Taco, anyone? (AKA breaking the chain and more)

Last Friday looked like it was going to be a great day. First of all, it was Friday. Hard to complain about that. It was also the day some of my coworkers were throwing a baby shower for me at work... there's only about a month left now until I become a dad. So, naturally I was excited about that, too.

Otherwise, it was a day like any other weekday I've had for the last three years or so. I loaded up my panniers in the morning in preparation for my regular bike commute to work. It's a nice seven or seven and a half mile ride to the office, and it's always one of the highlights of my day. About two miles into my ride, two of the bike paths along my route intersect. This is where things got interesting last Friday.

There's a small incline up from Four Mile Run to the Mount Vernon Trail. I stood on the pedals to ride up it. In a matter of a split second, I was lying on the ground on my right side, my bike still between my legs, but obviously no longer upright. My feet had come unclipped from my pedals, so getting up was pretty easy, and the adrenaline masked the pain of the cuts and bruises that were already forming.

A cyclist behind who had been riding close behind me and obviously saw me fall stopped and made sure I was okay. After I assured her that I was fine, she pedaled on, and I began to look over the condition of my bike to try to figure out why I had fallen do suddenly and what damage, if any, had resulted. This is what I saw.

My wheel had gone from a nice straight, true wheel to an item of Mexican food, severely tacoed. The only other damage to the bike was a broken chain. The only hypothesis I can come up with to explain what happened is that the chain gave way and somehow whipped it's way into and among the spokes in such a way as to compromise the wheel, damage it irreparably, and bring me and my bike crashing to the ground. I'm still not sure how even that could have wreaked such havoc, but I am at a loss for all other possible explanations. (I do, by the way, clean and lubricate the drive train fairly regularly, so I'm not quite sure even what caused the chain to go...) Remarkably, the fork and rack seem unscathed.

So, I had to make the dreaded call of shame, have my poor pregnant wife get out of bed earlier than I know she would have liked, and ask her to pick me up at the nearest convenient road for me to walk my wounded bike and body to so I could throw my bike in the back of the car and get a ride to work. Thanks again for coming to my rescue, babe!

Not how I had hoped that Friday would go. And my bike wasn't all that was damaged, as you can well imagine. I had a couple bumps and bruises, largely not too visible, except for this, the back of my right leg. 

This picture was after two or three days of healing. I'm pretty well healed  up now, though.

It's been a long week without bike commuting. I've had to readjust to taking the metro this week, a bit of a painful process since it almost doubles my commute time and makes me susceptible to crap like this, which is what I had to contend with for the commute home/to class on Monday. Took me nearly an hour at the station just to to get myself on a train that day. When Belna's (my bike) in working order, I can more or less make a round trip to the office and back in that same hour.

I have placed an order for a new front wheel and chain, which I should have in my possession by early next week. So, my bike and I will be back up and at 'em soon, once again able to relish the joy that is my bike commute.

Oh, and the wheel's a special one, so more to come for sure about it here, but for those who want the inside scoop in the meantime, it's got a Shimano Alfine generator hub. Very exciting...

Wind, anyone?

Some days are better than others for riding. This week has generally been beautiful riding weather. It's been unseasonably warm - warm enough even to forgo the fleece I normally wear for a little added warmth on my morning rides to work and instead wear long sleeve tee shirts in the morning and short sleeves even a couple of the afternoons.

Today is no exception. The weather this morning was gorgeous. Temps in the mid to upper forties for the ride to work. Highs today expected to be near 70. It was a little breezy on the way in to work, but only pleasantly so.

And then... I get to work and see the rest of the day's forecast. I'll let the pirctures do the rest of the talking. Suffice it to say, I'll be dealing with quite a headwind heading home!!!




Mashup image of the forecast conditions for today from the National Weather Service website.

   


This will likely be me this afternoon going home from work...



What a stud!

Last things first... I have lots of catching up to do, but I thought I'd start with news from today.

I was pleasantly surprised last night to see that OPM had already announced a two hour delay for this Monday morning due to anticipated icy conditions on the roadways thanks to freezing rain and drizzle overnight.

So, I gladly slept a little longer this morning (I'm not a morning person), and then mounted my studded Nokian bike tires first thing after getting dressed.

