[vvill]

Had a fun morning running between stops. Saw skreaminquadz and Tim at Freshbikes, zanna (briefly) and the superhero unicyclists at Rosslyn, skreaminquadz + pals again at Reagan, then I went to Farragut Sq and chatted to a lady who I first + last met maybe 2 or 3 years ago riding with on a Bike To Work Day convoy!(before I regularly commuted) And then my colleague at work showed up at the same stop! From here the two of us just went up to the Nat’l Geographic stop and then back to Murrow Pk. I forgot my camera though

Most stops had great selections of random prizes and general bike swag. The Golden Triangle stops’ staff were very friendly! I felt a little bad for them since they had relatively little traffic or stuff to give out. I kept declining water bottles but people kept wanting to give them away, so I have 5 different ones now. I limited myself to 2 coffees, 2 bananas and 1/2 a bagel.

[vvill]

I just wore a long sleeved soccer jersey since it was a bit chilly when I set out (6:10am or so).

[vvill]

I’m just planning to hit up the two Falls Church/W&OD ones in the afternoon. Tomorrow is supposed to be my recovery day.

[vvill]

Had a slight incident on my home up Westmoreland today. There was a runner on the street salmoning (even though I’m pretty sure there is a sidewalk?). My somewhat urban-cycling commuter brain saw her, noted her presence, and continued cycling towards her and taking into other sensory input that is important to me, whilst planning to move out of her way more into the road (and into traffic – this is a one lane road each way) when the time was necessary. At this point she moved further into the middle of the road too, I guess assuming I was just going to plough into her. It’s not much different to when you are walking towards someone in the opposite direction and you both move to avoid the other. Instead she gets indignant and shouts something about “watching where you’re going”. Maybe if you want to run with headphones in you could run on the sidewalk.

Still, it was nothing compared to von Buckingham’s story. Nor my morning incidents. Really not a great commuting day. Pretty sure most drivers don’t give a hell about Bike to Work Day/Week/Bike Month.

[vvill]

Cadel!

/token Aussie

[vvill]

W-o-w, nice story.

I usually don’t bother engaging anyone anymore.

[vvill]

Thanks guys, I’ll try that. Just gotta remember to take off my light first.

[vvill]

@essigmw 19706 wrote:

Got my bell, and a bagel and banana this morning. Also, the CC pit stop crew said that they will not be giving out jerseys to those who visit each day this week, but there will be a drawing on Friday for 1 of 10 Bike Arlington jerseys.

got a bell, got a light, missed the patch kit, wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Crystal Ride Trek water bottle, made in America. They said there’ll be a chance to get a blinkie tomorrow (I’m guessing whatever leftovers from the week will be available then).

I saw dbb going north on the MVT as I was going south around 7:05am (passing under the Arland D. Williams Memorial Bridge). My brain was working too slowly to say hi.

[vvill]

On a slightly different but related topic – anyone have tips for washing helmet straps? Mine are starting to look and -smell- significantly less than clean, to the point where I took my spare helmet today.

[vvill]

When I first rode a train to school in what is the equivalent of middle school in the US, many of the trains had manual doors. Passengers could open and close the doors as they wished. It was common for kids to ride with the doors wide open – for the fun, thrill, and cool factor. I was one of them. Often the trains/doors were so old that one of them would open from inertia every time the train started/stopped anyway. These were trains that were built in 1926-1960 according to wikipedia.

Anyway. That’s just an anecdote. It’s 2012 now… metro is teh suck.

[vvill]

I’d be happy to do some mountain biking but due to time constraints, commuting is my easiest way to get miles/cycling in. And since it’s generally similar surfaces/speeds to road cycling (although you can commute on a MTB obviously) adding the odd weekend road ride is really easy. And local rides are easy to ride to as well!

I don’t have the technical handling skills needed for anything beyond beginner MTBing so it would take me a while to get up to speed. Oh, and I have pretty bad wrists too. I remember them killing me after doing a trail ride, although that’s probably bad technique.

My first proper bike was a 90s steel black Diamondback Outlook (no suspension at all) – I loved that thing and rode everywhere on it. It was stolen eventually and I replaced it with a fairly nice (at the time) hardtail which I might retrieve from my parents’ place one day. The funny thing is my friends and I used these sort of bikes for commuting/road riding 95% of the time and never changed the stock knobbies. I would often ride on unpaved surfaces too but I only rarely did true trails. I finally got a real “road” bike (hybrid) in 2005 and my first drop bar road bike last year.

@GuyContinental 19753 wrote:

My wife is super cool about the riding (I’m a nicer human when I get rides in) but Kids. Are. Tough.

Same. Same.

[vvill]

I plotted my day too:

AM
1) Go directly to Freshbikes. Do not pass GO. Chick-Fil-A breakfast perhaps.
2) Go to Rosslyn. Collect T-shirt.
3) Cross into DC via the Roosevelt bridge, stop by Murrow Pk (H + Penn).
4) Proceed east on Penn, south on 15th to hit up Ronald Reagan Bldg.
5) Cross back west on Penn past the White House, take a right up 17th for the Farragut Sq stop
6) Continue up 17th + M St (cut through Farragut Sq, and cross K St) to Nat’l Geographic. Continue west on M St until 19th, head south until K St and then I’m at work.
14 miles or so. Should be easy enough… but the time spent hunting swag/eating food/drinking coffee will be the real constraint. so in a way this will be like The Amazing Race. I’m planning on bringing my big(ger) backpack for swag.

PM – relatively normal home commute with stops at
7) East Falls Church (Tri360)
West Falls Church/Grove (Bikenetic!)

I would like to hit up CC to get a chance at a BikeArlington jersey but I doubt that’s a good idea with all the MVT traffic I’m expecting.

[vvill]

@eminva 19699 wrote:

Kudos to you MVT regulars — it is busy and narrow.

That was my experience as well… gotta get out of bed 30 mins earlier tomorrow.

[vvill]

I use a lumbar cushion for long trips when I can. I don’t like sitting in the driver seat because you can’t vary your seating position all that much. Generally I like the steering wheel as low as possible (and I steer using the bottom of the wheel for long trips), and the seat reclined a bit more than most people, although sometimes the steering wheel will then interfere with my view of the dashboard…

When I lived in London I had an old Rover that had an adjustable lumbar section for the drivers seat. That thing was awesome.

Btw, that’s great that the justice system prevailed. The last time I talked to a cop about a cycling incident he warned me it was getting more and more dangerous to ride these days :rolleyes: and that unless I was actually hit there was nothing he could do.

[vvill]

@JimF22003 19368 wrote:

Hopefully in another couple of weeks we’ll have on-road bike lanes running all the way from the Merrifield metro to Tysons at Rt 7.

That would be nice!

I noticed recently Westmoreland St has had sharrows painted on it just north of Longfellow Middle School and up past the Kirby intersection 😎 which is often part of my return commute.

[Author]

Replies