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I am registered for the 50 States. I did it back in 2008, and it is definitely a challenge, but one that I think is well worth it. I got to explore sections of the city I had never seen before and really got an appreciation for how beautiful it is in all four quadrants. I don’t know if they’re using the same route, but if they are make sure to keep some gas in your tank for the last 5 miles. They had us go almost all the way to the Potomac and the straight back up near the Cathedral. It was brutal after all those miles. That said, it was great fun and I am looking forward to doing it again. Hopefully I’ll see some of you guys out there, too.

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As for what’s officially sanctioned, I’m sure the rules are pretty clear.

That said, if we’re asking what should constitute cheating, my thought is that people should not be denied standard treatments that are deemed medically necessary. So if you have a testosterone deficiency based on the current medical standard, you should be allowed to correct that deficiency to get it to a “normal” range as defined by current medical standards. You should not be allowed to go beyond that level and compete, but I think you should not have to be at a hormonal (and health) disadvantage just because you want to race. Getting standard medical care should not be considered cheating in my mind. The same goes with injuries. If you tear a muscle and a steroid or other treatment will allow you to heal better, you should be allowed to take that to heal, as long as you’re using the therapeutic level and not the performance enhancing level. When we talk about athletes not being allowed treatments that I as a normal guy in the public get as a default, it seems to be getting to an unreasonable place

Of course, people are going to abuse it where it can be abused, and I’m not sure how you fix that. You could probably get a doctor’s note saying that you need this treatment, and then be made to have labs taken on your sample to make sure you’re in the therapeutic zone and not the performance enhancing zone with disqualification for failure to be in the right range. But, as we have seen with the pro tour, people will always bend or break the rules. Not an easy problem.

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I was running late this morning when I got flagged down by a cyclist on the MVT this morning blocking the whole width of the trail with her bike. She needed to borrow my pump, so I was happy to help. I had to convince her to move her bike to the grass and off the trail, which took a surprisingly long amount of time to do. After a bit of pumping she got a bit more pressure in there and she asked me if a somewhat low pressure was okay, and I said it would work (and that more would be better), but not to ride off curbs to avoid pinch flats. I helped her get the chuck off the valve and started packing it up again when she said she needed it for the front tire.

This was the point when I realized that the reason for this wasn’t a slow leak or a flat she had repaired beforehand, but that she neglected to check her tires before riding (and she was more than a mile into the trail at this point). I carry a virtual bike shop in my panniers, and I’m always happy to help people in need, but it is a little frustrating that someone goes into full on block-the-trail emergency mode for something that was completely avoidable.

That said, I kept those thoughts to myself and wished her a good ride.

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@hozn 119460 wrote:

Yeah, I was kinda amazed at your tactics there; this behavior probably cost the cycling community more than any stealthy pass.

As someone else pointed out, it is also — I would say *equally* — your responsibility to look behind you before changing into the left lane. While I agree that the rider should have called his pass, you should have looked. If you don’t want to turn your head, get a mirror .

Too bad no one had an airhorn to chase you down to tell you that at the time.

I have no idea why there is so much over-reaction over folks not calling passes.

As it turns out, I do use a mirror, everyday, for this very reason. On this day I happened to not be wearing it as my cycling glasses had broken and I was awaiting a replacement pair, so I lacked something with which to attach it. I did look back, but the guy was not in my line of sight when I did so, perhaps he was hugging the right side of the trail, I don’t know.

The reason for the over-reaction? Well, I had to panic stop and almost hit the pedestrian I was about to pass because I had to take evasive action as the guy came so close to me in a 6 foot lane bounded by steel barriers on either side. Yeah, I let my temper get the best of me, but I never put the guy in danger by my subsequent actions, nor did I endanger anyone else. I got loud and I honked a horn, and yeah, I should not have done that. But he should have exercised his legal duty of due care and should not have recklessly endangered two people on a thoroughfare of substandard width. The notion that my getting loud and upset is somehow worse than that guy just doesn’t add up. I’m usually a pretty chill guy, but this guy forced me within a hair’s width of serious injury, that’s not okay. Maybe you would handle it differently if you were put in the situation, and hopefully next time I will too, but the fight or flight response is awfully hard to overcome.

