[Rootchopper]

I am sorry to hear about this and hope you are okay. Thanks for posting this so others can be wary.

I hope someone from WABA reads this and then asks drivers to sign a pledge to drive responsibly. Maybe they can team up with AAA.

My daughter is learning to drive. She was – for lack of a better word – offended when she saw a cyclist on the nearly empty GW Parkway in Mount Vernon this morning. I asked her 2 questions: “Why weren’t you similarly offended when we saw all the cars in the bike lanes on 9th Street the other night?” And “Who or what is that cyclist harming?” To the latter she said “If I were driving, he’d really scare me.” To which I responded, “Then you’re not ready to drive on the Parkway.”

The anti-bike attitude is deeply ingrained in the American psyche. It’s going to take an awful lot of time (and maybe some $5 gas) to change people’s minds.

[Rootchopper]

Mark

Mute swans have orange beaks. These swans have black beaks. So they are either trumpeter or tundra swans. Then again, what the hell do I know. It’s a bird. It’s big. It’s in the river. And it’s not normally there.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rootchopper/5288796666

[Rootchopper]

It really doesn’t matter what make or model or even what components you have. All component groups today are much better than the stuff that came on bikes of comparable cost 20 years ago.

What matters most is fit. If it doesn’t fit you’ll hate the bike especially during the last 25 miles of a century. And make sure your saddle is compatible with your rear end. I’d spend $100 more on a good saddle before I’d spent it on the next higher component group.

[Rootchopper]

I’m no birder. They could have been tundra swans.

[Rootchopper]

I have a long wheel base Tour Easy that I have commuted and toured with for 6 or 7 years. It’s long wheel base provides passive suspension so tree roots and such are not an issue. It took a while to learn to trust the bike but once I did tight turns (such as the one to get on the ramp to the 14th Street bridge from the Mount Vernon Trail) became a non issue.

The one problem I did have was with the front end sliding out on slippery surfaces. I switched from a Primo Comet to a Schwalbe Marathon (which has a more aggressive tread) and this helped quite a bit. The cause was the weight distribution of the bike which is skewed to the rear when carrying panniers on a rear rack. I could have further mitigated the problem with an underseat rack. I don’t ride this bike in the snow. (I would if I wanted to buy studded tires.)

Visbility hasn’t been an issue. I have reflective material on my panniers (Ortliebs), a head and tail light on my helmet, and a reflective sidewall on my front tire. I also have a big left hand side mirror. (At one point i had one on my right hand side too.)

One big advantage of recumbents is the fact that you ride in a heads up position. You see the”playing field” much better (like a quarterback compared to a down lineman).

One thkng to keep in mind about two-wheeled recumbents is that a fall is typically a lot less nasty than on a regular bike. You’re much closer to the ground.

Larry Varney, a well known trike fanatic, told me that he thought suspension wasn’t neccessary on the Custis Trail.

[Author]

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