[wheelswings]

Does this friend have something in common with a… doorbell…so to speak? If so, it sounds like he would be a perfect fit for team 12.

[wheelswings]

@TwoWheelsDC 130955 wrote:

It’s also important to remember that if you don’t keep your core warm, your extremities are more likely to get cold. If your core is warm, your body is more willing to send blood to your hands and feet.

I can be sweating like a pig under my jackets, and at the same time my fingers and toes will be painfully icy. I beg my circulatory system to push along that toasty core blood, but for some reason it does not travel to the extremities.

My solutions are tin-foil on the thumbs, surgical gloves, multiple pairs of mittens and gloves, and my newly acquired bar mitts. I find it also helps to remove your hands from the bars (when not using bar mitts) and hold them down at your side while waiting at traffic lights….this seems to increase blood flow to the fingers. Also I make frequent stops at grocery stores en route… sometimes you just need a little warm-up time, and then the rest of the ride will feel great.

[wheelswings]

I saw you and I sensed I knew you, but I couldn’t make out who you were! Good morning.
I was probably wearing more clothes than you, at least on my leg…sitting here at my desk I noticed a lump in the knee of my pants. To my surprise, I proceeded to pull out a T-shirt, a relic of my last laundry! No wonder my pants seemed so warm and comfy on the morning commute. Guess I should check the mirror more often!

[wheelswings]

Grateful for all the advice on extending battery time…this is very helpful! Here’s one more question:
Many of my rides involve short stopovers (usually an hour or less) to buy groceries or do eldercare or other visits. Does it drain the battery more when I ask Strava to temporarily suspend my ride? I turn my phone screen off, but I know that Strava is tracking my location (waiting for the next segment of my ride). If I’m running low on battery at these midway points, does it use less power if I end my Strava ride and then later start the new one from scratch?
Thanks!! Happy New Year. w&w.

[wheelswings]

@TwoWheelsDC 130670 wrote:

as love segments will constantly be updating.

Lol. Indeed… that much I understand!

But here you are speaking in Greek: “make sure live segments are turned off” … what are these “live segments”?

Thanks!!

[wheelswings]

I’ll be out there pulling a peloton.

J.K. They pass me like a thoroughbred passes a burro.

My girls and I rode HP on New Years’ last year as part of our Arlington Loop. We were there in the afternoon. There was barely even a peloton in sight. We brought cookies to distribute, but we had to eat them ourselves! I expect the morning is more popular.

[wheelswings]

The job announcement calls it “bike-friendly” up here, but it sure doesn’t look it… I hope I’m not too late for my interview at the Workshop.

[wheelswings]

Looking forward. HUGE thanks to cvcalhoun, kwarkentien, and the entire FS organizing team. You guys are amazing…the good humor, the zillion details, the participatory and upfront decision-making, and all the hard work in the wee hours when most of us are fast asleep. Pure awesomeness, really, thank you. See you on the 7th. w&w

[wheelswings]

@cvcalhoun 130088 wrote:

all nervous breakdowns are to be scheduled after March 20

While we are on the topic of mental health…

The psychotropic attributes of bicycle riding are, shall we say, mind-boggling…far surpassing what anti-depressants, aphrodisiacs, sleeping pills, or other pharmaceuticals could do for us. It’s the withdrawal that’s dangerous, so the key is to ride every day. But if – perish the thought — life intervenes and there’s a day we cannot ride, it just so happens that I will be offering an FS Drug Prize to fill the gap.

I have several other prizes TBA.

[wheelswings]

Looking at the bright side of Lynn/Lee…

I might never have met y’all were it not for close-calls at that intersection. So I guess I have that to be grateful for.
A few years ago I determined that I could no longer be silent about Lynn/Lee. I got online and found the Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee on the web. I arranged childcare and showed up at one of their meetings. I was extremely nervous raising my hand at the BAC…this was right after some very hard times in my life, and the last thing I wanted was to be speaking to a group of strangers. My voice was shaking.
Lynn/Lee was not on the agenda, but I found a gap in the agenda where I could blurt out my concerns.
Little did I realize, some of you had been working on Lynn/Lee for years, even decades…

I kept going to the BAC meetings and I’d hear mention of “the Forum,” but I didn’t know what it was. It turned out I’d actually been on the Forum a bunch of times before, but only to check for information on snow and ice conditions during winter storms… I thought of the site as a sort of Weather Channel for bikers. I’d never realized there was a whole community of fellow commuters behind it. Now you are my friends. Thank you.

[wheelswings]

I would say the IOD is slightly safer in those first few seconds, as at least some of the regular-commute drivers are aware of the barely-visible miniscule no-right-on-red illumination. Unfortunately many still take the right despite the lit sign so you have to watch carefully and psychoanalyze the drivers. BUT I would say that it’s actually more threatening than before the second the count-down begins – the moment that drivers consider the end of the bike/pedestrian time. If I’m not in the corner launch-area near the start of the few-seconds’ pedestrian time, I need to wait through a full cycle, knowing the cars will be whipping around as soon as the count-down starts…the count-down is a joke from a biker/pedestrian standpoint, as it’s too dangerous to be in the crosswalk. It is particularly unsafe traveling in the westward direction (toward the hotel), which for me is often at night in the dark – I almost always wait out the full cycle even when I arrive during the pedestrian time before the countdown, so I can position my bike at that corner before the pedestrian time begins, in hopes that I will be seen ahead of time. As a result the wait time for us bicycle riders is now is much longer than in the bad old days when we would do-si-do with the cars for the full Walk time.
I am surprised that Arlington considers this situation to be such progress as to make a promotional video.

[wheelswings]

Yikes. That sounds scary. Glad you are more-or-less okay. That’s not one of my favorite intersections…the cars often whip around really fast. I trust the driver stopped after hitting you…?

Congrats on landing your flip on your feet. I just returned from my kid’s gymnastics competition in Baltimore. Sounds like you would have fit right in there.
Be well. w&w

[wheelswings]

@mstone 129528 wrote:

To be fair, windshields are actually designed to do that on impact: it hurts less than hitting glass that’s hard as a sheet of steel.

Exactly right. We can thank Ralph Nader for the improved windshield design.

Before Nader’s 1965 book, Unsafe at Any Speed, car dashboards were usually made of metal. Seat belts were available only at exotic auto parts stores, where they were expensive and customers had to bolt them to the car’s floorboards. Even at low speeds, a car wreck could propel passengers into the metal dashboard or snap the driver’s neck on the metal steering wheel. At mid-speed wrecks (say, 20 miles an hour), passengers could be thrown into the windshield, which was made of “safety glass” that could chisel a passenger’s face and body. Car doors were not attached to the car’s body firmly enough to withstand collision forces, and would often pop open or off in an accident, which would instantly make the car’s frame (and the passengers inside) much more likely to be crumpled by the crash.
http://www.nndb.com/people/788/000023719/

[wheelswings]

I ride my bike across my grassy yard every day to get to the front door. The grass doesn’t seem to mind… certainly not more than when I drag the recycling bin or the garbage can across, or when the kids use the space for acrobatics.

Personally I think that all suburban homes should have sidewalks out front, in the interest of safety and public health and building livable people-centric communities.

[wheelswings]

Dear fellow Custis Trail rider who passed me for barely a minute: Please do not blow your nose into the wind immediately after passing, especially if you can’t maintain your pace. I was happy to pass you back and leave you far behind. The uphills are my friend, and one day you may be too, but your snot is not.

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