Another thing to consider, if the person doesn’t get any negative feedback, how are they to know the terror and danger they are causing? If there is no feedback and no consequence for their actions, they may just think they’re an “elite” cyclist and that people are okay with their recklessness because of that self-perceived “eliteness”. Hearing someone object may (or may not) make them realize that they are causing someone else distress and maybe make them a bit more courteous in the future. I think the cycling community is more hurt by people who violate the law and endanger others than people who get upset at others doing so. If we were talking about a car nearly running me off the road and into a pedestrian I think the tone of this conversation would be a bit different.

Anyhow, we’ve beaten this dead horse, I’ve admitted that I didn’t handle it in the way I should have, and I’ll work to refrain from showing any anger at future vehicular assault.

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I take that route every morning. What I do going inbound to DC is to cross E. Basin Drive in front of the Jefferson Memorial and get on the sidewalk going right/East, taking that around the Tidal Basin. Then I cross at the light at Maine Avenue on the West side of 15th/Raoul Wallenberg and take that to the light by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing that has no real cross traffic (it is for a parking lot/gate) and get onto 15th/Raoul Wallenberg there as the light is red for traffic. From there I take the lane until the right turn at the Washington Monument onto Jefferson to 7th as you describe.

For the trip home, I used to take 9th to Madison to 15th, but the bus traffic and the noxious fumes have gotten to be too much. Now I take the 15th Street cycletrack until it ends and just keep going. I don’t use the sidewalks at all and just take the lane, too many pedestrians.

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+1 on Tom Vanderbilt’s Traffic, a really smart book that gets into a good amount of detail while remaining an enjoyable read.

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I don’t think it gets much better than this morning. I got an early jump on the day and brought some coffee in my travel mug along with the paper I usually never get to read and took a detour to Columbia Island to read the paper with coffee overlooking the Potomac. Everyone was courteous on the trail, I saw Rootchopper on the way in, and the weather was just perfect. I too am afraid of imminent disaster as I sit at my office with a big grin on my face.

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@Amalitza 119060 wrote:

While I agree that the double-pass in stealth mode is unacceptable, I have to say I also would ignore and would probably speed up to avoid interacting with someone who yelled at me then chased me down blaring a horn at me. Even if– or realistically, especially if*– I knew I had just committed a bonehead move. You may know you’re not planning on instigating a physical confrontation of some type, but the stranger you’re chasing down doesn’t know that.

*since they’re more likely to be angry and less likely to just be trying to return my taillight that fell off

Yeah, I was upset and adrenaline-filled — my response was not the best and I probably should not have done the chase or the horn. I guess I wanted the person to understand the severity of his actions and that it wasn’t okay. Unfortunately, short of getting into a collision and being subject to legal action, that’s probably not going to happen. The only times I’ve been that amped-up on a bike were the times I’ve been hit by cars or when cars have come close to doing so. It is just not something I expect from another cyclist.

Interestingly enough, that same night I had another close call on the same bridge at almost the same spot going home. I was on the right and there was a group passing me. All but one made it safely, but another person going the opposite direction was right beside me as the last guy decided he could not wait and went right between us. I could feel his wind as he did it, and both the other cyclist and me voiced our disapproval. Recently, I’ve been feeling like cyclists are putting me in more danger than cars, and I’ve been hit three times by cars … sometimes I long for Winter.

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My morning commute was beautiful and quite pleasant, until I got onto the 14th Street Bridge. I was going along at a comfortable pace and rang my bell to pass a pedestrian well in advance of my pass. As I was moving left to complete the pass I came inches from a collision with a guy who was racing along the left side silently. I yelled that he needs to call his passes, but he made no acknowledgement. Thinking that perhaps he didn’t hear me I chased him down having to get to over 22mph to do so. He continued to ignore me, even when a 115 dB horn was used to get his attention … and of course his bib shorts had the letters “KOM” emblazoned on the leg. I have a feeling I’ll find out who he is later on today via Strava’s fly-by …

Is it so hard to call your passes? If you see someone about to overtake someone else, is it so difficult to slow down a little and allow them to do so safely before you try to overtake them both? The person being overtaken always has the right of way, and perhaps an enclosed space with nowhere to escape isn’t the best place for you to act like you’re on the Tour.

