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At the Portals, 12th and D, under Portals I, is a commercial car parking lot with inverted U locks that you can use. I believe Portals III has a commercial lot with bike racks. I can show you where they are if you want. In other words, if you cant use your preferred parking garage – see if there is a commercial garage that has racks. By DDOT regs, they have to have bike racks.

Let me know if you want me to show you the Portals I racks – its an open commercial garage but it seems pretty secure.

BTW here is some info on parking regs https://sites.google.com/site/bikewashingtondc/federal-cyclists

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I like a lot of these answers, but to me the location is simple. You need to put it where it can be a daily reminder to the political decision makers: Courthouse. Tim, you said there is a big loaded bicycle rack on ground level at courthouse? If its a visible location, put it there – facing in a way that the County Board can see it.

As PikeSpotter said in his blog piece, as great as Arlington is about bicycles, it was not part of the platform of any county board candidate this past election (Yes Garvey responded to our inquiry about being on the Board of Phoenix Bikes, and had a picture of herself bicycling on her page – put apparently it wasnt an “issue” for her.

Place it where the political decision makers (including those visiting from other jurisdictions) can see it every day.

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one [motorcycle cop] will occasionally hide inside the traffic circle between Memorial Bridge and Arlington Cemetery.

In lieu of an actual effective solution to the bad traffic design in the circle, the motorcycle cop must, at 9 am, move a bunch of wooden horses changing the traffic flow in the circle from its rush hour pattern. Might be why the motorcycle cop is sitting there, if its just before 9. I guarantee you its not to make the situation safer or to enforce any traffic rules.

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Please work with DoD to put one at the Pentagon.

And the Pentagon sits on the MV Trail, with a connector through the Lady Bird Johnson Memorial Park, as well as connectors via Columbia pike to Washington Blvd and the planned bike path along Washington Blvd. Very high public transportation demand area.

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My thoughts on the proposed expansion on CABI in Arlington. The draft uses the wrong paradigm of corridors – I think the right paradigm is “islands.” I also suggest that the drafts principle of 1/2 mile distance between stations premised on 1 mile trips – is flawed and invalid for consideration in Arlington. CABI should be widely deployed in Arlington, it should not just overlay the subway system, it should not simply benefit the wealthy urban corridors. If widely deployed it would create a mesh network that leverages the Arlington bike infrastructure of trails and lanes, further Arlington’s goals of smart growth and car free, and result in economic benefits to businesses.

http://donaldsonrun.blogspot.com/2012/03/arlington-bikeshare-expansion-my.html

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According to Bart Simpson…

[ATTACH=CONFIG]869[/ATTACH]

So I read everyone’s answer…. and I’m not buying. It’s styrofoam. I made styrofoam in the lab during college. It’s not affected by sweat. It doesnt dry out. It doesnt age, well at least in terms of 3 to 5 years. So I thought I would see if I could find something authoritative. This is from the Bike Safety Helmet Institute …. it’s probably not a credible group. According to its “about us” page, “We are the helmet advocacy program of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association.” Probably an astro-turf front group. Anyway, they say…..

Newer helmets from the late 1980’s and the 90’s may or may not need replacement. First look to see what standards sticker is inside. If it’s ASTM or Snell, the helmet was designed to meet today’s standards for impact protection, and you may even find that Consumer Reports tested it in one of their articles. Most manufacturers now recommend that helmets be replaced after five years, but some of that may be just marketing. (Bell now recommends every three years, which seems to us too short. They base it partially on updating your helmet technology, but they have not been improving their helmets that much over three year periods, and we consider some of their helmets since the late 1990’s to be a step backwards, so we would take that with a grain of salt.) Deterioration depends on usage, care, and abuse. But if you ride thousands of miles every year, five years may be a realistic estimate of helmet life. And helmets have actually been improving enough over time to make it a reasonable bet that you can find a better one than you did five years ago. It may fit better, look better, and in some cases may even be more protective. For an alternate view that agrees with the manufacturers, check out the helmet FAQ of the Snell Foundation. Snell knows a lot about helmets and their views on this subject should not be dismissed lightly, even though we disagree with them.

Occasionally somebody spreads rumors that sweat and ultraviolet (UV) exposure will cause your helmet to degrade. Sweat will not do that. The standards do not permit manufacturers to make a helmet that degrades from sweat, and the EPS, EPP or EPU foam is remarkably unaffected by salt water. Your helmet will get a terminal case of grunge before it dies of sweat. Sunlight can affect the strength of the shell material, though. Since helmets spend a lot of time in the sun, manufacturers usually put UV inhibitors in the plastic for their shells that control UV degradation. If your helmet is fading or showing small cracks around the vents, the UV inhibitors may be failing, so you probably should replace it. Chances are it has seen an awful lot of sun to have that happen. Otherwise, try another brand next time and let us know what brand faded on you.