They're Nokian Suomi Ice Speed tires (700 x 35) with 100 studs per tire. They were easy to install and fit very nicely on my wheels.

I'd never ridden studded tires before so I didn't know exactly what to expect in terms of ride quality, etc.

Off I rolled for work mid-morning. The streets were actually in really good shape. None of the big patches if ice anywhere I'd been led to expect by local forecaster scare tactics. But knowing that if I went over a patch of black ice that happene d just to look like wet pavement gave me serious peace of mind.

The ride on the tires was not bad at all. Sidewalls recommended 49-72 PSI. I went with 65 since I'm a heavier rider and knew I didn't need it real low. The tires are knobby, so they ride like MTB tires, but the studs make for a noisy ride. I noticed people on the sidewalk looking over like, "What the heck is all that racket?"

I did encounter a couple overpasses and bridges along my route where the tires were of great benefit. It was slushy ice by the time I went through after ten o'clock, but the added grip of the studs was noticeable.

I like the new tires. I used to dread reports of possible snow and ice because it meant I would possibly have to ditch my bike in favor of taking the train, especially some trails don't always get the same anti-ice treatment that roads get.

Of course the forecast calls for much warmer weather the rest of the week so they'll probably come off as quickly as they went on. But I thank the weather gods for a little extra sleep this morning and a chance to try out the new tires!

Here are a couple quick pics I took at lunch of the new tires on my bike.

Sample size limited, but so far two thumbs up for my new Nokians!

Getting Kids to Bike to School

A very interesting post appeared on the Freakonomics blog a couple days ago about how to get kids to walk or bike to school. They discussed the findings of an academic paper that studied the effects of a program that gave students the chance to win a prize (an incentive, or bribe, if you will) for riding their bike to school.

 

A new working paper examines a program in Boulder, Colorado that attempted to incentivize kids to bike or walk to school over a span of several years. The program began with a $10 cash prize for the first two years, but then switched over to a $10 bike store coupon thereafter. One lucky student who rode and walked to school every day during a “prize period” won the coupon.

 

...biking and walking to school increased 16 percent during the prize period. 

 

In the Boulder experiment, children who won the lottery were excluded from winning future lotteries, but remained actively commuting to school for the next two weeks. After this, however, they went back to normal. Problematically, the 16 percent increase in walking and biking did not exist during non-prize-periods.  

 

It's an area ripe for research and greater understanding, especially since, as they point out, "[f]rom 1969 to 2001, the percentage of self-commuters [to school, i.e., walkers and bikers] dropped from 41 percent to 13 percent."

 

There are a lot of factors at play in the decline, I'm guessing. Among them are the intensification of the suburban sprawl problem, the shift of populations to those sprawling suburbs. Why is that a problem? Greater distances between school and home, a confusing street system of cul-de-sacs lacking the connectivity of the more traditional urban grid pattern, and an over-reliance on major, high-speed arterial roads unfriendly to cycling (even by adults).

There is also irrational fear on the part of many parents, cycling-unfriendly local law enforcement and school administrators.

In any event, the research findings were interesting. They show that incentives helped to induce the desired behavior. This is far from surprising, but it begs the question, what else can be done to incentivize cycling behavior? Providing the infrastructure for it to happen safely is one way. Changing attitudes and behavior is another, through efforts like Michelle Obama's Let's Move program.

Short of cycling and walking, I'm gonna put on my old (OK, 30-something) geezer hat and wax poetic about how things were "in my day", when you rode the bus to school if you were too far away to walk or bike. I don't understand what happened in the last twenty years to make schools look like this...

...but it's gotta change.

CaBi for Alexandria Approved by City Council

Great news! Capital Bikeshare one step closer to coming to Alexandria!!! As reported in an e-mail from the president of the Alexandria BPAC (Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee), the Alexandria City Council voted in favor of expanding the Capital Bikeshare network to Alexandria. AS he wrote:

I want to thank everyone who sent an email to city council as they said they were overwhelmed with emails of support.

Mine was one of those e-mails. In one of those cases where you realize you can influence local government so much more than state or federal, my e-mail, submitted earlier in the day to the mayor, the vice mayor and all council members through the city website, actually received a fairly rapid response, from the vice mayor no less:

It has my support.