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I am planning on being there.

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I would love to hear the engineering explanation for reducing or eliminating the pedestrian and cyclist lanes on the bridge.

If we assume that the average pedestrian or cyclist is 200 lbs (I’m being generous, it would likely be less than that) and take google’s assumption that the average weight of a car is about 4,000 lbs we can start thinking about this numerically. For every one car you allow on the bridge, you could have 20 peds/cyclists. They’re keeping 4 our of 6 car lanes open. Using google again, the average vehicle is about 15 feet long. Let’s call that 20 with spacing in rush hour traffic. The bridge is 2,162 feet long. So each lane can hold something like 108 cars, at about 432,000 pounds. All 4 lanes come to 1.72 million pounds or the equivalent 8,640 pedestrians/cyclists. I’ve never seen anywhere near that kind of pedestrian loading on the bridge, ever. The max I’ve seen is maybe 50, which would be 2.5 cars. Clearly pedestrians are not the concern here.

I am all for not having a bridge collapse, but instead of knee jerk decisions these things should be thought through and the reasoning explained to the public that owns and is on the hook for the maintenance of the bridge. Personally, I like the idea of shutting it down to car traffic and allowing it to be a pedestrian/cyclist boulevard. Do that for a week and I bet you find some “emergency funding” to fix the issue. I just hope that they have it open for next winter, as it is one of the only safe routes to get into the district when there is snow.

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Last night after work I went to the Nationals game with a friend who has season tickets. I biked down there and he took transit from near Chinatown. Even with the time it took me to unlock the bike and check-in at bike valet, I was a little faster getting down there. Bike valet is fantastic, it was nice being able to leave the bags on the bike and enjoy the game relatively unencumbered. The game was great too, we won in extra innings.

On the way home I had a few reminders of why I love this area so much. I went by some of the monuments at night and enjoyed the relative quiet on the roads. I had the MVT almost entirely to myself from DC to Alexandria aside from 2 cyclists and a pedestrian. When I got into Old Town I came upon a GEICO ad being filmed at King and Union with a handful of people watching from across the street (if you see one in the coming months with a guy selling peanuts, that’s the one). From there I decided to meander around the streets of Old Town instead of staying on Union the full way back to the trail.

There is something about riding at night on a warm evening that is truly magical. I think I’m going to have to find some more excuses to stay out late this Summer.

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Yeah, shortly after writing that I saw the thread on the BTWD section. Still seemed like a nice place. Too bad about their marketing practices.

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I swung by here today and didn’t see anyone, but I took the opportunity to explore Columbia Island Marina for the first time by going under the bridge. A nice quiet little area. Has anyone eaten at the restaurant over there? The hours aren’t super convenient (10-5), but it might be a fun place to grab a beer for lunch on a beautiful day.

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Alexandria: I got there on the early shift. Misha’s coffee was delicious as were the Sugar Shack Donuts. Got some maps from LocalMotion’s setup and chatted with the reps from WABA.

Crystal City: Some more folks out, although less in the way of tables with info. Picked up a half banana and Corner Bakery Coffee (not quite as good as Misha’s, but still good) and got back on the trail.

Freedom Plaza: Lots of tables and people, more Corner Bakery coffee and bananas. Got my registered-for t-shirt as well as some other swag. Saw Jon from the forum, got to chat with Greg Billing of WABA, and talked with Congressman Earl Blumenauer. For the latter two, I talked about plowing the MVT. Both agree it would be good, Greg has a meeting next week with the GWP folks and plans on bringing it up (fingers crossed). I also saw Chairman Mendelson speak and failed to win the new bike and other prizes from BicycleSpace.

My firm: had a mini-BTWD welcome station by the garage with fruit (already had my fill from the other stops) and water, which I happily drank.

All in all another fun BTWD in the books.

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