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@creadinger 91988 wrote:

Yeah, that looks like torture too. My first thought though was, did you bring spare sets of brake pads? That hill is steep, straight, and has a stop sign at the bottom.

I probably should check the pads. The rim was warm when I put the bike on the car rack. I was training for the Mt. Washington climb, which I’m doing in 11 days. Of course, that’s the same elevation gain over 7.6 miles at 12% grade instead of broken up into 10.5 segments at 8% over 12.4 miles.

This past weekend, I took the mountain bike crankset with a 24t chainring and put it on the road bike, along with a 30t in back. Hopefully, that will be enough for me to get up. I also took off the front derailleur and the rear brake to save weight. On this climb, it’s 40 seconds per pound for someone of my weight and power.

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I did 10 repeats of the first 1.2 miles of Mt. Weather 10 days ago. 4813 feet of climbing in 2:07:15 over 24.8 miles. Can’t quite imagine doing this 6 times in a row.

http://www.strava.com/activities/171621609

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I saw a bunch of extra closures not on the list this morning while biking in, most notably 17th Street near the White House and I think G west of 17th.

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@TwoWheelsDC 90721 wrote:

The fun and aesthetic pleasure of riding a “clean” (no rack or fenders) road bike, for me, greatly outweighs most utility concerns. I used to commute solely on my rack’d and fender’d bike with a pannier, but somewhere along the line I did a couple road bike + backpack commuting days and the use of my “utility” bike declined very quickly after that. A lot of people dismiss as impractical the idea of road bike commuting in and around the city, but I enjoy it a lot. Don’t be ashamed to embrace your inner ELITE!

I used to commute on a hybrid with 700×28 tires and a rear rack with panniers, and then my cyclocross bike with a backpack, now I just ride my carbon road bike with a backpack every day. I just feel more alive on a road bike than the hybrid. I’ve used five of my six bikes to commute (hybrid, road, tri, cross, fixie)–everything but the mountain bike. And I haven’t tried my unicycle yet. Anyone offering lessons?

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I decided to change it up a bit this morning and dragged out my 1987 Cannondale that I converted to fixed gear a few years ago. I’ve only ridden it about 20 miles since the conversion, but decided to use it for my 14 miles to Reston.

I was not very elegant on my mounts and dismounts, but managed to get to work only drawing blood once. That was when the pedal smashed into my ankle as I was scooting forward to press the walk button on my last road crossing of the trip. Over minor mishaps included almost bucking over the handlebars twice when I inadvertently tried to coast, once when transitioning from standing to sitting (I subconsciously must coast for half a stroke on my regular bike, and that habit doesn’t translate well to the fixie). The other almost bucking incident was when I tried to coast for a second to rearrange my shorts.

And my final mishap also involved my shorts–they weren’t pulled up all the way snug to my crotch, and I snagged them over the nose of the saddle while starting up, which almost caused a fall. Other than that, it was a great trip. Only about a minute slower than I am on my road bike. I’ve now commuted on four of my 6 1/2 bikes (the 1/2 bike being a unicycle that I still can’t ride at all).

Oh, and I saw a doe running along the trail in Vienna with an adorable little fawn. They probably ran next to the trail for a couple hundred yards while I followed behind.

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@dasgeh 90492 wrote:

Drivers are legally required to stop (or yield right of way, which often practically means stop) at crosswalks. As mstone pointed out, the existence of whatever sign pointed to the trail doesn’t change that. Moreover, drivers often can’t see the signs, and certainly can’t see them from far enough away to stop. Don’t you stop for people at crosswalks when you drive?

This may have been implicit in your 2 & 3, but I’d say drivers respect the spirit behind the “yield to the crosswalk” law: protecting and giving preference to vulnerable road users. I.e. they don’t want to hurt people.

But does the obligation to yield arise before the cyclist’s obligation to stop? In other words, I could see a driver thinking that they’ll yield to someone who is waiting at the crossing having already stopped, but doesn’t feel an obligation to yield to a cyclist approaching whose intentions about stopping are unknown.

