[Riley Casey]

I was listening to a story on NPR this morning about how a glass of wine a day may reduce osteoporosis in older women. This of course is just one of a myriad of such stories in the press about the millions of dollars of research spent on the most marginal of outcomes when simple exercise and diet changes work the greatest improvements – for virtually free. Hmmm lets see … expensive blood pressure medication with annoying side effects or biking a few miles a day … so hard to choose. :confused:

@vvill 24986 wrote:

Bonus life change: I used to wear braces on one or both my knees at least 50% of the time just for walking around due to tendonitis. Now I’ll use them maybe once a month. My knees feel so much better I might even try to start running again.

[Riley Casey]

The obvious question here Ann is, was anything else in your life covered in rhinestones before you took up biking?

To answer your real question however I’m on my second life in adult biking. I bought a Raleigh Tourist when I was thirty with a kids seat over the rear fender to take my new son around. I continued to ride with him across Rock Creek Park and around the neighborhood as he grew up and rode his own bikes. As soon as he hit adolescence ( aka the ” what parents? ” years ) the primary motivation for biking faded and the Raleigh was hung upside down in the garage. About 15 years ago I bought a succession of Cannondales each of three was stolen from the locked garage over the course of several years ( the insurance company finally excluded bikes ). I rode the park and various trails and worked my way up to 60 and 70 miles a day on the longest rides on cross bikes. I wasn’t much for road bikes and was too dumb to realize that 70 miles would have been a hell of a lot easier on a proper bike but there it is – or was .

Twelve years ago a medical condition required that I stop driving for six months. Literally overnight I was biking everywhere for everything and surprise surprise it was far more fun and just as practical as driving. Tipping over in front of a room full of people set me up for a new life and that fundamental change was not the medical condition, it was that realization that in a large North American urban area cars are utterly pointless for 98% of life. That made me look at cycling in an entirely new way, a way that seems a no brainer now in the days of WABA posters on every light pole and bike share omnipresent and bike racks in every downtown block. Back then it shocked and scared pretty much everyone I knew. Now my life is built around whats accessible by bike. I go to the grocery store that has bike racks rather than the one that doesn’t. I go several times a week because thats what I can reasonably carry in my panniers. It almost harks back to a 19th century motif the changes that have been wrought but I simply won’t drive unless I must and that must is a fairly high threshold.

Glad you bumped into the car that first time out. Sort of putting it on notice I suppose. :p

[Riley Casey]

Really? Think the reflective strip on my Michelin City tyres is the coolest thing about them. You should take your bike out in the dark at least once to get that ‘riding on ghostly circles’ effect for some poor driving sod.

( no, i’m not a Brit but my tires are thus they are tyres )

[Riley Casey]

Pics or it didn’t happen ( but it sure sounds nice, particularly as I noticed that the HIGH in Seattle last week was 80 ).

[Riley Casey]

Glad you started this thread Arlington, ’twas indeed a most exquisite day for a ride around downtown. I came down Rock Creek Park to find the entire parkway closed to cars but open to bikes at the Watergate. It was a short bit of expansiveness but it was nice to ride in the shade of the Kennedy Center. I didn’t get to ride past the reflecting pool or the monument grounds as my Swiss army knife was deemed a dangerous weapon by the Park Police but even the city streets were largely empty of traffic. The parade cut off any thoughts of driving south of Penna Ave and it was largely given over to bikes. The parade marshals allowed bikes to cross between the bands and floats so there were no impediments to going to the Mall from the city streets and back. I did feel more than a bit of sympathy for the high school band marching along Constitution Ave in their black uniforms though. Miss Teen DC with her automaton attendants on their float, not so much. Even the ride back through town up 14th St was far more pleasant than even most Sunday mornings. In fact the only down note ( aside from being turned away at the Lincoln Memorial ) was that Sticky Fingers in Columbia Heights had run out of lemonade. :p

[Riley Casey]

Well I’m 200 lbs of mass but I was trying to be charitable in assuming that not all the readers of the board are fat old men – like me.:rolleyes:

@creadinger 24131 wrote:

I take great exception to your comment sir. My bike is not 15 pounds, it’s more like 25 pounds. I work really hard to get that bike and myself up to speed and up hills. Haha.