Kerry J. Donley
Vice Mayor

Sent from my iPad

According to Froggie, the first six stations are to go in spring or summer 2012. They're almost all in Old Town, mostly along King Street, but it looks like they're planning a bike share station at my Braddock Road metro as well. Froggie's going to have a followup piece on Greater Greater Washington tomorrow, which I assume will be cross-posted on his own blog as well.

Yay for the coming arrival of CaBi in Alexandria!!!

Close Call

I had a bit of a close call on the bike last night on the way home from work. Details of the encounter are below, but it involved me and one of these Hop On Hop Off DC Double Decker sightseeing buses. I'm including a screenshot image from Google Maps of the place where the encounter occurred.





Click for larger image

I felt threatened enough by it to know instantly I wanted to report it to the company. I did my best to read out and remember the license plate number and stopped to enter it into the notepad on my phone as soon as I could safely get off the road and do so.

So, here's the message I just sent to the company that operates the buses. (Text/format is based on a sample e-mail I'd seen shared one time for contacting Metro or other local transit agencies to report dangerous bus driver behavior.)

To Whom it May Concern,

I would like to document a bus driver (from your company) who passed me, while I was on my bicycle, with only about 1 foot of clearance, nearly running me off the road into the curb. Please note that DC law requires three feet of clearance for safe passing of a bicycle by a motor vehicle. The following are the details of the incident.

Bus license plate: Maryland tags 01P 237 (or 01P D37) I did my best to remember the license plate number and write it down as soon as possible given the circumstances.

Time/date: Approx 5:40pm yesterday, Wednesday, September 28.

Location: East Basin Dr SW near the Jefferson Memorial. (see link for Google Map view of the site of the incident: http://bit.ly/oX4H2x) 

Incident: I was riding in to the right side of the lane on E Basin Dr SW where it forks right away from the entrance ramp to 395. Driver passed me unsafely by passing within my lane and much closer than the legal 3 feet of space. I estimate it at approximately one foot. I was honestly worried that the rear end of the bus was going to brush me if not worse. The driver's maneuver forced me all the way to the curb. I had no extra room to maneuver. 

I request that the driver, and all drivers (if not already standard training) be informed of the 3 feet passing rule and all laws related to sharing the roads with bicycles.

I am an experienced bike commuter, having traveled to work by bicycle along this route almost every day for the last two and a half years. At the time of the incident, I was following all road rules and operating my bicycle in a safe and predictable manner. 

The driver could have waited a few seconds until the the drive becomes two lanes wide to change lanes and safely pass me with more clearance. Instead he chose to pass dangerously close. I appreciate your help in making the roads safer for all parties concerned.

So that's what I sent. I really was worried for a second that the rear end of the bus was going to hit me. In a contest between a bus which ways many tons and a cyclist on a 25 pounds of bike, the bus will always win. The driver literally would have had to go the 15 mph I was traveling for another five seconds before the road widened and he could have passed safely.

He did all this only to come to a stop to drop off passengers Either the driver didn't feel that he needed to afford me a little room and not almost run me off the road to pass or he has an increedibly poor sense of the size of the bus and the way it handles around corners. Either way, something needs to be done. A driver of such a vehicle in a place with crowded, realtively narrow streets and lanes, like DC at rush hour, should know better.

I'll be curious to see what kind of response I get from the company. I'll be sure to post updates on this situation as they develop.

Bicycle Traffic Report

I regularly have the radio on at work in the background, usually NPR, occasionally sports talk radio. A feature common to all types of stations is the rush hour traffic report. I've never driven to work more than a handful of times a year in DC, and that's usually been on weekends. So selfishly I find these reports annoying. If nothing else, they take away from time that could otherwise be devoted to more informative or entertaining programming.

Never mind the fact that, barring major accidents, they just announce the same bottlenecks and backups over and over and over day after day. For all I know, they've been running the same report recorded two years ago every day. Being a DC traffic reporter reminds me of jokes about how hard it must be to work as a weatherman in San Diego. Weather today? Sunny and 78. Weather tomorrow. Sunny and 78. Weather the next day. 78 and... Traffic in the DC area today? 95 south slow from 14th St Bridge all the way to Occoquan. Tomorrow: 95 south slow from 14th St Bridge all the way to Occoquan. Next day: 95 south... Well, you get the point.