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@dkel 90478 wrote:

I thought they had to yield to people *in* the crosswalk, so if you’re stopped there, they don’t have to yield.

And the cars often yield when I’m still 50′ up the trail approaching the intersection.

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Have you ever had one of those days you wish your commute was twice as long as it actually is? I just did. Unfortunately, I overslept and didn’t get to get in an extra hour on the bike before work. Oh well.

It’s also days like this that make me wish I lived in San Diego, where every day is like this.

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@Crickey7 90205 wrote:

Faster rider coming up on the trail behind me this a.m. called to pass me and another rider right as I rang my bell and moved over to pass the frontmost rider. He seemed to feel I should have yielded to him. I thought I had the right of way, since (a) he signalled pretty late–essentially right as he came up, (b) a rider coming up on two riders should anticipate one may be about to pass the other, (c) if both signal at the same time, rearmost rider yields to riders in front, rather than slower rider yields to faster. And get a flipping bell–calls are next to useless.

I agree with you.

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@Phatboing 89701 wrote:

This is just me being grr angry cyclist, but why not proper curbs, like there are for tiny parts of M street (is it M I’m thinking of?)? A barrier that’d damage your car sounds like a pretty decent way to deter u-turns.

Anything on Penn has to be removable for the Inaugural Parade every four years.

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@culimerc 89016 wrote:

Yeah if your not near one of the “centers” there really isn’t anywhere to eat with out driving.

Tell me about it. My company had the world’s worst cafeteria, which unfortunately closed in December with vague plans to replace it. (What’s the old joke about the food is horrible and the portions too small.) The food was lousy, but I’m not organized enough to pack a lunch, so I ate there anyway. Now, I can beg a friend to go out to lunch or walk a mile each way to the Harris Teeter shopping center. My building recently added an honor-system self-checkout refrigerator with frozen meals, premade sandwiches, etc., but it’s lousy and yucky.

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There’s no place to eat breakfast at work (isolated campus in Reston) and I crave more than just a bar and a banana, so I eat at home. I’m usually doing this 5 minutes before I leave, so I’ve got some heavy foot sitting in the bottom of my stomach, which isn’t conducive to a brisk ride.

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I should keep this in my car as a backup route when 95 is a clusterf&*@ on summer and holiday weekends. I occasionally bail to Route 1, but even that is bad sometimes.

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I can read it either way–isn’t that what we were trained to do? But one point in mstone’s favor that is overlooked is the purpose of the law. I don’t want to get into a Scaliaesque discussion of legislative intent, but the point of the law is that some traffic signals do not detect bikes and they won’t cycle until they detect a vehicle. This law allows people on bikes (and motorcycles) to be able to proceed legally. At Gallows, there is a manual mechanism to trigger the light. We may not be happy with how long the cycle is, but it’s not the indefinite purgatory that is the guiding reason behind the two minute exception.

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@mstone 88766 wrote:

No, the 2 minute language does not apply to pedestrian signals, and yes the W&OD crossing is a pedestrian signal. Pedestrian signals are in a different section of the code.

I read it as applying to this crossing. The crossing is an “intersection,” and it is controlled by a “traffic light” that is “steady red”:

46.2-833(: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, if a driver of a motorcycle or moped or a bicycle rider approaches an intersection that is controlled by a traffic light, the driver or rider may proceed through the intersection on a steady red light only if the driver or rider (i) comes to a full and complete stop at the intersection for two complete cycles of the traffic light or for two minutes, whichever is shorter, (ii) exercises due care as provided by law, (iii) otherwise treats the traffic control device as a stop sign, (iv) determines that it is safe to proceed, and (v) yields the right of way to the driver of any vehicle approaching on such other highway from either direction.”

46.2-100: “Intersection means . . .for purposes only of authorizing installation of traffic-control devices, every crossing of a highway or street at grade by a pedestrian crosswalk.”

46.2-833(A): “Steady red indicates that moving traffic shall stop and remain stopped as long as the red signal is shown, except in the direction indicated by a steady green arrow.”

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