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@lordofthemark 83766 wrote:

4. Cyclists are not responsible for the behavior of other cyclists any more than drivers or pedestrians or blacks or whites or gays or straights or gentiles or jews are so responsible for members of their group. Anyone is free to alter their own behavior for the sake of optics if they choose (I note that I personally am generally more of a “compliant” cyclist than a “momentumist”) just as one is free to support cycling in many other ways.

This is kind of the Collective Salvation of the cycling world. I don’t really begrudge anyone from taking this stance, but the benefit is dubious to me at best. I prefer as more effective the posture of asserting rights not because of having proven ourselves – through some kind of vague cultural referendum – collectively worthy of them, but because they are both the law, and buttressed by the founding principles of our society, and that my rights as a cyclist are individual rights that belong to me right here and now, regardless of prior actions of others.

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@vvill 83750 wrote:

I do think more “story” is needed for really explaining recent purchases since many of us have several bikes. So, for me: about a year before I bought my SS/FG I bought a disc brake equipped Kona Jake. I’ve done a couple of CX races on it, and a bunch of memorable gravel grinders – both of those are a ton of fun and this is definitely the bike I would not give up if I could keep one! In hindsight I would’ve preferred a tapered head tube and better FD routing but those are minor points, not real issues. Before this I bought a folding bike with full fenders for multi-modal/rainy commutes and use as a travel bike. Mid 2012 was when I got my first road bike – before then I had a hybrid and a beater MTB, both from 2005/6.

Just curious, what is it about a tapered head tube you would prefer? I know there are advantages (stiffness, strength) but I would have considered those the province of frame designers and mechanics. Are there tangible ride-quality or usability benefits to you?

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He was probably counting on gaining an advantage in this confrontation from some measure of deference from you because of his senior status. Once it was apparent he was just in it for the curmudgeonism, you should have said “Eat a bag of d&%ks Grandpa before I $&%@ your mom and $&%@ your dog,” while wearing a huge excrement-eating grin.

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@creadinger 83629 wrote:

On Saturday afternoon I was riding home via the MVT. I caught up to an attractive woman on a bike and because she was going kinda fast (slow enough for me to catch up, but too fast for me to pass on a busy trail) I followed her for a mile or so. The whole time I was thinking I hope she hasn’t read this thread lately because she probably thinks I’m creepin because of baiskeli. Damn.

Best excuse ever.

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I think I will be there but probably not til about 6:30 or so. Dang, going by this morning’s ride, that patio is going to be cool, and here I am like a sucker without pants!¹

¹It is surprising how often I have to use that phrase.

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@Brendan von Buckingham 83351 wrote:

Shoaling is a law of nature.

My theory is that bikes in traffic are like round grains of sand in an aggregate mix where cars and trucks are like sharp angle stones of granite. Each has its own Angle of Repose. Sand slumps at lower angles, i.e. gets moving sooner and fits in smaller spaces. Sharp angled stones need steeper angles to get moving and jam together sooner, i.e. stop, because they can’t fit in smaller spaces.

The natural tendency of the cyclist, or any vehicle, is to move as far as they naturally can until forced to stop. The only thing more impossible than trying to get stopping cyclists to stop in an orderly single file line is to get a landslide of sand to stop in an orderly single file line of sand grains. Stopping cyclists don’t need lanes to keep themselves in line because they have no problem untangling and moving again. Cars need lanes to organize stops because without them they’d gridlock and never be able to untangle and get moving again in any efficient way.

Thinking of vehicles as different sized pieces of aggregate also explains why it’s naturally right that bikes filter through lanes of stopped cars. So props to all you geotechnical engineers out there.

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

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@mstone 83332 wrote:

If you can find a legal basis for saying that the use of sidewalks by pedestrians is restricted, I’ll certainly reevaluate my position. In the meantime we’re left with a Code that (AFAIK) places no burden on pedestrians but which does explicitly require cyclists to yield to pedestrians and signal when passing.

