[PotomacCyclist]

In case anyone is curious, the W. Post moved in December to 1301 K St NW, just a few blocks away.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/hello-new-washington-post-home-to-tiny-offices-but-big-new-ambitions/2015/12/07/323d3140-798c-11e5-b9c1-f03c48c96ac2_story.html

The buildings at 15th & L NW will be demolished to make way for the new Fannie Mae headquarters. Fannie Mae is currently located on Wisconsin Ave near Van Ness St NW, across the street from the Sidwell Friends School.

[PotomacCyclist]

The BIDs are working with DDOT on their initiatives. Or you could say DDOT is working through the BIDs. Either way, bike racks are being added to central DC, in a big way. Yes, there are still many bike and transportation issues that need to be addressed (bike routes, safer intersections, negligence laws and more), but bike racks in central DC isn’t one of them. As far as the racks go, does it really matter how the racks get added? Hundreds of racks have been added in high-demand areas. Many if not most of the private parking garages in central DC have bike racks or bike rooms.

Granted, these programs began before the current mayor took office. Since I’m not a DC resident, I don’t follow all the details of DC local politics so I won’t comment on that. I do know that the massive expansion of bike parking plus the introduction and expansion of Capital Bikeshare, and the construction of the protected bike lanes have radically changed my bike experience in DC. Well, mostly Capital Bikeshare and the 15th St bike lane. I don’t actually use bike racks myself that often, even though I’ve spent a lot of time mapping them. I haven’t used my bike lock in two or three years. I use CaBi (and Metro) for commuting and errands. When I ride my personal bikes, I usually do so for recreation or fitness and I stay on the bike the entire time.

[PotomacCyclist]

@jrenaut 131042 wrote:

Hopefully Arlington does it better than DC would. Here, we pass laws not to cover bike parking, but to cover someone having to write regulations to cover bike parking. Then no one writes regulations for a few years. Then they finally do, and they’re not completely terrible, but no one enforces them. Muriel Bowser gives a press conference about how great she is, and everything remains exactly the same.

At least in central DC, the various BIDs have picked up a lot of the slack. The Downtown DC BID issued a press release just yesterday announcing the completion of their three-year plan to nearly double the amount of bike parking spaces in the BID’s coverage area (basically everything south of Massachusetts Ave. between 1st St and 16th St NW, to Constitution Ave, minus some small sections controlled by the federal gov’t).

http://www.downtowndc.org/press-releases/press-release-downtowndc-bid-completes-three-year-plan-nearly-double-bike-parking

There is now near-saturation coverage of bike parking in that very busy area. They went from 531 racks in 2012 to 964 today. Except for the blocks with older large federal buildings and a couple blocks on the east end of the area, nearly every single block of every street has bike racks. (The newer Reagan Building has many bike racks though.) Blocks in the busiest corridors have several racks per block. Many of the private parking garages also have bike racks, although it’s not always easy to verify which garages have racks unless you work in the building.

The Golden Triangle BID has also been busy with a bike rack program of its own. I’ve spotted more new bike racks there on multiple occasions, even though that area also has near-saturation coverage of bike racks. They cover much of the area around Farragut Square and Connecticut Ave. south of Dupont Circle.

Lower Georgetown (M St to the waterfront) has bike racks on most blocks now, something I wasn’t expecting to see until I checked it out.

The Capitol Riverfront BID (near the Navy Yard and Nationals Park) has also helped to add many new bike racks in their coverage area. Nationals Park is ringed by bike racks, plus they have the Bike Valet on game days.

Some of the more residential neighborhoods outside of the central core do not have many bike racks at all, although some of the local commercial corridors do have bike racks. But there isn’t as much of a need for bike racks in purely residential areas.

At least in DC, bike rack programs seem to be tied to the local BIDs or CID (Community Improvement District). The larger BIDs have been very active in adding bike racks to busy commercial/retail/dining areas over the past couple years. While more work needs to be done in neighborhoods without large BIDs/CIDs, at least many of the prime activity areas in DC now have near-saturation coverage of bike racks. I do think it would be useful for DC to require bike shower facilities to be added to new large buildings, if they don’t already. This would be a very big deal, considering that there are over 100 ongoing medium to large to super-large construction projects in progress in DC right now, with many more in the planning stages. I don’t know about every construction project, but I know that the developers of The Wharf at the Southwest Waterfront are planning to add hundreds of bike racks at those buildings. I’m not sure about bike shower rooms. That project will include office, residential, retail, dining and entertainment.

FYI – Nearly all of the Downtown DC BID and Golden Triangle BID bike racks are mapped on RackSpotter now. I rode down almost every single block of every single street in those areas throughout 2015. In this case, it would be accurate to say I “literally” rode or ran or walked along every single block of every street in about 99 percent of central DC (north of Independence Ave, from NoMa to Dupont Circle and lower Georgetown). Since the BIDs continued to add new bike racks into the fall and winter, I may not have mapped all of the racks. But I think I got to just about every single rack in place by late summer plus a few of the ones installed over the fall. (With photos of every single rack in those neighborhoods added to the map. Well, I might have messed up one or two of the photo uploads.) I think the info is useful. Otherwise BikeArlington wouldn’t have started the project. Plus I found it interesting to explore all the nooks and crannies of DC, good and bad, that I would never have looked at otherwise.