Since I hear these traffic reports so often, I like to imagine what what a bicycle traffic report would be like as I ride home. I think it would go something like this:

Radio Program Anchor Joe: And now for the latest bicycle traffic report we turn to our very own Roland McCogs. Roland.

Roland: Thanks. Well, we've got a few reports of roving groups of tourists on and around the Mall walking five abreast blocking the entire path near the Washington Monument, so you're looking at a slow ride from Constitution Avenue down to the Jefferson Memorial.  

The Mount Vernon Trail is a smooth ride. That rider with a flat near the 14th Street Bridge we reported earlier has courteously moved his bike to the the side of the trail for repairs. You might encounter a minor delay of if you or another rider asks to check and make sure the affected rider has everything he needs to get going again. Delays are five seconds or less.  

Capital Crescent Trail is heavy near the trailhead in Georgetown, but conditions improve as you get closer to Chevy Chase. Beware the joggers with their headphones in, though, who can't hear your bell as you approach to pass. There seem to be quite a few out today.

The sun is bright, but there aren't any sunshine delays heading west on the Custis Trail through Arlington, since the Custis is pleasant and shaded unlike those wide, but still congested, interstate highways.

Should be a nice ride home, everyone. Remember to keep your smug smile on the inside as you speed past the motorists stuck in traffic on the bridge.

Back to you, Joe.

Joe: Thanks, Roland.

It's kind of a fun to pretend anyway...

Bike Commuting Statistics

The League of American Bicyclists' blog had a post on Friday highlighting data from the Census Bureau regarding bicycle commuting. While the data is by no means new and has been hashed and rehashed in lots of blogs, I wanted to delve into the numbers a little myself. This is by no means an exhaustive examination of the numbers, just a couple things that jump out at me. From the post:

more than half of one percent of American workers use a bicycle as their primary mode of transportation to work [...] this number represents nearly 40 percent growth since 2000.

The growth in percentages is good, and I suppose given the tendency in the US to sprawl and build less than bike-friendly roads, even 0.5% isn't too shabby. But, as they point out, lots of work remains to be done to make "our communities truly welcoming to bicyclists".

There is a healthy mix of communities in the top ten or twenty. Davis, CA comes in at 22.4%, by far the highest in the country. Davis is blessed with relatively flat terrain, good weather year round, and some great infrastructure, so it's not a surprise. It's been tops on these kinds of lists for years as far I know. Other cities in the top tier of the rankings may be more surprising to you... places with less hospitable climates like vis-a-vis Davis like Cambridge, Massachusetts; Madison, Wisconsin; Iowa City, Iowa; Missoula, Montana; and Boise, Idaho sprinkled among the top dozen or so and all coming in with over 5% bike commuting rates, with the exception of Boise, which is still at a very respectable 4%.

So, what about the cities in the DC area? Only DC proper makes the list of the 70 largest cities. It comes in fifth nationwide with 3.1% of workers using a bicycle as their primary mode of commuting. Of these 70 biggest cities, it's had the 6th highest percentage growth in bike commuting mode share over the period from 2000 to 2010.

This coincides, probably not by accident, with a commitment from the DC government to expand cycling infrastructure during that time. Miles upon miles of bike lanes have been designated (most visibly the Pennsylvania Avenue lanes, but others as well), new trails have opened (namely the Metropolitan Branch Trail from Union Station eventually to Silver Spring) , Capital Bikeshare was launched, and other experiments like some contraflow lanes and the cycletracks are underway. Several of the items mentioned above weren't completed or implemented until the last year or two, so I would expect that number to grow even more in the coming years as that new infrastructure, particularly CaBi helps to make bike commuting a realistic alternative for many.

Alexandria and Arlington are the only Virginia municipalities in the DC area that are listed in a longer list of 370 cities with over 65,000 residents and available statistics on bike commuting. Arlington comes in at 1.35% bike commuters, and Alexandria at 0.7% in 2010. I'm a little surprised that these municipalities came in as low as they did, since both are making strides to improve cycling infrastructure. But both are relatively well endowed in terms of access to public transportation with Metro running through the heart of both places. Based on the very large number of bikes parked at Braddock Road metro almost any work day I've ever been down there, I'd be curious to see how Alexandria or Arlington stack up in terms of multimodal commuting (e.g., riding to the train station and then taking the train downtown).