But we weren’t just talking about pedestrians; you had mentioned the mentally incompetent. I cannot cite the code section, but I’m pretty sure if you are on a sidewalk or path and cannot control yourself from veering wildly around where you shouldn’t go that sometime, somewhere you are going to run afoul of the law and it will rightly be your fault. My overall point was that pedestrian ROW is not license for whatever kind of erratic behavior you please. Smokey, this is not ‘Nam. This is cycling. There are rules.

Of course there’s a legal requirement. 46.2-904 “A person riding a bicycle … on a sidewalk, shared-use path, … shall yield the right-of-way to any pedestrian and shall give an audible signal before overtaking and passing any pedestrian.” I didn’t realize there was confusion about that.

Now, I’m not one to blindly follow the Code when it is stupid and (for example) increases the danger to myself or provides no benefit beyond blind obedience to the law. But for this, signaling a pass, why on earth wouldn’t I just do it? Get a bell, ring the bell, problem solved. Everybody might be a little safer, there’s pretty much no chance that everybody is less safe, and there’s essentially zero effort involved.

I guess it might be risky to ring the bell if you’re in an aero tuck while zipping around people at high speed, but if you want to ride like you’re in a velodrome…

Holy crap. I honestly didn’t know it was law. Seriously. All this time I thought it was etiquette.

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@mstone 83203 wrote:

You can disagree with it, but can you point to some sort of law that bans the mentally incompetent from using the MUP? There are social conventions which people should follow, but it’s fundamentally on you to control your bike as the superior user. I suspect that if you run down a kid or a mentally disabled person who veered on a MUP and didn’t make any effort to even signal a pass, the jury isn’t going to be very receptive to the “He had no right to be there” argument. Walking isn’t a privilege to be earned or revoked, so, yeah, the walkers have a right to walk that is substantially more difficult to regulate than the vehicle use.

C’mon, please. I’m pretty sure I can find a legal basis that says you have to be able conduct yourself safely on a MUP (and in any number of other public spaces) regardless of mental condition, in order to use it. But notwithstanding that, are you sure that a person who is likely to be unsafe on a MUP because of his mental state is even going to understand and react properly to a called pass? But these scenarios are orthogonal to the central argument.

At issue is whether a cyclist can make a judgement call — and that is what it is, because AFAIK there is no legal requirement — about whether to call passes, based on the conditions. I assert that the answer to this is yes. I think this horse is bleeding from the mouth and rectum, looks terminal, and I admit to some culpability in beating it. As rcannon100 lamented, this started as a discussion about The Rules (Mk II) and has turned into a discussion about rules.

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@guga31bb 83177 wrote:

But it sounds like if I pass someone with a lot of space then I can do it without dinging and without feeling guilty?
@mstone 83179 wrote:

Nope. Cars have mirrors, cars are expected to stay in their lanes, drivers have a duty to be aware of their surroundings and act predictably on a public road, and in the worst case if you brush another car with your car you’ve caused some property damage. People don’t have mirrors, reasonable people don’t expect that normal people walk in straight lines in a lane, people have a fundamental right to just wander about and stop whenever they want to, and in the worst case someone gets hurt if you sideswipe a pedestrian when scorching past on a bike. Most of the people out on the trail are just wandering around, that’s the nature of a shared use path. If you want to ride like you’re in a velodrome or a street, ride in a velodrome or a street.

I disagree on this point. People have a fundamental right to “just wander about” in a lot of places but a MUP isn’t one of them (unless I have a different perception of the phrase than you). There are rules for peds there too, and they have to follow them and be aware of their surroundings like any other MUP user. I think it is reasonable to expect that the ped keep his/her lane and not make any unpredictable moves.

But of course it does not always work like that and in the end everything is a judgement call of potential risks. If I’m passing a “serious” walker or runner on a uncrowded path and am able to make my pass with an adequate berth well into the opposite lane, I think it is reasonable not to call my pass. If I’m passing a gaggle of tourists with kids wandering about on their own personal “gawkway”, even if they are for the moment keeping to their side of the path, I’m going to call the pass. And this doesn’t even call into question the conundrum of little kids on bikes, who sometimes react to a called pass by turning their heads to the left and swerving into the left lane.