[PotomacCyclist]

@Erin Potter 131072 wrote:

Oooph. That’s a new variation on the old classic of installing them right next to a wall.

If you can’t find a wall to make the bike racks less effective, make your own wall. That seems to be the motto at that location.

I don’t want to get too critical of the MTA though. Like WMATA, they have taken steps to make it easier to bike to and from the transit stations. The bike lockers behind the U racks are the better option at a rail station where the bikes are likely to be left there for several hours at a time. At a different MARC station I saw, there were only bike lockers, no bike racks. I actually think that’s OK for a small rail station. I don’t know if many people would be willing to leave their bikes locked up to a rack all day at an isolated location.

There are still improvements to be made with better bike routes to some transit stations in the region, but the transit agencies don’t always control that land. They would have to coordinate with local jurisdictions and sometimes with private property owners to improve bike access to those stations.

[PotomacCyclist]

You may want to forward a copy to the Maryland Transit Administration. They have some strange ideas about proper bike rack installation, at least at the Laurel MD MARC station.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]10362[/ATTACH]

Someone installed these U racks side by side. Thus, the set of U racks can only accommodate about half of the bikes than it could with proper installation.

I filled out their online complaint form to notify them of the improper installation, but they may not pay attention to a single isolated complaint.

[PotomacCyclist]

I read through several reviews of gloves with touchscreen-capable tips. Most of the reviewers say the material works at first, but it wears off quickly after a few weeks. I would be doing more than stopping and starting Strava on the phone. (I don’t use Strava anyway.) I would probably grind away the material in the fingertips fairly quickly. Doesn’t seem worth buying.

My phone has a setting to increase screen sensitivity so that gloved fingers will work. I tried it out a couple days ago. It kind of works, but it’s not perfect. Plus it’s just awkward trying to perform more precise functions on the phone while wearing gloves. It’s far from ideal.

I may have to go with the Freehands gloves.

======

Re cold toes: I’ve had problems with this too. I’ve tried chemical toe warmers with socks, mountain bike shoes and neoprene shoe covers, but that didn’t work well at all. Maybe there isn’t enough oxygen circulating to activate the toe warmers with the shoe covers. I haven’t tried them without the shoe covers.

I’m not doing as much commuting right now, so I have the option to skip morning rides on sub-40F days (like today). At other times, I may have to go with regular winter shoes and skip the bike shoe/cleat set-up. The holes in the bottoms of bike shoes let in a lot of the cold. The metal of the cleats also pulls in the cold, or lets the heat inside the shoe escape. (The same thing happens with metal handlebars and Bar Mitts.)

If I were commuting more, I might switch to platform pedals for the winter and use warmer regular winter boots or shoes. I’ve ridden CaBi a lot the past few years. I haven’t had any issues using platform pedals. Perhaps they are a tiny percentage less efficient, but that doesn’t really matter for an amateur rider or a bike commuter, at least for short to medium distances.

On sub-40F days, I’ll probably just stick to CaBi or take Metro if I’m even outside at all.

[PotomacCyclist]

Has anyone tried gloves with retractable fingertips, for convenient smartphone use during stops? I saw a pair that had a retractable cover on the thumb and index finger, specifically for this purpose. This lets you keep the glove on the rest of the hand while using the smartphone. The gloves didn’t seem that warm, so they might serve best as glove liners.

I’ve found a couple brands online. Freehands has decent to mixed reviews. Some recommend that they be used as glove liners, not by themselves, in colder weather. There’s a UK brand but they have an obnoxious label patch on the back of the glove and mixed reviews. Plus they ship from the UK, which is more expensive and more difficult in case of returns and exchanges.

Are there other brands out there? If used as liners, then it wouldn’t matter as much if they aren’t that warm. I could leave the outer glove on one hand and remove the outer glove from the other, while leaving the glove liner on. That can work for brief periods.

This would be useful for riding as well as for running and walking in the winter. (My hands tend to stay a lot warmer while running, so I probably wouldn’t need an outer glove on a run.) Some of the reviewers say the gloves are also useful for outdoor winter photography.

This is an example of the Freehands glove. They have Thinsulate insulation, but not on the fingertip sections.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]10344[/ATTACH]

[PotomacCyclist]

I think my Arlington-centric perspective is showing. About every 2nd or 3rd winter (I think), there is almost no snow at all in Arlington and downtown DC, while there will still be some snow in the outer suburbs. Or there might be a total of just an inch or two for the entire winter, and never more than a dusting at any one time. Likely the result of the heat island effect of DC and urban sections of Arlington.

I rarely ride out to Reston in the winter. Actually, I haven’t ridden over there the past couple summers either.

