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a problem

There are several cyclists probably currently in the hospital with severe head trauma from hitting bollards recently. One at Rossevelt when there was gravel left on the trail; one at the Wilson bridge.

Vehicles colliding with obstructions in roadways is predictable. Therefore you built the obstructions to break – so that the vehicle or the human in the vehicle does not. This is true of roads that have guard rails designed to crumple. This is NOT true of bike paths that have bollards that will, frankly, kill.

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Balance? I biked 1 mile this weekend, and that was testing my retrofit dog/kid trailer (it failed). Work (or is it life?) won the balance and tilted the seesaw. Cool weather means I’z got doors to paint!! Like many stated above, our house is a feature cover house on Modern Garage Sale Magazine but that has more to do with our other lifestyle choice: rescue dogs.

“If the women dont find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.” – Red Green

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I rode a steel frame for like 25 years. Heavy – but magnificent. Flexible; shock absorbing. Modern materials are a lot stiffer and the rode vibrates right through the frame into your hands and your butt.

My new bike is a lot lighter. Great bike. Much lighter (stiffer, vibrating) bike on one hand – or – heavier, smoother ride on a frame that can take a beating on the other.

At my age, I prefer the lighter – and am trying to shed weight off of the bike.

Back position (seat position) is important – improper position can lead to bikers back. Sitting too upright, which can feel more comfortable, can have deleterious effects. Good bike posture arches the back forward. See one guys description of proper posture.

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There is a lot of information online about bike size, bike fit, and adjustments. Its good to research and it is good to learn how to adjust your bike. Seats, for example, adjust up/down, forward/back, and tilt. I am almost constantly making adjustments to my bike.

I am dubious of LBS experts. I have gone in and received great information; I have gone in and received information that was just crap. I have had LBS repair shops do so real um stupid things to my bikes. I always prefer to go in having done my homework. A lot of the information someone in a store will tell you is geared towards (surprise) getting you to spend more money and isnt based on anything scientific. A lot of equipment looks “cool” and “fast” but other more boring stuff is actually better.

And it is always good to know how to make these adjustments when you are 30 miles out on the C&O canal, or even 3 miles into a 7 mile commute. If you are pounding miles, you will be swapping worn out equipment on your bike on a regular basis, and making repairs and adjustments regularly.

The information on all this is pretty easy to find online.

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The Intersection of Lynn St and Lee Hwy is so bad….

How Bad is it??

The Intersection is so bad…. that even the traffic lights caught fire!!! 😡

http://www.arlnow.com/2012/06/15/lights-blinking-at-intersection-after-fire-in-walk-signal/

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Pursuant to expert previous recommendations, I attached jingle bells to my bike. It was really unsatisfactory. Made a slight clinking noise. Not much more.

Today, I attached a cow-bell I got from the AFCC ride to my handlebar. It was hilarious. Perfectly annoying! The faster you go, the more noise it makes!

I think the improvement would be to get ice cream truck bells. THAT’s something that will get pedestrians attention.

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So that’s a good (and unadvertised) point. This is a beer event. One would only need a wristband if one were drinking, right?

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@ShawnoftheDread 22300 wrote:

Or you could just make something up.

Yup. Operative word “actual.” We have a standard fake DOB that we all use. Same with SSN and everything else. If dinks are going to ask for information they dont need, they are going to get information they cant use.

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link requires age verification

Dr. Gonzo: “As your attorney, I advise you to”… never provide your actual birthday to anyone anywhere ever …. unless necessary and required.

You can learn about the tour de fat without compromising your privacy here http://www.waba.org/blog/2012/06/a-complete-guide-to-dcs-1st-annual-tour-de-fat/

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I say we form our own BikeArl club and just show up 😎

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Bollards removed from Bluemont Junction Trail…. Collards remain.

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One neighbor is the self-appointed home-owner’s association.