At least one shop told a customer that the EPS in his three year old helmet was now “dried out.” Other sales people refer to “outgassing” and say that the foam loses gas and impact performance is affected. Still others claim that helmets lose a percentage of their effectiveness each year, with the percentage growing with age. All of that is nothing but marketing hype to sell a replacement helmet before you need it. There is some loss of aromatics in the first hours and days after molding, and helmet designers take account of that for standards testing. But after that the foam stabilizes and does not change for many years, unless the EPS is placed in an oven for some period of time and baked. The interior of your car, for example, will not do that, based on helmets we have seen and at least one lab crash test of a helmet always kept in a car in Virginia over many summers. Helmet shells can be affected by car heat, but not the foam. The Snell Memorial Foundation has tested motorcycle helmets held in storage for more than 20 years and found that they still meet the original standard. EPS is a long-lived material little affected by normal environmental factors. Unless you mistreat it we would not expect it to “dry out” enough to alter its performance for many years.

I had a local bike shop tell me my helmet had “dried out.” I did not bite. You wanna replace your undamaged helmet every 3 to 5 years? It may look sharp – but its doubtful you are buying any additional protection.

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If your helmet is old (as in more than 5 years), replace it.

This is not meant as a challenge. This is an honest question. Why?? The helmet – the functional part that protects you – is styrofoam. It doesnt age. Its an artificial substance. As long as the integrity of the helmet remains, I dont understand the “styrofoam is old” argument. Is there any actual real research on why a helmet goes bad over time?

Thanks

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Are you interested in a do-it-yourself project?

Thanks. Yes, there are good conversion kits. Seems like the two big companies are Currie and Bionix. This idea appeals to me – as the full ebike option, the bikes look like crap. I am tall and ride an urban bike. The idea of like going to Phoenix Bikes and picking up a tall urban bike frame, and then using a good conversion kit… I may go this route. And yes, the “cheap kits on ebay” worry me. On the one hand it is an expensive venture where you could end up with junk, on the other hand the people I have talked to love them – and if it works, I get to stay on the bike.

When I get stronger, I could definitely see getting back to 100% bike commuting, but switching back and forth between bikes so I dont blow my leg out again.

And yes, ROI is key. At $1000 say, and and WMATA says it costs me $5.20 a day to ride them (plus they are raising fairs, plus health benefits, plus being able to bike more to say the grocery store instead of using the car, plus mental health benefits of not being in the 8th ring of hell aka rush hour traffic)… that means the bike would be paid for in 192 trips. That’s not that bad.

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I am thinking strongly about getting an ebike. I am old; I have a blown hamstring. I am facing months of recovery – months off the bike – months of either driving to work *bleh* or riding public trans *double bleh* As I get older, I realize I cannot push my body as hard as I use to. But I still want to ride a bike and I would rather commute on a bike than by car or WHAMATA

Is there an ebike that people like? I saw this specialized. I mean the price tag is a joke. I have talked to a number of commuters on ebikes. They love them. Two guys did conversion kits. Saw a woman on the custis with a nice bike. Another guy last week on a trail on a bike he said he bought on Amazon. Currie lead batteries I think. Would rather not have lead batteries. Any recommendations?

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Yeah, I’ll never forget my mom explaining “courtesy accidents” to me, at length, over and over, as I was learning to drive.

OH! The worst! I have kids and I am drilling it in their head – BE PREDICTABLE – FOLLOW RIGHT OF WAY. If you are “courteous” out of compliance with right of way, then you are not predictable. I have seen terrible terrible things – when someone thinks their being courteous, but cause a near miss because the other drivers cant predict, dont understand, what is going on.

Rule number one: Be predictable.

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I agree with the above.

To me, reading between the tea leaves, this was more about taking parking (and therefore revenue) away from the hated fish market, than it was about establishing a good pedestrian / bicycle trail. If it was about being a trail, as one person said, it would not have stopped 1/2 a block short – and it would have cleaner lines that would not result in parking meter slaloms.

Our biggest problem is those of us over in the 12 & D St SW neighborhood (the north side of Maine Ave here), cant safely get across Maine Ave to the Jefferson.

That said, whatever the motive, an improvement is an improvement. It is an improvement. I know several bikers who now describe it as there preferred route. I am glad that DC is committed to these type of solutions; now we need to get NPS to work on their part of Maine Ave.

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Maybe they are looking for all those scofflaw ebikers with their illegal high speed ebikes!

NAH. It’s not part of the quota system.

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There is a sign on the inside as well. Pedego was at Rosslyn BTWD last year or the year before. Incredibly fun ride.

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What motivating thoughts have you come up with?

Endorphins! 😎

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Skulbus Driver

Heh! Um, I hope your response was along the lines of “Thank’s. I will wait.”

In the ongoing gripe about car laws being incongruous to bike transportation, pretty sure that the concern re a bus with flashing red lights is consistent for both car and bike. Visibility around the bus is highly obscured; kids have a habit of popping out from behind the bus. We all want the kids to cross safely without getting hit, by anything.

And remember, a lot of them buses, they now have camera’s recording flashing red light runners.

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