[peterw_diy]

So, what was the outcome?

[peterw_diy]

Next week CaBi begins increasing the number of electric bikes to about 12% of its fleet and using one will cost an extra $1 per ride.

https://www.capitalbikeshare.com/blog/500-plus-ebikes

I do hope they will waive the surcharge not just for those receiving financial assistance but also anyone who takes an electric bike if there are no red bikes available. Paul, are you listening?

[peterw_diy]

@jrenaut 188041 wrote:

Yeah, Weather Underground killed their API, and we never identified a replacement. I would not count on weather data for the balance of this year’s competition.

Wow, IBM killed that product really thoroughly. And nice job, WU, selling it to a tech monster so old school that they appear to offer ZERO low cost options. After years of evaluating stuff from Google and Amazon Web Services that are priced in units that cost less than a nickel, it’s shocking to see an open API replaced with something that requires individual sales team intervention, meaning probably nothing is available for less than a few thousand dollars. This sucks.

https://apicommunity.wunderground.com/weatherapi/topics/end-of-service-for-the-weather-underground-api

BAFS issue opened: https://github.com/freezingsaddles/freezing-web/issues/116

[peterw_diy]

@Emm 187386 wrote:

Just sent in my comments saying I support the new regulations allowing e-bikes but encourage the regulation writers to find a way to ban the ELF.

Isn’t it obvious that the main, easily regulated, problem with the ELF is its size, especially its width (50% wider than a double child trailer and twice as wide as some box bikes)?

[peterw_diy]

Universal Cycles, JensonUSA, and ModernBike.com have all been good for me, including custom wheels from UC.

[peterw_diy]

Was the January 17 text amended?

The January 17 text only allowed banning scooters on sidewalks the way current law allows banning bikes – when the jurisdiction “conspicuously” posts signage. At least in Alexandria, City staff seem very reluctant to do that.

The rules about operating on roads (“highways”) are interesting – no scooters on the road where the speed limit is > 25, and even on roads <= 25, the scooters must be ridden on the sidewalk if there's no bike lane, unless scooters are banned from the sidewalk. I imagine this won't go over well with either scooter operators or pedestrians. Also noteworthy: scooters would be required to have rear reflectors but, unlike bikes, not tail lights, even though the reflectors would be so low to the ground that I question their effectiveness (and the likelihood that they’d stay clean enough to be effective), and even though rental scooters have power supplies so they would only need to add relatively cheap LEDs to get active rear lighting.

[peterw_diy]

@cvcalhoun 186360 wrote:

And if you try to contact LimeBike to ask further questions, you get a canned response that doesn’t actually answer the question. (Yes, I tried that, too.)

Just like CaBi!

[peterw_diy]

@Judd 185820 wrote:

Is the ramp and zig zag maintained by Arlington? I seem to recall that the official county line in this area is funky and Alexandria crosses the river slightly here.

The map on Call.Click.Connect. clearly shows the switchback ramp being in Alexandria (and allows service requests there) but I don’t know that means Alexandria built or, more importantly, maintains it. Certainly it has been my impression that ArlCo maintains the 4MR trail at the bottom of it. It seems to me that ramp would be tough to treat and you might be better off using the 4MR connection at Route 1.

[peterw_diy]

@LuisFilipe 185684 wrote:

My summer shoes have vents on towards the front of the shoe on the bottom. Did you cover those? Foil would work

The bottom of my neoprene booties is rubber which covers that vent hole, but I have not (yet) tried to plug it. Unfortunately heavier socks + booties isn’t enough for my feet. So maybe I’ll try devising plugs for those vent holes — medium hard foam + thin, hard plastic + maybe some mylar foil for good measure.

And I can test it as soon as we get some rain to wash all this salt away. The road bike doesn’t get to play in the slush!

Thanks, awitt, jwetzle, and LuisFililpe.

[peterw_diy]

I’m in. Thanks!

[peterw_diy]

Fairfax County should try to get some of the Amazon HQ2 infrastructure funds to pay for a pedestrian bridge there, and all our Congress people should lean heavily on NPS to allow and maintain it.

[peterw_diy]

Status update: rotors matter!

Cleaning the rotor with alcohol only bought me a little time – the squealing returned. So I tried cleaning the rotor and installing new pads. I think the old/original pads might be metallic: all the way through, their color is dark, like black coffee, while the new, organic pads are the color of pate.

Within a few urban miles, I heard awful pinging sounds under moderately hard braking, as of something were plucking spokes. Six pings per wheel revolution. Why? The Shimano RT66 rotor’s brake track is a few mm narrower than, say, a SRAM Clean Sweep G2 that I had purchased for a new wheel. Here’s a photo of the old Shimano rotor laying on a SRAM rotor; you can clearly see on the Shimano arms that the SRAM pads extended closer to the hub than did the brake track. Six times per wheel revolution, the bottom of the pads hit a rotor arm. Ping ping ping. I think this is also evidence that the original pads were not organic, but some harder compound that didn’t compress as much.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]18673[/ATTACH]

I’ll see how it goes tomorrow, with the SRAM rotor in place, cleaned well, and a brand new set of organic pads. If this sucks badly I might just go back to the front canti brake! 😉

[peterw_diy]

@Judd 183892 wrote:

If I’m remembering correctly, I believe city staff said that Mt. Vernon was getting repaved next year.

It seems like it’s been on the resurfacing list for the past few years. Perhaps the City wisely decided to wait until after the current construction project between Thai Peppers and the old Audi dealership is finished, as they’ve made a huge mess of the southbound lane.

[peterw_diy]

@AlanA 183575 wrote:

…I seem to recall that the whole point of this challenge when it started was to promote daily commuters.

…what does it really accomplish? A person riding one mile around their neighborhood in awful weather (or while they are sick) is not promoting anything of value.

Isn’t this when rcannon100 jumps in to assert there is no point to this?

[peterw_diy]

If you wear eyeglasses, anything covering your nostrils (like a balaclava) will direct your breath up to your eyeglasses where it will freeze and block your vision. Ski goggles will greatly reduce this problem if you can’t bear to bare your nose. Look for “OTG” (over the glasses) models.

I find yellow goggle lenses to provide a good compromise between reducing daytime brightness and not making night sky too dark.

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