Oh gad, move to Arlington. We keep goats and chickens in our yards. Seriously, the answer to that guy is to replace all your grass with wildflowers or something else and tell him to deal. There are a number of wildflower yards in Arlington – kinda wonderful.

The answer to work / life balance is this:

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(well actually is was better in person. Glorious views of a glorious city)

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So do tell – where is the sewer pipe – er I mean tunnel?

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[Bikes] don’t care if you rode ten miles this week or three hundred.

Ohhhhhh! You dont want to B around my bike when it hasnt seen miles on the trail. No way. Unpleasant! Talk about Rode Rage!

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I maintain my work / life balance by wasting as much time as I can on this forum :rolleyes:

Here are my questions:
1) Do you have a sense of balance with fitting cycling into your life?
b) If so, how does it all fit in for you? What have you given up to achieve balance?
6) If not, What can you do to adjust and make things a bit more manageable?

It is a tremendous question.

I have always biked but not always been a “cyclists” (I guess). I started playing Ultimate Frisbee. At Oberlin, where we had the Oberlin Mellow Invitational Tournament (OMIT), way had a team slogan: “Intensity on the Mellow Road to No Where.” I have always loved that. In time, my favorite ultimate field was pick up with veterans. We didnt keep score; we loved to play – and play well.

Then I fell down a few years ago and it took me about 4 days to get up. When you get older, you can still do the high intensity sports – it just takes FOREVER to recover. Realizing that my body could no longer withstand the punishment of Ultimate, I gave it up.

And I took up Geocaching. Man Geocaching is Great. Geocaching is a global treasure hunt using GPS. There is an online forum, that gives you the coordinates of the caches, along with some descriptions of why that place is important, and hints. I use to hike for hours in state parks with my dogs hunting geocaching. We would emerged having gotten lost, run out of water, scraped and torn up, mud all over – happier than hell! A completely pointless activity that is very fun – and there are LOTS of geocaches along bike paths. There is a mechanic at SPOKES Vienna that is one of the leaders of the local geocaching group.

Well that ended because my dog is a tick magnet.

But then an important thing happened. Those genetic replicants we have became teenagers and were able to get home themselves. I no longer had to drive to work just so I could drive home and pick them up – and they could be home alone. Freedom! Back on the bike!

So here’s the math- the commute is
* ~30 min by car
* ~40 min by bike
* ~1 hour by metro

Driving by car also involves engaging the 8th ring of hell (the GW PArkway). It means getting to work white knuckled having had some near miss with some all important congressional hill type driving an SUV with a dont tread on me sticker on the back.

Metro meant playing “guess that smell” and the opportunity of playing “Wheel of Misfortune” on whether the system was functioning (is that a drop of rain I see?)

Bicycling means watching the sun rise over the potomac, or watching some cyclist rescue a turtle.

Now add in that with car or metro, I would like to get at least an hour of exercise every other day. I use to play Ultimate with WWF during lunch. That was great.

Now add the health benefits of cycling. I havent felt so good in maybe a decade.

Then there is the money. Between having public transportation at the door (thank you Arlington) and my bike, we are a one car family. The yearly cost of a car is just huge – I doubt most people realize how much money they pay for a car on an annual basis (taxes, insurance, maintenance, fuel, and depreciation). That money is pretty much going into the replicants 529 plans.

Bike commuting adds up to an extremely reasonable option.

I only wish bicycling was more of a dog friendly activity (rebuilding a kid trailer as a dog trailer this weekend).

To me it comes down to “Intensity on the Mellow Road to Nowhere.” I love being outdoors. I love the exercise. I love to bike. That means I look forward to Monday morning because I get to bike to work! The end of a hard day at work culminates in a bike ride up the Custis Trail. On the weekend, when the teenage replicants are sitting on their butts online, I jump on my bike and go to Shirlington and have a coffee. If I didnt have my fun, I could not do the other things nearly as well.

Speaking of balance, time to go do whatever it is I do….

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