[thucydides]

If I’m reading this right the two alternatives (1&2) still under consideration do quite similar things with the trail. They’ll widen that section along the river. They’ll do this by shifting the north parking lot a bit west. They’ll then take away the two 90 degree turns and make it a more gradual S-curve. (The curve is sharper in 2.) We’d still be crossing the parking lot. They’d also get rid of the jersey barriers at the pedestrian bridge but use other means to make it hard for cyclists to go into the lot (though the need to go into the lot is dramatically reduced due to the other changes).

They had some more radical alternatives (3&4) that definitely looked nonviable and were dropped. 3 had the trail cutting to the river right after the pedestrian bridge (with the south lot shifted a bit north, I think). 4 had the trail staying next to GW Parkway all the way until the end of the north parking lot when it then — it appears — cuts across the exit/entrance lane to get to the bridge over GW Parkway. Nutty and dangerous that one.

Unless I’m missing something, it sounds like Alternative 1 is best though maybe I’m falling victim to NPS’s framing of the alternatives. They definitely seem to be favor 1.

[thucydides]

So I’m bopping along eastbound on the TR bridge. I look to my right across the bridge where I see a guy riding also eastbound. Wait a minute. He’s not in the bike lane over there, he’s riding on the bridge in the right lane with really fast moving, lane-changing traffic. I raise a hot cup of coffee to you fine sir and hope you’re still alive.

Dude, really?😮

[thucydides]

@guga31bb 75899 wrote:

To be fair, the comments on arlnow are consistently negative about everything — it’s not confined to biking. For people who live in such an amazing place, they sure find a lot to complain about.

It’s slightly better now that they banned a prominent troll, but reading comments on there always makes me feel like I’m watching the Whiners SNL skit over and over and over.

[thucydides]

I agree with rcannon100 on this. (In fact, for anyone who’s really bored here’s an article I wrote with Royce Hanson on Arlington biking a few years back. I don’t think it’s behind a paywall, but I can’t really tell for sure.) There’s a reason we have the bike infrastructure we do and it’s largely because of the actions of county leadership, often without any obvious political reward at stake. There’s much that can and should be improved that is in the county’s control, as rcannon100 notes, but we should also keep in mind the system we do have didn’t happen by accident and has some very good attributes.

[thucydides]

@consularrider 75401 wrote:

Yesterday evening and this morning I like to think I let my common sense (of which I have very little take over). I actually caught the 3A bus to Lyon Village to stop at Big Wheel Bikes for derailleur adjustments (why did they eliminate the 3B bus which I could have taken all the way to Bikenetics). This morning I hit back streets from Westover to Rosslyn. My only issue was riding up Lee Highway from Lyon Village to Lincoln, after the third lane ended absolutely none of the cars passing me were giving me the required two feet even with me riding in the center of the right hand lane. 😡

I’m trying to figure which is the more masochistic behavior: biking on Lee Highway or doing business with Big Wheel Bikes.

[thucydides]

@PotomacCyclist 73662 wrote:

Mark Allen. I couldn’t let that one get by.

FYI – I saw Mark Allen speak last winter at the Tri-Mania expo in North Bethesda. As part of the talk, he played video of the “Iron War” race with Dave Scott, pausing the video to comment on his thoughts during key points of the race. Very cool to see a legend analyzing the championship race in person.

Dave Scott visits the D.C. area too. A few years ago, he led an informal group run from Conte’s (now Freshbikes) in Ballston, and followed up with a talk about endurance sports nutrition and training. That guy is still pretty fast. I couldn’t keep up with him.

Ugh. I can’t believe I wrote “Mike.” I’ve even met him. And Dave Scott turned 60 last week. My how time flies. (And yes he’s still stupid fast. I don’t think I could do his 2011 Savageman time with a souped up ebike.)

[thucydides]

I don’t think any amount of complaining about lights will ever make the slightest difference in aggregate behavior. This is because the concern over bright and flashing lights directly conflicts with people’s prerogative to see and be seen. Furthermore, telling people to treat trails differently from roads (e.g., use a strobe on a road but not on a trail) runs up against two things. The first is the fact that no trails — at least none for any extended length of time — completely insulate us from vehicle traffic (e.g., the frequent at-grade road crossings). The second is that everyone commutes by trail and road and, lets face reality here, many of us will tend to forget to shift our lights back and forth. It’s not just the annoyance factor that JFF discusses, but rather the simple tendency to forget. Frequently I’ll have a strobe on while travelling to the W&OD and then I’ll switch the strobe to low steady once on the trail. But sometimes I forget to switch or often I forget once I cross the TR bridge to switch to bright strobe so that that &%#$# Tenleytown Metro bus won’t run me over. Now I’ve got a horrible memory but I suspect I’m pretty normal in this sort of tendency to forget to switch lights.

