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You: This morning in a dark green house cleaning services car, happily sharing the road with me going down Lee Highway, suddenly turning in front of me in the bike lane to take a right turn onto a side street (N Kenmore perhaps) with no signal.

Me: Initially thinking there was no way to avoid slamming into you, locking up the brakes, bike bouncing a bit, thankful I was riding in the drops and even more thankful I didn’t crash, feeling on edge the rest of the ride in. Wishing I had worn my Contour although it wouldn’t have made a difference since there was no impact. Garmin says speed went from 29 to 10mph and HR from 139 to 155.

You: This morning on Custis trail, evidently disturbed by the previous incident and sick of being bounced around on skinny tires, deciding to fly off my seat bag at the same intersection where I crashed and broke my arm last year. Your nice new shiny red plastic lens came flying off and got scratched, and you ejected one of the nice rechargeable AAA cells I put in you. The useless plastic clip that was once an integral part of you may never be found. At least you had the courage to turn yourself on while in my jacket pocket so I knew you weren’t a total loss by the time I got to work.

Me: Wondering where the heck my nice Blackburn rear blinkie went?! That thing never came off. Either misplaced or genuinely lost. Rueing this morning’s commute as I walked back up the trail to retrieve you from the middle of the road, almost wishing that the van that just passed by actually ran you over. Other cyclists just previously passed on the trail fly by as I remount, confirming my thoughts that blinkies bought for $2 in a night market in Taiwan are just not worth it – upgrade to Nashbar next time.

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After checking the forecast, I had almost full on winter gear for today. Leg warmers under bike shorts, neck gaiter, snow goggles, jacket over base layer. (The only differences – in real winter I would add an extra long sleeve layer up top, and MTB shorts over bike shorts.)

Actually I’ve been wearing the goggles all week anyway – the pollen has been killing me. Makes for some interesting looks from interesting folks.

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Nice, I recently registered for this year’s Crystal Ride… maybe I’ll have a chance at a gold! It’s just a bit over 16mph average speed (although yes I would like to stop to eat/drink). It’ll be my second big organized ride (I did the Backroads Century last year). I also signed up for the CASA River ride as that sounded interesting.

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There’s swag? I’m confirmed

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You can manually designate days that you didn’t have to go into work so that your % won’t be affected. I drove in today, but it’s because I’m taking 4 other people back home in the car.

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Sure, sounds fun.

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i might be able to make this. it’s definitely close to me so i don’t have that excuse.

@PotomacCyclist 17552 wrote:

One thing nice about Bing is that it actually shows jurisdictional boundaries on its maps, unlike Google Maps:

http://binged.it/HMsFh1

depends what you search for. if you type in a zip code or say, “Arlington, VA” you’ll get boundaries. although not if you zoom in too much. weird

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I think I swerved around fairly fresh roadkill 3 times in 2 commutes last week. All squirrels, from what I could tell.

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The couple of pictures on the models look quite interesting. The netting design is a bit off-putting though.

I have a reflexite sash too, as well as two other vest options. If I leave before sun-up I’ll don one of those options.

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@americancyclo 17181 wrote:

heading both directions, I used to take Westmoreland, but now I’m strictly Van Buren. I haven’t noticed any change in my commute time, but I do feel safer going in both directions.

I take a pretty big detour around this intersection… going west, I take a left at Van Buren and then follow Columbia, cross Washington with the light (which never seems to take as long as the main W&OD light), and then take a right at Little Falls.

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The simple answer is folding bikes! I reckon most people willing to commute by metro during peak hours would be well served by a folding bike. Those who want to ride full size bikes full speed would probably not find it worthwhile taking metro in the first place.

If there were more trains more frequently around “core” areas during core hours, they could perhaps relax the rules a little (reduce the no bikes allowed hours).

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I see as many bad cyclist manoeuvres these days as I used to see bad drivers when I drove to work. Probably because I am coming through Georgetown 1 hr later than before (since DST). There’s some pretty stupid stuff though. Racing through the Lynn St intersection when it’s flashing red with 2 seconds left and annoying drivers who’ve already been waiting to make their right turn. Speeding in between lanes on M St between a moving bus on the right and other moving vehicles on the left. Not yielding to moving traffic in the circle at Washington Circle.

Some of it is from clearly experienced cyclists, which irks me more. The other day I was coming down the end of the Custis which is dangerous enough in itself when crowded, and three cyclists sped past me on the left (with no signal), and then, due to a gaggle of kids with luggage standing at the Fort Myer Dr crossing, swung right at high speed and salmoned down Lee Hwy and across the intersection, even as the ped light was red. Even stupider thing was, I ended up right behind them at the Lynn St crossing since they didn’t make that light, and all I did was slow down enough for the group of kids to make room for me to pass, and cross with the green ped light. Those are times you wish you were omnipotent and had a [Smite] button.

I just have to channel my inner Dirt, otherwise it would be too much frustration for daily commuting.

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Never seen that before! The one time I made it out there it was under construction. *ok face*

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Washington Post article is here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/todays_paper?dt=2012-03-21&bk=B&pg=3
The mention of protesting rising gas prices is odd. I never heard anything about that.

@Arlingtonrider 16868 wrote:

Did your whole group do Hains Point and then climb Walter Reed hill on a post ride-ride?? You guys are all awesome! If I hadn’t still been out riding at Hains Point, I would have been tempted to drive to the top of the Walter Reed hill to meet you with a vuvuzela greeting!

Mark did have a vuvuzela actually. Yeah Tim and Mark led us (skreaminquadz on the single speed! and myself) up there after Hains Pt. We all did Hains Pt then we gradually split off after that.

@eminva 16882 wrote:

I’ll add one picture below.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]842[/ATTACH]
Liz

Nice composition!

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@Mark Blacknell 16861 wrote:

@eminva – I’ll just endorse your post in place of my own. Really great to see so many people out there, and put some more faces to names.

Same message from me.

Great to see and ride with everyone out there. Finally made it out to see a great bike shop in Proteus, and it was quite something being with that many cyclists of that caliber out in front of the Capitol. The extra Hains Pt loop and Four Mile Run run were the icing on the cake.

Thanks of course to Pete and also eminva and MB for leading our convoy out of DC with nary a missed turn, and everyone I was drafting behind on the post-ride ride.

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