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presumably these are the same guys who run reds, intrude on crosswalks, and otherwise act like jerks when they’re in cars. what do you do when you see a car acting that way? do the same for the bike.

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@creadinger 26949 wrote:

Is playing chicken with a jogger so bad? I mean, you’re more than likely going to come out the winner. I can’t imagine any little jogger dude would think it’s a good idea to collide with anyone moving at a good clip on a spikey metal machine. You could even stick your elbows and knees out for greater effect.

It’s all fun and games until they push you into traffic.

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I see these guys jogging in the street next to an empty sidewalk just about every morning (in the dark), so it’s not about congestion or safety. I think I’ve heard bull#!^ excuses like “the sidewalk is too hard” or “the sidewalk is too bumpy”. (To which I think, “suck it up or find a sport that’s better for you”.) I dunno, I guess they’ve just seen someone else do it and now think it’s the right thing to do, in spite of common sense.

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@Jason 26884 wrote:

Sorry to be blunt: Nobody likes panniers and backpacks. Nobody.

I do. It’s quite nice to be able to simply stick whatever I need onto the bike. I can’t understand why anybody wouldn’t like being able to do so.

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You shouldn’t be running in the street, it’s dangerous and generally illegal.

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@jabberwocky 26792 wrote:

LFP=Lake Fairfax Park (I’m pretty sure).

The confusing one is CCT, because we have both the Capital Crescent Trail and also the Cross County Trail.

And it’s too late to change one to XCT because it has signs all over it that say CCT

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wow, that’s a really good price on a 36 spoke wheel set. I’d be concerned about the no-name hub wearing out before the rest of the wheel, but an upgrade there would cost as much per wheel as that whole set at the sale price.

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@DaveK 26671 wrote:

Actually the newest road disc frames seem to use 135 as their rear spacing, so I think that move might happen sooner rather than later.

For discs it seems like a done deal. You don’t yet see many discs on racing bikes, though, and racers tend to hang on to each size step much longer than MTBs (where people are already running with 150s). There are cogent arguments why you might want a narrower rear hub on that sort of bike, and it may be that the evolution for racers runs the other way with narrower hubs and asymmetric or bladed wheels or something.

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@Greenbelt 26652 wrote:

Yup, it’s a tweener — 132.5mm. Now why the bike makers don’t fully standardize on one or the other (or the tween) is a mystery to me…

The middle size works best on steel bikes, and even there some people hate having to yank the frame when changing tires. My perception is that it’s becoming less common, but I may be wrong. As for why there are two, 135 is more practical, but 130 is more pro. Take heart! I’m sure road bikes will move to 135 just about when other bikes move to 140, per the historical trend.

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@americancyclo 26640 wrote:

The roads on google maps street view seem pretty similar to the ones we rode in the Seagull Century. Is it really that crazy? So you’d recommend staying in the car the whole way there, then riding north from Rehoboth?

There’s a heck of a difference between beach traffic in july and beach traffic in october.

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@Greenbelt 26294 wrote:

Yes I think so — not sure what it means though.

I’d guess it means “make the trail wider”, but it’s not clearly expressed.

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@krazygl00 26624 wrote:

Careful when talking about going to 29er wheels on a 700c frame. Remember that the rear dropout spacing will be different. MTB=135mm, road=130mm.

Why not consider some custom handbuilt wheels? This is a great investment for any rider. Bill Mould at Spokes is an excellent wheel builder.

You definitely want to get the right size hub, but that means actually checking rather than relying on a particular marketing name. (I’m on a bike that was sold with 32-622 tires, not marketed as 29er, with 135 spacing; that’s more common than not with disc brakes, I think.)

How cheap is spokes? In my experience the cost of entry for custom built is pretty steep for most commuter bikes.

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This is why the ISO system makes so much more sense than most of the other naming conventions out there. In that notation you buy something like 35-622, where the first number is the width in mm and the second is the bead diameter. Both 700c and 29er are -622. Note that “30 inch” bikes are showing up, because having a bike with a bigger tire implies that you have a bigger…tube. They’re still -622. The one thing to watch out for is that the width of the rim is appropriate for the width of the tire. The main reason everything doesn’t just use ISO names I think is because there’s less opportunity for marketing bs.

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@MCL1981 26506 wrote:

I’d yield to that.

I think the proper procedure is to get right next to it in stealth mode, then shout and ring your bell.

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@Certifried 26468 wrote:

I don’t know how much of value this is, but Google maps has some pretty decent data on cycling around here. Hopefully it can help fill in some holes, if you have any, in your routes.

The problem with a place like IAD is that I don’t think google has any idea where the fences are.

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