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@TwoWheelsDC 36113 wrote:

I mysteriously started getting Bicycling in the mail.

It comes as a “perk” of membership with various organizations. League of American Bicyclists, for example. So you might be getting it that way. I’ve never directly subscribed but I’ve gotten it for years. It’s not always awful, but it’s rarely good. There’s lots that I routinely skip over without a glance (e.g., Chris Carmichael).

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The local REIs very occasionally offer a Total Bicycle Maintenance course. (I’m not talking about their regular Bike Maintenance Basics course, which is too basic for what you want.) The Total course is pretty good — I took it in June 2011 at the Baileys location — and covers a lot of your interests. Its lasts for about 7 hours. As I recall we started to run out of time near the end and mainly got showed some things about bottom brackets (types, tools, methods, etc) but all the derailleur and brake stuff was very hands on. Alas they don’t offer it much. You’d think that Fall and Winter would be the perfect time, but looking at their events calendar I don’t see it listed. The following link covers all the local stores, not just Baileys: http://www.rei.com/stores/baileys-crossroads.html#classesAndEvents.

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@bobco85 34449 wrote:

On the flip side, I wonder if people would understand me if I were to draft them, then thank them by saying, “Thank you for letting me draft you!” or if it would just leave some people confused (I have a feeling that the answer would be yes and yes in different cases).

I think you’d get a mix of reactions. Probably most would just look at you puzzled. Some would think you somehow insulted them. Some would think it was cool.

I can’t say I particular care if someone drafts me as long as they keep in mind that I won’t feel obligated to ride like someone is drafting me, e.g., random fluctuations in speed. For anyone who genuinely loathes getting drafted you can always try the Chrissie Wellington tactic.

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Ugh

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I thought about buying some recently but decided against it. It’s not clear to me how well they’ll hold up over time, especially in crummy weather. (DC Rainmaker says he’ll update on this point.) Also it wasn’t clear to me how hard it is to change a tire with all that stuff on. In the end I also wasn’t convinced that this would add a lot more visibility over the conventional lights I have now combined with the my Niteize lights on the spokes. But I’m definitely willing to change my mind.

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Neck Romancer? My kid would want that just for the Hobbit reference.

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I guess I’m not the only one who watches replays of past TdFs. I’ve dropped empty packets by accident on a occasion, but unfortunately I too see a lot of folks do it on purpose. Accidents happen, but dropping them on purpose, even in a race, is just flat wrong.

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They lost a potential sale today. I went in to test ride a bike or two as I’m thinking about upgrading to a better tri bike. The first person I saw when I walked in was a mechanic. I said “how’s it going,” and got in return a “who the $%^& do you think you are” silent stare. Okaaay. So the place has no customers. I browse around a bit and get totally ignored. I’m thinking, “I’ve seen this movie before and it sucked,” so off to Bonzai I went. Perhaps if over the next year or two I hear some strongly contradictory opinions I might give them another chance. But it’s not like the area lacks alternatives.

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@PotomacCyclist 30599 wrote:

I had a great time at the race, although my time was a bit slower than expected. Could have been the fact that I veered off-course on the swim. Going from the dock to the 100m buoy was at an angle to the rest of the upstream buoys. I kept going straight after the first buoy, which meant that I was actually heading over to Virginia.

Funny, I went off course at the start, too, but towards the DC shore. I’m still not sure what happened but part of it was I got really distracted by the sight of MLK. “Oh, look at that, you can see it really well from here!” One of the kayakers starting yelling at me. I couldn’t hear exactly what he said but I’m sure it was something like, “Hey Bozo, the race is over there!” The swim route was in the shape of the Washington Monument. But from the looks of my Garmin results, that Monument was designed by some pretty drunk architects.

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@consularrider 30532 wrote:

I don’t think the weather could have been any better! I was a marshal on the lower half of the bike leg (basically riding up and down Canal Road from Georgetown to Chain Bridge). It was a real joy riding from West Potomac Park up to Chain Bridge before sunrise to check out the course. The best part? No traffic other than a couple of trucks finishing up the cone placement. I just hope the five of us marshals didn’t get in anyone’s way (it didn’t seem like we did).

No marshalls got in my way. They were there and visible, which is what you want. And let me take the opportunity to do now what I meant to earlier, which is to thank you and all the other volunteers. They were out there in force, doing what can be a long, hot, and thankless job. Though it sounds like your job was pretty sweet.

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The Nations was most excellent this year and as far as I’ve heard there were no major health or injury incidents. I always park on GW campus before the race specifically so that I can walk across the pre-dawn Mall. The scene this year: a brilliant Jupiter reflecting on our newly refurbished reflecting pool along with the Moon and Washington Monument. Totally cool. The weather was spectacular, the Potomac was warm, and, uh, cleanish. It turns out that you can get a great view of the MLK monument from the middle of the Potomac. The only downsides are I’m sore as hell today and my time wasn’t quite what I wanted. Oh well.

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@4st7lbs 29905 wrote:

Anybody here read “The Yellow Jersey”? That’s next after I finish “Confederacy of Dunces”.

Yep. It’s a good read and certainly an easier and lighter read than Confederacy of Dunces. I also enjoyed Shield’s The Race as well as his sequel The Tour, though Yellow Jersey is better. Fun fact: Michael Cimino tried to film the Yellow Jersey with Dustin Hoffman as the protagonist. In the end Cimino and the studio decided that adequately capturing the TdF in a movie was way too difficult.

Some other books:
Bike Cult by David Perry. This is an “all things biking” extravaganza. Some of the technical stuff is now dated but you’ve really got to admire how much information Perry packs in.

Bicycling Science by David Gordon Wilson. I love this book. It’s full of rather technical physics, engineering, bio-mechanics, physiology, etc, so it’s definitely not for everyone.

Right now I’m reading Road To Valor by McConnon and McConnon. It’s about Gino Bartali’s efforts against the Nazis. I’ve only just started it but it looks great.

Another fine, but grim, book is The Cyclist: A Novel by Viken Berberian.

As far as triathlons go, I enjoyed Iron War by Matt Fitzgerald. It’s about the Mike Allen-Dave Scott Ironman rivalry. It’s a controversial book because both Allen and Scott criticized it.

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Green lanes are wonderful as long as they have the right kind of texture. I’ve been on lanes elsewhere that got slicker than snot in the rain.

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Perhaps they are just airheads like me. They keep the helmet strapped to the bag so that they won’t forget the helmet, but then forget to put the helmet on.

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Here’s a little quirk that might confuse some folks. (Or perhaps just me.) If you go to http://www.bikeplanner.org rather than bikeplanner.org it takes you to a similar site but for the Montreal area. You apparently can’t use this map if you did take the trouble to scroll down to our region. But, hey, next time I’m in Montreal….

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