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When my son went to college in Chicago, a folding Dahon (poor man’s Brompton) traveled free on Southwest; with the seat and pedals removed/ enclosed in package, it squeaked in under the size for a checked bag. I simply wrapped it with a bit of mover’s wrap.
There isn’t a place on this planet that doesn’t have bicycles. I’d just buy a cheap used bike at your destination, and give it away to someone deserving when you depart. If it isn’t up to the standards of the bike at home, that’s part of the travel experience. Enjoy the the Harrison Bergeron effect of riding a crap bike; just don’t let on to the Handicapper General what you’re up to (Kurt Vonnegut fans know what I’m talking about). If I had an exotic, god-status bike It would surely get damaged in transit or stolen upon arrival.

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Thanks for the heads-up, re: the Bailey’s location; they close for good at COB Sunday 11/18/2018. I went today and got a cheapie knockaround bike (but complete with Chomoly frame/steel fenders/rear rack/bell/kickstand/Simano rear/braze-ons) for $299.97, -209.98 = $89.99. The Breezer Downtown EX.
Also got a variety of inner tubes since I’m the default go-to guy for repairs of kids’ bikes from the block. Also got:
OnGuard Bulldog U-lock 34.99 – 24.50
Xport universal bike mount 24.99 – 17.50
Spin Doctor Quickshot inflator w/ CO2 cartridge 24.99 – 17.50
Sundry socks/bungees/bell.

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Sorry- I meant Rock Creek Pkwy to Roosevelt bridge. I’ll make the edit.

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I should have read this thread before riding a bike from the Capitol to Falls Church last night. I had heard about the closure, but thought it would be on the Northern side of the bridge. When I got to it (in the dark), the South side walkway was barricaded and I could find no detour signs or maps posted at all. I walked the bike across Eastbound (city-bound) bridge traffic, rode with (in) Westbound bridge traffic in the left lane, ran around the traffic circle on the Virginia side, but still could not find what path to take there. So I re-merged with traffic heading Eastbound across the bridge back into DC, and bailed at the path that crosses the parkway to the trail to Rosslyn.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]18531[/ATTACH]

So…. commuters heading into Virginia to the Mount Vernon Trail to the are supposed to cross these dangerous roads. What I ended up doing is drawn in black on the above map. At least, coming off the bridge in the left travel lane, I was able to get directly onto the Memorial Avenue loop without having to cross anything additional to usual path except for the one where traffic that was already crawling because it was merging onto the bridge.

Now that I know what’s happening there , it looks as if Lincoln Memorial, to the Rock Creek Parkway headed North, to Roosevelt Bridge, to the Mount Vernon Trail would have been the better option than taking Memorial Bridge.

[phog]

I should have read this thread before riding a bike from the Capitol to Falls Church last night. I had heard about the closure, but thought it would be on the Northern side of the bridge. When I got to it (in the dark), the South side walkway was barricaded and I could find no detour signs or maps posted at all. I walked the bike across Eastbound (city-bound) bridge traffic, rode with (in) Westbound bridge traffic in the left lane, ran around the traffic circle on the Virginia side, but still could not find what path to take there. So I re-merged with traffic heading Eastbound across the bridge back into DC, and bailed at the path that crosses the parkway to the trail to Rosslyn.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]18529[/ATTACH]

So…. commuters heading into Virginia to the Mount Vernon Trail to the are supposed to cross Henry Bacon Drive, 23rd Street, the Rock Creek Parkway (TWICE), Route 50/Arlington Boulevard (TWICE), and finally, Memorial Avenue? And then, to top things off are supposed to Washington Boulevard, then cross the Washington Memorial Parkway? Is this truly what is being proposed? Why doesn’t the NPS endorse Crisscrossing the Beltway in high heels while they’re at it? Count ’em, you’re crossing a dozen roads, half of them high speed arteries, with no traffic control and when the “odd soul” motorist takes pity and stops for you, others won’t anyway and will swerve around them!

Here’s what I ended up doing:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]18530[/ATTACH]

At least, coming off the bridge in the left travel lane, I was able to get directly onto the Memorial Avenue loop without having to cross any highways.

Now that I know what’s happening there , it looks as if, from the Lincoln Memorial, taking Rock Creek Parkway headed North, to Roosevelt Bridge, to the Mount Vernon Trail would have been the better option than taking Memorial Bridge.

