[TwoWheelsDC]

@jabberwocky 21358 wrote:

I’d vote for a new bike, unless you really really love the one you have now. The primary reason is that for a bit more money you’ll have a whole new bike, and you’ll still have the one you have now as a backup.

**sigh** I don’t really have the space to do that. We barely have enough room for my fiance’s bike, my commuter, and N+1…and right now, the commuter is stashed under the porch stairs, which is bad enough.

[TwoWheelsDC]

@jnva 21234 wrote:

I went for a 10 mile run yesterday west of Vienna on the wod. Must have been passed by 100 bikes and only 5 called out passes, and only 1 did it correctly calling back far enough to give me time to react. The others called out when they were right on me and already passing. No bells at all which I found interesting. It doesn’t really bother me that bikers don’t call because I can hear them coming. I just wonder at what point they will learn their lesson and begin calling passes.

When on my bike I always always always ding my bell and slow down. It has saved me from hitting people many times. And it needs to be done far enough in advance so that the runner has time to react. This is why a bell is better than calling out IMO. It can be heard farther away.

What do you mean by “time to react”? If you are running/walking in a predictable fashion, it seems that you shouldn’t need to “react” to anything. I don’t say this to imply that cyclists don’t really need to call out passes, but I think the problem extends beyond cyclists not announcing, particularly with trail users who don’t know why cyclists call out passes and users with headphones on and/or who are oblivious to their surroundings. Yesterday, for example, I was approaching a woman pushing one of those SUV strollers. I saw her look over her shoulder, so I assumed she saw me, as right after that she started moving to the right of the trail. I also slowed and started moving to the left and just as I got out “on your…” (when I was probably 25 feet behind her, going maybe 10mph) she quickly pulled a 180 with the stroller across the whole path. Because I had slowed, I was able to stop in plenty of time, but it seemed pretty clear to me that it wouldn’t have mattered how well I called the pass, because she just was too absorbed with entertaining her kid that she had no idea of what was going on on the trail.

[TwoWheelsDC]

I’ll admit that I don’t call 100% of my passes. I usually make a judgment call depending on the situation. If there are younger kids riding, I generally choose to slow down and pass as far left as a I can, since my experience is that kids tend to veer off suddenly when they hear a bell or a loud shout behind them…although if their parents are behind them, I’ll call the pass to the adult. Also, if I’m passing at a slow speed and have tons or room to go around, I generally feel like calling the pass is unnecessary. This happens more on the W&OD, which is alot wider than the MVT or CCT. If I’m going fairly fast and/or don’t have as much room to pass, I always call it out. But for every ped that gets all uppity about me NOT calling out a pass, there are probably 5 that react as if I’m shouting at them to get the hell out of my way, which clearly is not the purpose of calling a pass. Unfortunately, the expectations of peds and cyclists don’t match up very well, so it seems like you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

[TwoWheelsDC]

@consularrider 21200 wrote:

I was sweep ride marshal for the 50+ mile route out to Purcellville. With the ride to and from the start in Reston, I got my third straight Sunday century in. Too bad all three were the length of the W&OD and back.

I think the ride had wrapped up by the time this happened, but did you happen to see/hear what happened in the area of Difficult Run? It looked like maybe two bikes collided, or a runner and bike collided, maybe around 530ish, but there were so many people on the scene by the time I rode through that I couldn’t tell what the deal was.

[TwoWheelsDC]

I commute on a cross bike that is basically a slightly more upright road bike, but with wider knobby wheels, and my road bike is 2-3mph faster under just about every circumstance (even more so when climbing, due to weight), so I think that tires and seating position (road bikes generally give a more aero position) are the biggest factors…but depending on your friend’s bike components, he/she could have less friction in the drivetrain. Also, the combined masses of each of you and your bikes will be a small factor, with the whole gravity thing and all.