I don’t mean to suggest that teaching and enforcing collective norms is completely impossible (as I still have hope for people calling their passes!), I just don’t think it’s going to happen in this case. Ergo, I regard bright lights in the same way I regard the sun. There’s nothing I can do about it making the sun dimmer so I work on strategies for dealing with it.

[thucydides]

@Tim Kelley 68590 wrote:

Looks like the anchor tags got screwed up.

But scroll down, here’s the update:

Updated February, 2013 via Chris S.: There is now a single wave rack installed to the left of the main entrance. It only holds a couple of bikes and it’s not protected from the elements, but at least it’s near the front door! No bike parking in the parking garage–you could also try to use one of the decorative fences, but that might spoil the ambiance.

There’s one in the garage as well. I posted picture of both at the end of this thread.

[thucydides]

I tend to dissent from the majority view regarding trail lights, especially blinkies. I’d say a very small percentage of bike commuters commute solely by trail. In fact, I’d say the percentage is exactly zero unless there is someone out there who both lives and works right next to a trail. I suspect then that many people turn on their blinkies for the road part of the trip. Furthermore, virtually all of our local trails feature at-grade road crossings. You’d better believe I like having that blinkie at Lynn and Lee Highway. In my case I keep the blinkie lamp on my helmet, so I turn my head a tad when facing oncoming bike traffic and I can turn my lamp towards cars at places like L&L. But overall I’m not about to start begrudging folks for lighting themselves up. To me the message should be that people need to get proper lighting (ninjas on bike and foot are the FAR bigger problem I encounter on the trails) and learn to anticipate and correct the negative impact of the lighting on others.

[thucydides]

@TwoWheelsDC 66692 wrote:

As another option, if you want to avoid the hike, you can take the zig zag walkway down to the towpath and ride that to the trestle bridge and get on the CCT there (you have to carry your bike up some steps). It’s a pretty short stretch and, in dry conditions, is easily passable on a skinny-tired bike.

I do this all the time on a road bike and it’s the easiest and safest option. You’re on the C&O for only about 200 yards. I usually take it slow on the C&O but I’ve never had tire problems. You just head south on the C&O from Chain Bridge and climb up onto the CCT bridge.

[thucydides]

This is really a rant about my fellow cyclists and runners, rather than the NPS. But I didn’t see the point of creating a standalone thread. I was just on a run that took me on the MVT between TR and 14th Street. (I love running in the rain!) All along the trail I saw dozens of discarded gel packets. It was by far the most common sort of trash along the trail. Ridiculous. I don’t care if the government is shutdown. I don’t care if you’re a libertarian, right-winger, left-winger, furry, or space cadet it is never cool to just throw your garbage on the ground. You’ve got pockets. %#%&*#$ use them. The reality of course is that people aren’t littering any more than normal. It’s just that the shutdown means that NPS personnel aren’t picking up for us.

I started picking them up and very quickly found out that I couldn’t even make dent without a bag or something to carry them in.

You may be interested to hear that the favorite gel among cycling litterbugs is Gu (by far) and the favorite flavors (also by far) are chocolate and vanilla. Meanwhile over at the GW parkway I noticed that there’s a growing pile of crap discarded by motorists. I guess it’s just too much to ask someone to take that empty starbucks cup home to throw away.

[thucydides]

Most excellent and he has career potential as a stuntman.

[thucydides]

You: In full aero cranking out at least 22 mph on the trail in front of TR island at 5 pm on a beautiful weekday
Me: The guy who braked hard and took it to the grass so that you wouldn’t run over the elderly gentleman enjoying a nice ride
You: A bad cliche

[thucydides]

You: The lady who walked across 25th in front of Saudi Arabia with nary a glance at traffic.
Me: The guy who yelled, “You’re putting your life in the hands of a cyclist! What are you, nuts?” as he slalomed around you.

[thucydides]

@hoffsquared 63121 wrote:

On my way in this morning, I saw a deer almost take out a fellow just in front of me. The deer jumped out of some bushes right across the trail…just missing the guy. This was on W&OD near N. Carlin Springs.

It seems a tad early but that sounds like rutting behavior. I got plowed over by a doe once on a trail in Missouri. She was in a full-on hellbent sprint.

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