[PotomacCyclist]

According to WSI/The Weather Company:

“We expect a ‘tale of two months’, with a cold-West, warm-East first half of the month [January], followed by a reversal during the back half of the month towards potentially much colder eastern U.S. temperatures,” wrote Dr. Todd Crawford, WSI chief meteorologist, in their outlook released Friday.

But temperatures could be above average for Feb. and Mar.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]10342[/ATTACH]

The Mid-Atlantic might see more precipitation than average for the winter, according to NOAA.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]10343[/ATTACH]

But then they say this:

“However, three variables, in addition to El Niño, could play an important role in early 2016, including the North Atlantic Oscillation, the Arctic Oscillation and the Madden-Julian Oscillation. These features can be difficult to forecast more than a few weeks in advance.”

http://www.wunderground.com/news/january-march-outlook-2016-noaa-wsi

[PotomacCyclist]

@Sunyata 130805 wrote:

It snowed this morning…

Where did it snow? Not in Arlington? I didn’t travel around much today.

[PotomacCyclist]

I’m not participating in BAFS (or NoVaFS or MoCoFS or PGFS or DCFS) although I might ride outdoors 2-3 times a week over the winter. If we get hit by an Arctic blast or polar vortex like last winter, then I may have to take an unscheduled break from outdoor riding for a few days.

[PotomacCyclist]

If the contest keeps growing like this every year, you may have to host next year’s opening HH at the convention center.

====

FYI – (Since this place is just a few steps from Wisconsin Ave.) On your way back from the bar, you may want to take a minor detour and check out the arch underneath Wisconsin Ave. where it passes over the C&O Canal. The past couple of years, the Georgetown BID has been organizing a Christmas/holiday event called Georgetown Glow, a set of outdoor art installations using lighted structures or projections. This winter’s program ran from Dec. 11 to Dec. 20. However, I discovered that the neon sculpture underneath Wisconsin Ave. is still in place. Probably because it doesn’t affect the street-level buildings or streets, I guess.

Whatever the reason, that light sculpture is still in place as of this weekend, well after the rest of the Georgetown Glow event ended. Despite the name “WIRED People Project:
The Lovers,” it’s a “G-rated” sculpture (unless there’s something I’m completely missing). I don’t know if I would travel a long distance just to see it, but since it’s so close to the bar, it’s worth a look. It’s just a couple blocks north (up the hill on Wisconsin Ave.), although you can’t really see it too well from Wisconsin Ave. You can see part of one of the images at a time at the corners of the bridge over the canal.

The best way to see the sculpture is to head one block east, to 31st St. There’s a bumpy dirt ramp down to the towpath from there, on the north bank. It might be best to walk your bikes down because there’s a drop-off from the sidewalk to the start of the dirt ramp. After that, the path remains rough and there is no fence between the towpath and the water. The water isn’t that deep, but I don’t think anyone wants to be falling into cold water at night. Then walk your bike or ride very slowly on the rough dirt path to the Wisconsin Ave. arch.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]10333[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]10334[/ATTACH]

http://www.georgetownglowdc.com/

[PotomacCyclist]

Another mild weekend (for winter). But cooler on Monday and Tuesday. 20F on Tue. morning. I don’t think it has been that cold around here since last winter. But still no snow. I’m not complaining about that, by the way. I’m not a big fan of ice and snow.

[PotomacCyclist]

Off-the-wall but hilarious! I haven’t seen that movie in a long time but it’s a catchy tune. He does look like a young John Travolta.

I’m not a huge fan of the movie but it does have a couple decent songs. I played one of those songs and arranged the parts for the pit band [electronic keyboards/bass, piano, saxes] for a satirical musical we did in school. (We re-used the music but wrote goofy lyrics to fit a completely different story.)

[PotomacCyclist]

@dasgeh 130644 wrote:

It’s basically a very nice rail-trail.

Still something to celebrate if it is actually built. The potential utility and the width of the trail could merit a different description than just a nice rail trail though. The W&OD Trail is our own local long-distance rail trail. But it doesn’t connect major metro areas as well as it could. It passes near Tysons and Dulles but doesn’t provide a direct connection. The western end is mostly rural other than in Leesburg.

Imagine if there were a similar trail between DC and Baltimore with a connection to Annapolis. And an extension to Philadelphia. All paved with only limited crossings of roads. The East Coast Greenway project is trying to make that a reality, but existing routes fall far short of the ideal. Baltimore is close enough for many amateur cyclists to bike to, if only occasionally. The trail would make it much easier for many in that part of Maryland to bike to and from DC, Baltimore and Annapolis. The WB&A Trail doesn’t actually connect with any of those cities. It probably won’t for many years, if ever. But I hope some progress can be made.

The few threads I’ve seen on the forum about biking between DC and Baltimore don’t make the trip sound appealing at all. I rode around some parts of that area over the past month, but I relied on MetroRail, buses and their front bike racks to travel between DC and Maryland. Those bus bike racks are very convenient. I’ve known about them but I never used them before. They are easy to use after you figure it out the first time. But it would still be nice to have the option to have a low-stress bike route from DC to Baltimore too.

[Author]

Posts