[TwoWheelsDC]

Tour de Cure was today out on the W&OD, so I imagine we’ll be seeing a lot of mileage put on by the DC community. I ran into the ride unwittingly while doing my own century ride and there were a TON of people out there.

[TwoWheelsDC]

Most of the local segments I do are on my steel cross bike with a full pannier, so I’m embarrassed by my slow times! Maybe I’ll join once I’ve been able to get out more on my skinny-tired bike…

[TwoWheelsDC]

@rcannon100 20539 wrote:

Yeah, that is land owned by very very very rich people. I doubt the county could get a CM of extra land along 123 there.

I’d settle for a “watch out for bikes” or “bikes may use full lane” sign”, but I’m not holding my breath. At the top of the hill, there are houses all along 123, but with the exception of a hidden path on the north/east side of the road, there are no sidewalks or crosswalks until you get into McLean. I also get the sense that the Potomac School is one of those places where students are only allowed to arrive by motorized transport, given the lack of pedestrian access anywhere in the vicinity.

[TwoWheelsDC]

@Tim Kelley 20535 wrote:

Where is that, exactly?

Rt. 123, heading up the hill from Chain Bridge/Glebe. The county line is about halfway up, but it’s uniformly terrible the whole way up/down.

[TwoWheelsDC]

My ride would be better if Arlington/Fairfax County did something about this:

[TwoWheelsDC]

@Tim Kelley 20507 wrote:

it’s the little sidewalk s-curve part at the very top that gets most people.

Honestly, I walk this section…not so much because it’s too steep, but it just makes me uneasy given my level of handling skills. I did see a guy on a fixie (not Dirt) do the entire climb though, which was pretty impressive. Maybe I’ll try it one day when I ride my road bike instead of my commuter+pannier.

[TwoWheelsDC]

I do the reverse of this on my commute home on the days I’m feeling saucy…123 to 41st St. to Military, to Nelly Custis, to Lorcom, then get on the Custis by the Giant. It’s no joke as far as hills go (5% grades or so), but it’s all short and steep…no grinding climbs. I actually prefer to go up 41st St because going down can be tough on the brakes and you can’t really let yourself build up any speed. There’s no construction on Military from Nelly Custis to Glebe, but I’m not sure about the sections south of that.

Here’s the section in question from my ride from Tuesday:

And 41st St (crappy pic, sorry)

[TwoWheelsDC]

I took Sunday and Monday off after doing my first century on Saturday, but now I’m back in the game for C squad. I’ll be out of town for a wedding this weekend, but I’m hoping to get at least one long ride in. I’ll be up in the mountains, so it’s too bad there aren’t extra points for climbing!

[TwoWheelsDC]

I did my first ride with headphones last weekend…80 miles out to Leesburg on the W&OD, so I figured they might help keep my energy up. I put them on when I cleared Banneker Park and the trail started to thin out a bit. Initially, I kinda dug it, but after a few minutes I found I was so focused on the trail and what my body was doing that I had zoned out the music. On the W&OD, I find that I don’t get passed very often simply because there’s so much trail and really not that many cyclists, so I think I may be more open to headphone use when I do longer rides out there in the future. I have my first century ride out in WV tomorrow and I’m debating whether or not I want to bring my headphones…they let in a pretty good amount of outside noise, but I still hesitate to wear them on the open road.

[TwoWheelsDC]

I must’ve come through about the same time as OP…clearly there was some confusion even on WABA’s part as the small pack I was in was directed to stay left coming down from Lynn onto 50, where we inexplicably found ourselves riding into families who were riding on the same side of the road…them someone yelled and told us we were supposed to be on the right, but there was nothing to indicate that. And the people heading toward Iwo Jima were taking up the entire road, so it was pretty dicey.

Other than that though, I thought WABA did a good job directing traffic and making the route very easy to follow. I heard grumblings of registration issues, but it took me all of 5 seconds to get my little bike bib thingy, at 0630ish.

[Author]

Posts