A fellow "bike commuter" I know at work would not be counted as such by this survey. She puts her bike on the front rack of the bus from near her house to the Pentagon, and then rides into work from there. For purposes of this survey, she would be counted as a bus/transit commuter, and her bike commute leg would be completely ignored.The expansion of CaBi along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor in Arlington and perhaps into Alexandria next year will only help the bike commuting numbers. They are also likely to increase the multimodal share, which would not be reflected in these statistics.

Alexandria and Arlington stand up rather favorably to other Virginia cities, though. Only Richmond is higher than Arlington, at 2.2%. Norfolk and Virginia Beach are more or less on par with Alexandria in the ballpark with 0.8% bike commuting. Other Hampton Roads cities listed, with the exception of Portsmouth, were under 0.2%.

There are issues with the data to be sure, large margin of error being one. But overall, other factors tend to underrepresent bike commuting. As LAB points out:

*Results are based on a survey of a sample of the population. Surveys take place throughout the year. The journey to work question asks respondents about the previous week.

*The journey to work question asks about the primary mode of transportation to work. The wording of the question undercounts the actual amount of bike commuting that occurs. It does not count people who rode once or twice a week or people who bike to transit (if the transit leg is longer than the bike leg). [This goes to my point about multimodal commuting.]

So the numbers themselves may not be perfectly derived or representative, but they do provide some valuable insights and are fun to look at. The big takeaway... bike commuting is up nationwide, and more dramatically in certain cities, like DC. Let's work to keep the trend going.

More CaBi Birthday Coverage

A few links to items about CaBi's one year birthday:

• A Washington Post photo album
• League of American Bicyclists blog post
• More from WashCycle's blog

Happy Birthday, CaBi!

The Phenomenal Success of Capital Bikeshare from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

Capital Bikeshare turned one-year old today.  Quite a milestone. And by all accounts, it's been a very successful first year. (WashCycle's done a great job from the beginning staying on top of CaBi-related news items. See his CaBi posts here.) They're even having a birthday bash!

In one of those neat little coincidences, CaBi had its 1,000,000th ride on the day of the one-year mark since it began operations. I read somewhere that's an average of between 3 and 4 trips per bike per day. Pretty good for a new system that's just getting going. 

I've got my own personal bike, which I love very much, and 99% of my rides involve my home in Alexandria, which doesn't have CaBi stations yet, so I never had occasion to buy an annual membership. I do account one of those 1,000,000 trips, though. I bought a one-day membership last winter to try out the system. I really like it, and the bikes are well designed and well built for their particular purpose. If I still lived in DC proper, or even if I lived in Arlington, I would almost definitely find it worth the annual membership fee.

With the long-awaited demise of the Tourmobile stranglehold on the National Park Service (NPS), there is new hope that Capital Bikeshare will finally be able to install a few stations on the Mall and on some of the smaller neighborhood parks in the District that are run by NPS. Even without that, the system continues to expand. It's helped to get lot more people cycling in the streets of DC, and slowly but surely, most motorists in the downtown area are getting used to the idea, too.

Boston and New York are also launching CaBi-like bike sharing programs. I hope that their systems meet the same success that CaBi has had and that bike sharing continues to to expand, not only inside DC, but into other metro areas around the country.

Congratulation to CaBi on turning one and having such a successful first year. 1,000,000 rides! Here's to millions and millions (or even billions and billions [0:30]) more.

Deux mille bornes!

If you're as cool as I am (wink wink), you are no doubt aware of the card game Mille Bornes. Perhaps like me, you even played it with your friends during lunch period in school growing up before graduating to Pass the Pigs in high school. That's right. I'm just that cool.

The object of Mille Bornes is to pass mille bornes (French for 'one thousand milestones') while dodging problems (like running out of gas and having accidents) in order to travel 1,000 miles, or in the case of modern day France, 1,000 kilometers. (Maybe some day we'll evolve sufficiently in this country to adopt the metric system as well, but for now we're stuck with the arcane mile, but I digress.) 

