trails open as well. While it’s probably not the NPS’s fault it does make me sort of wish that none of these trails were under their jurisdiction in the first place.

[jhr]

@MattAune 66207 wrote:

It sure seems like a political agenda to me.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/02/monuments-and-memorials-remained-open-during-previous-shutdown/

The NPS is clearly pissed at having to furlough their empoyees, and rightfully so, but taking out on the american taxpayer and tourists is going to far IMO.

Is that page really correct, though? Searching for news articles from 1995 I found:

Quote:

U.S. PARKS, OFFICES ARE PADLOCKED NO END IN SIGHT TO THE BUDGET STANDOFF
They locked up the Lincoln Memorial again and shut down Biscayne National Park as the budget deadlock between President Clinton and the Republican Congress went on Monday, with no sign that it will end soon.

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=MH&s_site=miami&p_multi=MH&p_theme=realcities&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB4D2FDB76835BA&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM

So, even though the Daily Caller links to an article talking about people being able to go into the Lincoln Memorial, I’m guessing it was actually like the current situation with the parks technically closed and blocked off, but with it being possible to walk around the barriers at some points.

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