[SarahBee]

@komorebi 203452 wrote:

I’m cancelling this ride — it looks like the worst of the rain will be precisely during the period when we’d be riding.

For tomorrow, everyone who’s not on my FS team should stay indoors, where it’s nice and dry. Everyone who is on my team should make sure to get outside and ride at least 1 mile, and preferably 10 miles.

I can verify that the worst of the rain was precisely when we would have been riding

[SarahBee]

@LeslyJ 203091 wrote:

It’s been awhile but I’m looking forward to trying this again.
Sorting out my winter gear and will be ready to ride Jan 1.

Lesly!!!!!!!! So glad you are joining up again. I can’t remember the year but we were back and forth on the leaderboard the whole time. You were/are my inspiration!

[SarahBee]

I am organizing a Civil War Forts of DC ride(s), so stay posted. It’s a longish full route even with no stops and super hilly since all the forts are on the ridgeline. At least 2 rides, maybe 3. We’ll see, but this is on my bucket list after hearing about it during my tour of the Congressional Cemetery.

[SarahBee]

Very interested in doing some more MD rides. For those of us not keen on using metro to ride start, can you recommend parking nearby ride start or at good pick up point?

[SarahBee]

@historygeek 203246 wrote:

New Deal Landmark Pointless Prize

There’s so much history around us, and I, for one, am going to need biking destinations (since they can’t all be coffee shops and breweries this year). For those days when it’s too cold to stop outside for long enough to eat or drink– here’s a pointless prize for visiting New Deal projects.
What it is: During the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt promised a “New Deal” for Americans. Federal programs, including the CCC, WPA, and others, came to be collectively known as the New Deal. Projects ranged from new trails in parks to municipal buildings to recording folk music and oral histories. I’m defining this broadly– so if it’s federally funded and from the 1930s, we’ll count it.
The rules:
Take a bike-related pic at your favorite New Deal site. Post it in the “New Deal Pointless Prize” channel. Prizes awarded for:
Visiting the most New Deal sites by bike (and posting each to the channel).
Best New Deal Pic.
The Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Prize for best historical description.

Need help getting started? Go to https://livingnewdeal.org/map/ to find a map of New Deal sites. But don’t limit yourself to these. Want to travel to a location where a famous artist lived while working for the WPA? Go for it. The site of a great music performance funded by a federal arts program? That counts.

Fun fact- WPA also constructed the Pittsburgh Zoo. If you happen to head that way during FS, check out the carvings on some of the enclosures.

[SarahBee]

@Steve O 203038 wrote:

5:15 was sold out. The earliest ticket left was 7pm.
I bought it, and will ride out with the group and then sweet talk the people at the gate in the hope there are no-shows. If my talk is not sweet enough, I will wait until they let me in and ride home all alone.
If others buy a later ticket, perhaps we can ride back together.

I know I would have a hard time saying no if you also have fabulous bike lights to go with that sweet talk!

[SarahBee]

@lordofthemark 203084 wrote:

So, I am not going to sponsor a reindeer game this year, but it might be fun to give side commentary.

Wormholes is one of my favorite games – not only because when I was a newbie, and considerably more cautious about road riding, I relied more on wormholes to get places without riding on arterials – but because they relate to an interesting urban planning phenomenon.

As many of you know, a lot of urban planners and “urbanists” like street grids – they provide a lot of routes to walk and ride that avoid major roads, they diffuse cars on multiple streets so that the arterial (where most businesses are located) does not become so hostile to walking and riding (or so congested). Some people find them aesthetically pleasing (there are curvilinear grids – think Fairlington – where hills make a rectilinear grid a bad idea) The rectilinear grid was the most common form for American cities and even small towns from the mid 18th century on through the 1920s or so.

OTOH many Americans prefer the cul de sac form. While it can mean long detours for trips within the neighborhood (thus bad for walking and biking) it means that many parts of the neighborhood have minimal auto traffic, and people like to live in those parts – its quieter, it can be very easy to walk right near their house, they are comfortable with kids playing in the street. Thats more important to them than walkable arterials, because walking for transportation is not important to them.

A compromise between the two forms is the Radburn design. Founded in 1929, it today can be seen as an alternative to the classic cul de sac (though some see it as influencing the classic cul de sac) Like the cul de sac design, streets end in dead ends, feed into collectors, which feed into arterials. But there is an alternative system of paths that connect areas, providing walkers a seperated, and usually more direct, route through neighborhoods. While it does not solve the problem of the “traffic sewer” arterial, it at least avoids the long circuitous routes to get around within the neighborhood.

While its not exactly the same thing, I see the wormholes linking cul de sacs and other lower volume streets as having parallel benefits – creating more direct, and low stress, walking and biking routes in an otherwise classic “mid century” suburban environment. One big advantage of them – its a lot easier to retrofit a suburb with them, than it is with a classic urban street grid.

Cutting a new street to connect up cul de sacs pretty much means condemning and tearing down a house – both financially and politically a huge obstacle – and all the objections from everyone who will now have “cut through” traffic they didn’t have before (indeed we continue to see places where existing street connections are cut) New street grids in old suburbs are virtually always done where a big parcel is redeveloped (see Mosaic District for example, Potomac Yard in ALX, or the efforts in Tysons)

Connecting them up with a short trail, as is done in quite a few parts of Fairfax County, requires condemning an easement on only a small piece of someone’s yard, and is not as objectionable to everyone. (though I don’t think most FFX wormholes were created quite that way). It can give us many of the benefits of a grid. while being something acheivable.

LOTM- I think you should write a book on “wormhole suburbanism”. It could just be the most important philosophy/phenomenon in post-modern urban planning to fix our car-centric and highly disconnected cul-de-sac culture.

[SarahBee]

Huge thank you to everyone that came out for the ride tonight. Even though I couldn’t visit my biological family, was so nice seeing some of my bike family; it made my holiday that much better. Got to ride some of DC’s new bike infrastructure- yay! For those of you maybe organizing rides for FS2021, highly recommend the toasty evening bonfire at the Wharf!

[SarahBee]

Running about 10 min late. Sorry folks

[SarahBee]

Thanks. Feel free to tagalong for tonight’s ride if you don’t have other plans!

[SarahBee]

Wow- my office makes the list! Ford House Office Building!

[SarahBee]

@SarahBee 203235 wrote:

Ride route below. Stops include National Christmas Tree, DC Holiday Market, City Center, Canadian Embassy Tree, Capitol Tree, Botanic Garden, Union Station, Capitol Hill neighborhood-winning decorations, Yard Park Lights, the Wharf, & National mall loop. Hope to see you there!

Updated route link

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/34897400

[SarahBee]

@komorebi 203239 wrote:

Thanks for organizing, Sarah B! I’m planning to be there for at least the first part of the ride.

Going to make a few tweaks to the ride with gps route tonight based on some scoping. I’ll repost and thanks for organizing great rides that inspire me to try

[SarahBee]

@kwarkentien 203240 wrote:

I’m planning to drag my sorry butt out and ride this too!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Rode part of the route today and so far the Christmas trees were amazing! Will not disappoint! Depending on how we’re all feeling re: cold, there are a few shortcuts we can take to hit the hot spots!

[SarahBee]

Ride route below. Stops include National Christmas Tree, DC Holiday Market, City Center, Canadian Embassy Tree, Capitol Tree, Botanic Garden, Union Station, Capitol Hill neighborhood-winning decorations, Yard Park Lights, the Wharf, & National mall loop. Hope to see you there!

Link update:

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/34897400

[Author]

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