Now, to the point of my post... Today, on my way home from work, I passed my 2,000th bicycle commuting borne for this year! Well, not literally. Only the trail has marked mileage, and it's on poles, not nifty little tombstone-like stone markers. But I have now traveled more than 2,000 bike commuting miles so far this year.

Since I've been at this bike commuting thing for better part of three years now, these kinds of milestones have become something of an annual occurence for me. I've hit the 2,000 mile mark before, but that doesn't make it any less sweet.

When you cover this kind of mileage in roughly 7.5 mile increments twice a day as I do, it's easy to forget that all those little trips add up to thousands of miles a year. Pausing to reflect and realizing I've commuted over 2,000 miles by bike at the end of August gives me more of a sense of accomplishment than I get from arriving home after work knowing I've ridden 15 miles round trip that day. 

You can also use these year-to-date totals to amaze and impress your friends! How far is 2,000 miles, for instance? Well, a quick measure in Google shows that it's roughly the distance from Alexandria, VA to Boise, ID. Not bad. Certainly has more gravity than one day's 15 miles of commuting does. It's also roughly the distance between Alexandria and Las Vegas, but since I'd much rather visit Boise in my lifetime than Las Vegas, I'll use Boise as an example. Besides, it's also fun to think that this means I have ridden far enough to get to the farms where the potatoes are grown to make those Five Guys fries I love so much!

 

More practically, keeping track of this kind of mileage figure is good in terms of bike maintenance. It's always good to have at least a rough idea how many miles you've racked up on a set of tires or a chain and cassette. Keep records long enough and you have a sense of how many miles you've put on longer lasting items like a wheel or chainrings on the crankset, much in the same way that if you're very serious about car maintenance you'd keep track of how many miles you have on your tires, your brake pads, and belts. Of course, bikes are generally a lot easier and cheaper to maintain. ;-)

Now it's time to turn my attention to the next big milestone, 3,000 miles (and beyond). By year's end I should have covered over 3,200 miles commuting by bicycle to and from work and class. 

Now if only they'd build a bridge straight across the Atlantic, that'd be far enough to go from the DC area to the southwest tip of Ireland! Erin Go Bragh!\

 

Earthquake

The DC area continues to see previews of the worldwide calamities that will no doubt spell the end of civilization as we know it in 2012. How can I be so sure about the 2012 thing?! Because a critical mass of quackpots from all over the world agree and are predicting the end of the world in 2012.

The flavor of the week for last week was flooding. Today, it was a 5.9 magnitude earthquake that felt like it lasted a good twenty to thirty seconds. At work, the office was evacuated for some time before they deemed it safe to go back inside.

This did not happen in DC, but we did have an earthquake today.

Now, following the tremor, the following update is on the DC Metro's website:

Metro Earthquake Update 1

 As a result of a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in the Washington, DC area:

·         As of 1:59 p.m., all trains are operating at 15 mph.

·         Metro personnel are conducting track inspections of the entire rail system.

·         There are no reported customer injuries at this time.

Customers should expect significant delays on Metrorail until further notice due to the reduced operating speed.

News release issued at 2:34 pm, August 23, 2011.

Much in the same vein as last week's post on flooding, I am glad that I will not have to deal with the impact and delays this will mean for everyone trying to take the train home tonight.

 

Next on the preview list for 2012... a possible brush starting Sunday with Hurricane Irene, which looks like it might come straight up the Chesapeake Bay after hitting North Carolina. If this keeps up, I predict that by mid-September, I will have blog posts about how my commute has (or has not) been affected by the Ebola virus, massive swarms of locusts, and huge firestorms.

Flood

Upon waking up this morning and checking my e-mail, I saw I'd received the following breaking news alert in my inbox. 

Flooding forces Metro to suspend Blue and Yellow line service between Reagan National and Braddock Road. Shuttle service has been set up.



Photo from the Wilkes County Photographs Collection



Were I still an everyday rider of Metro, this would be a serious pain in my behind. Instead, it just means, at worst, that I need to avoid a Four Mile Run Trail and detour through Crystal City for my morning commute. Times like this, I especially appreciate the convenience of bicycle commuting.

Update: The flooding was not along Four Mile Run. I rolled in on my regular commute route.