[phog]

That would be an improvement over blithely flinging a door open with the left hand, but many Americans may be too corpulent and inflexible to turn around sufficiently to have a look. A glance in the side-view mirror before exiting may work better.

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Have you contacted the motorist’s insurance company yet? You need to be assertive to receive just compensation for injuries and other damages. That bike is toast, though there are a few tasty parts of it that can be put to good use.
It should be the value to actually replace the bicycle with the same make, and a model comparable in the product line if the Travel is no longer offered, or the all medical expenses, and other expenses ancillary to the incident. You may need a lawyer if the insurance company fails to honor its commitment to coverage of damages.

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@bearcat22 179016 wrote:

I’ve been in DC only 13 years, and I think I’ve only seen a car run a red light once.

Umm… are you sure you’ve been in D.C. for 13 years?

It’s best to drop the “us and them” attitude; asking rhetorical questions based upon sweeping generalizations/condemnations fosters the very animosity and tribalism that you describe.

Frankly, I see “hate between bike riders and car drivers over sharing the road” less often than I see contentious interactions between car drivers and pedestrians, hate between motorists and the drivers of other cars, and cyclists annoyed by other cyclists.

Many people are in a big hurry in D.C. and get quickly frustrated when anything impedes their forward progress. This applies to users of the roads of all stripes.

FWIW, I used to cycle from VA to the Capitol Hill area daily 20 years ago and still do it on occasion even though motorcycles are my mainstay mode of transport. No driver has ever given me any grief at any point while rockin’ the road on two wheels; I just live and let live.

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@Crickey7 178681 wrote:

Unless that chain is nearly new, I’d just break it and get a new one.

This! And, Daenaerys-style, leave that little section of chain in there, as a warning to other chains not to go there….

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Hot as Hades today. An early start, cold water soaked evaporative head cap, garden hose treatment at journey’s end after the ride home might be the ticket.

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Is it is a quick trip to the store how about “Voyage of the 8:18”?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4w55jsodVQ

Though in this live version they bang it out in “only” 7:54.
Kansas is as powerful yet progressive as ever!

[phog]

Test report on my e-bike build: it is a game-changer. Its maiden voyage to work and back was yesterday.

My background: I used to bike to work near the Capitol from Arlington every day in the early 90s. I used to have legs like steel bands. I’ve been motorcycle commuting for the last 20 years or so from West Falls Church to downtown. I still ride a bicycle to work on occasion, but don’t like to do the 28 mile round trip in a day. It’s brutal. So sometimes I use my motorcycle bike rack (a sight to see) to ferry my bicycle to work for a one-way trip bicycle ride home, and ride it to work the next day when I’m fresh. My wife wanted a pedal-assist e-bike for her commute (she usually drives but took a bike a few times last year) so I have assembled and e-bike rig to an existing mountain bike (didn’t want to tamper with her nice, newish 700MM wheel bike, and e-bike wheels for a 26″ bike are cheaper).

The bike: a used Schwinn Frontier, tiny 15″ chrome-moly frame (worth about $50). 26″ mountain tires, front fork suspension, centerpull rim brakes.
Motor: 48v, 1000w brushless rear wheel, with tire, gearset, spindle and controller, thumb throttle, replacement brake levers with motor cutout switches. Cost $140.
Rear rack: aluminum cantilevered seat-post mount, with support legs as well. Very strong and light. Model B671 on Ebay. Cost : $16.
Storage: All gear stored in stereo pannier (M-WAVE Amsterdam) ($35) for low center of gravity and weather protection. Hard to tell it is an e-bike because the pannier partly covers the rear wheel motor. There is also a little room left over for personal belongings.
Batteries: Used two sets for the test. Four small Bikemaster 12v motorcycle lithium batteries (very light, 5 pounds 4 OZ) ($200) in one pannier, alongside the controller, and pack #2 is four 12v 10AH lithium batteries (“reasonably” light, 12 pounds) ($300) in the other pannier. Both battery banks, and the controller, have Anderson Powerpole disconnects so a battery bank bag can be quickly pulled from the bike pannier and taken with you.