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@Arlingtonrider 82580 wrote:

I just checked the 10 day forecast and it looks like it will be really, really nice on April 24. Would anyone like to have a beer or burger on the patio at Cap City that evening?
@bobco85 82599 wrote:

I don’t think they are mutually exclusive but I’m in!

Per Boolean rules however, if she had said “beer and burger” she would have excluded all those who were only interested in having one of the two. The “or” is more inclusive. :p

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This project has laid fallow since I first noticed the crack. The frame has been sitting at Bikenetic, waiting for Kona to have more JTS frames in my size but none has been available so far. Meanwhile the parts have been sitting in a pair of shopping bags in my basement. I saw this and pulled the trigger:

Ridley X-Bow Disc
[ATTACH=CONFIG]5309[/ATTACH]

On sale for $299, $348 delivered. Not perfect but it fits the bill. Yeah, I’m sad it is not a Kona but I don’t want to wait anymore. I’ll have to build a new rear wheel but most of my parts should move over. Oh, and now I have disc brakes front AND rear. Of course now that I’ve placed my order all of the better deals will come out of the woodwork, and Kona will suddenly have a flood of new frame production

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I like these rules! Am I crazy for believing they’re not entirely incompatible with the other rules?

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@Geoff 82832 wrote:

My morning commute nearly had excess, ah, excitement.

On the MVT, just south of Memorial Bridge, at the point where to get to the Memorial Bridge you have to cross the George Washington Memorial Parkway. Where they had the warning lights for a while. I came up to the crossing, came to a full stop (I treat this crossing with a lot of respect), and almost immediately the vehicle in the right lane stopped for me.

That was Helpy Helperton trying to get ya. Looks like his devious plans almost backfired on him. That particular crossing is one of his favorites.

I paused for a moment to make sure the left lane stopped also, and then!

And then there was a honking, and a dust cloud (or was it smoke?), and a tractor / semitrailer swerving violently into the left lane to avoid climbing into the trunk of the car in front. Everybody stopped, no paint scraped, I crossed, and everyone continued on our morning journeys. This must be why some people avoid crossing there at all costs.

Are big trucks even allowed on the GWMP?

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I use the Park Tool PRS-20 Team Race Stand. For compactness while folded down it is pretty tough to beat. Looking at the Feedback Sports site this would be similar to their Sprint Work Stand.
Pros:

• Very compact. I used to keep mine in a pickup truck bed toolbox and it didn’t eat up too much space.
• Attaches to the front fork and bottom bracket, allowing full 360 degree access which is tough feature to find in any stand, even a shop stand. Move around the bike or spin the bike around. That part is pretty sweet
• Heavy, which minimizes the possibility of tipping.

Cons (both of which also happen to be Pros):

• The attachment to the front fork and bottom bracket presents a challenge in mounting the bike on the stand. While it is easy enough to hoist a bike into a shop stand with two hands, the race stand seems to require three hands as one hoists the bike, one positions the front mount and a third would presumably fiddle with the skewer. It is doable, but I’ve never found a simple and elegant way to do this. Also this adds a step and a little bit of time so if you’re “casually” throwing bikes in the stand repeatedly it might not be the best.
• Did I mention heavy? If you plan on lugging this thing any distance I would consider the PRS-21 Super Lite Team Race Stand. Of course then you lose some of the stability.

While checking out Feedback sports it looks like their Sprint stand may also be pretty lightweight, along the lines of the Park Super Lite. Also, another “outside the box” suggestion might be to just get a Kuat NV Bike Carrier which is a hitch-mounted rack that also has a pretty decent built-in work stand (if you don’t mind doing all repairs outdoors). Pricey, but kills two birds with one stone.

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I think I’ll like working with an organization (I’m actually a contractor) whose logo is a 16T cog:

Variants include a 12T cog (for going down hill I imagine):

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