Well said. Maybe we could add a quantifier word in front of the word scofflaw, like momentum. You become a momentum (mass*velocity) scofflaw when you do certain dangerous-to-others things with high levels of momentum.

[Riley Casey]

This entire cyclists are scofflaws, no drivers are the real scofflaws barb trading is tiresome. We can all be saints one moment and sinners the next given only a modicum of tiredness or anxiety or whatever colors our emotions that moment. The only constant I would venture is that a 160 lbs scofflaw on a 15 lbs bike is a very different threat to everyones well being than that same scofflaw behind the wheel of a 2000 lbs SUV traveling at 50 mph.

[Riley Casey]

So many good suggestions on ‘should haves’ and ‘gotta haves’, way more than I can contribute to. On the bike app front though I can recommend this wholeheartedly. Just be sure to open it after you download it as it downloads the images only after the app installs on your phone. Could be a nasty surprise when you find you need to download a few dozen high quality images on a low speed phone connection to fix that out of whack derailleur by the road side.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bike-repair/id382006079?mt=8

@rcannon100 22893 wrote:

… You can also download a bike repair app but I am not sure how good they are.

[Riley Casey]

This is a rough crowd. :p And this from a girl who rides in heels and a tutu! :rolleyes:

@acc 22541 wrote:

Hey Tim! Wouldn’t it be nice to have a real friend instead of an imaginary one?

[Riley Casey]

In a thread I started a couple of weeks ago I complained that in a twenty mile ride I heard only one pass called. I guess I made it seem like I was unhappy that cyclists were not calling passes on me when in fact the point I was trying to bring attention to was that none of the cyclists I was nearby in all that ride were even making an announcement of passing pedestrians.

Someone early in the thread posted a response that said that while bells were not a bad idea that they were not a universal solution. I have to suggest that they are the closest thing to a universal solution that we have on hand. Bells have been associated with the approach of a bicycle since at least the days of the Little Rascals films of the 1930s and I would expect even earlier. Its impossible to say what might or might not have ameliorated the tragic accident that has occasioned this thread but it’s clear to me in all my years of riding that a bell is MUCH more clearly identified by pedestrians than any sort of voice warning. The actual content of voice communication is too easily distorted by distance and ambient sounds. A bell is a unique sound. I would very much like to see some sort of agreement among the cycle-centric people on the forum that bells are the best answer to warning pedestrians of the approach of a bike and further I’d like to suggest that this go further, that organizations like WABA make it a meme in general that bells be used often and vigorously.

Calling passes to other cyclists is a separate topic to my mind. Not too many cyclists are on the path deep in conversation with the person next to them and pushing baby strollers. Making the bell warning as close to universal as possible is for the their benefit.

Oh, and those miserable little bells on the CABI bikes need an upgrade too.

[Riley Casey]

I dunno, its hard to beat this http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=12530140 for just plain machismo. All in all though I have actually found toy store bells to be a good choice. Heresy I know but there it is.

[Riley Casey]

99 bikes max ? Such a bummer. I’m thinking thats the sort of thing that “The Taming of the Shrew” grew from. :p

[Riley Casey]

As I remember the scenery in the south of France – not to mention the air – was better than Crystal City but to each his / her own.

@Dirt 20587 wrote:

That would be soooooooo awesome! We were talking about the number of vacant buildings in Crystal City. I might buy one of those, build a ramp and switchbacks between floors and get some vert there. Just detour the MVT into one end of the building and then out the other end. Maybe I’ll buy more than one.

[Riley Casey]

… If I could meet and wave hi to all my friends from the forum that I only see once or twice a year.:o

[Riley Casey]

Climate Ride is rolling past my office window about 100 yards from the CCT Silver Spring entrance. Go riders go!

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