Report: bike handles well, and the front of the bike, though much lighter than the rear, is stable and responsive. Bike still functions well when pedaling when there is no power to the motor, and brakes, though rim and not disk, stop the bike quickly and solidly. If you were to max this thing out at 30 MPH, you’d probably want disk brakes. But this test was for normal pedaling speeds, with motor assist for hills and exertion issues. The motor has a sophisticated phased power input and motor position sensor output to the control unit, so there is controllable but considerable torque off the line. I rigged the thumb controller to remain at whatever set position I selected so I wouldn’t have keep working it on hills. I’d start it by pedaling in a lower gear, then hit the throttle as soon as I was moving and as I shifted to high gear, then pedaled with the throttle off. Under throttle there is no bogging at all on hills. The rig is never wanting for more power. A lazy cyclist could fly on this thing everywhere and never pedal, but the power demands would be considerable. I took the W&OD and Custis trails and, to test the tiny motorcycle batteries first, used the motor (quite a bit) with pedal assist, and pedal-only on the straights. It took me only five miles, and the on-board battery circuitry that prevents full discharge abruptly cut power to the controller. Then I hot-swapped to the other bank for the rest of the way. I recharged the 10AH pack at work and it took me all 14 miles home even though there are many more hills in that direction. They were just about depleted by the end of the trip, so I’s say that the range of a 10AH pack is 6-40 miles, depending upon how much you use it. Generally on the flats I’d cycle only, giving it a quick throttle at some junctures so I could then effortlessly pedal along in high gear. It was so wonderful to have a quick squirt of power whenever I wanted it! Down hills I would coast and relax at times when I normally would be doing whatever I could to get to get some momentum for the next hill. Up the hills and under throttle, I found myself pedaling with minor downshifting for pedal assist. Except for downshifting in anticipation of a near/full stop, I found that I didn’t shift much like I normally would be. One nice thing was that if I needed to slow to a crawl behind a pedestrian because there was an oncoming bike, after that bike passed and then went around the walker I could hit the throttle and be back up to cruising speed within seconds with no effort, and then could resume pedaling normally. In general I found that the usual considerate behaviour of slowing down when overtaking a dog walker was more joyful when I could easily get back my previous speed after passing. So being on an e-bike does not necessarily compel one to be a daredevil, quite the opposite if you have the mindset for it. My commute is usually 0:25 on a motorcycle on the highway, 1:00 should I take a METRO train (if there are no delays), 1:15 TO work on bicycle, 1:45 home on bicycle (due to hills/ being tired). With the motor assist it was 1:00 each way, but It wasn’t because I was going ant faster on the straights; it was because the I could take the hills at regular speed. There’s no way I could physically do this round trip every day on a regular bicycle, but yesterday, though I pedaled quite a bit with no assist, I wasn’t the least bit tired afterward.

I’m back to my motorcycle today but as far as I’m concerned my experiment passes the test. For lightness I’d go with only the tiny battery pack if I had a short commute and I was conserving the motor for hill assist only. But It’s the 10AH @ 48V batteries for the win if you want some real range or more assist. There are massive 20AH batteries in the market but IMO that would make the bike a bit heavy for your regular cycling without assist. 35 pound bike, 15 pound rear wheel/motor/controller (slightly heavier, but subtract the wheel and gearset that was removed), 6 pounds of rack and pannier, 12 pounds of batteries (10AH) = heavy but still manageable, but some might want to remove the batteries and carry them separately, if lifting the bike up a flight of stairs, or onto a car rack.[ATTACH=CONFIG]17042[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]17043[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]17041
Pics: Heavy 10AH packs (4) on scale, aluminum rack mounts to seatpost and frame or lugs, and is height adjustable in front and back, and deck adjusts on rail. Schwinn with everything installed, my wife’s Trek Seventy-four in the background.

[phog]

My wife did some bicycle commuting to uptown DC from Northern VA last year., and wants to do more but withan e-bike kit to assist. To test the waters I just got a used 1000 watt,, 48v. rear brushless motor kit off of Craigslist that would have cost $200 new (motor, rim, tire, controller, throttle, cutout-switched brake levers, sundry accessories) (batteries not included). Her bike has 700cc wheels and this wheel/hub is 26″ so I’m putting it on an old Schwinn Frontier (small 15″ frame) bike that I had, with a new, suitable aluminum rack and panniers and some lithium batteries. When i get it hooked I’ll test it out for range and drivability on a run from West Falls church to my work near the Capitol.

[phog]

I’m grateful to get anything! Stopped by the Rosslyn pit stop on the way to Capitol Hill area and has a cold-brew coffee, a bagel, a banana, free event shirt, a velcro wrist reflector, and an nut bar. Thank to WABA and everyone else who puts this on every year. Who here has the oldest Bike to Work Day shirt? I have one from 2006, if had older ones I can’t find them.

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