Thursday Morning Commute - Coyote

The MLK Memorial festivities might be my last, best chance to win my 10,000 CaBi trips in a day, before it expires at the end of September. Still, I'm not hopeful. 

• The 50 States Ride and 13 Colonies rides are scheduled for September 24th this year. The ride is great fun, and if you've never done it before, you'll get a chance to see it like never before. So, who's going to try to do the whole thing on CaBi, and of those, who are going to try to daisy chain bikes the whole way?
• If this is a typical bike rack in Crystal City, then Crystal City may need more bike parking.
• This is what happens when your back-up bike is 120 years old. [Aside: If we really want people to bike more, we have to get a handle on bike theft.] He says the bike is bombproof, but a guy tried to RABGRAI on a pennyfarthing the same year I did it and the hills killed it on the first day. He bought a bike off a 7 year old girl and road that thing the rest of the way.
• There are a lot of wrong ways to use a bike lane.
• Jason Wehmeye, the firefighter who is competing in the World Police and Fire Games as a cyclist is selfless in his personal life too. During a race that he was winning, another cyclist was injured. So Wehmeye stopped to help him. Said the injured cyclist "I got to be honest with you, I think there's less than a 50-50 chance that I would have stopped if I'd have been in the lead and I heard some commotion behind me."
• Another cyclist injured in a hit and run incident. This one in Annapolis. "A gray Hyundai Elantra traveling west struck a man on a bicycle and did not stop. The 59-year-old victim was taken to a hospital, where he was treated for non-life-threatening injuries. The vehicle is described as being no more than four years old and as having sustained a broken windshield and fog light on the passenger side. Anyone with information is asked to call 410-222-6145."
• You don't have to know Al Gore to ride a bike cross-country. "When he worked at NOAA, Dave was a regular bike commuter. And he’s done some long rides before, including up to New Hampshire. But this was his longest, a year in the planning. On July 24, he dipped his tire in the Pacific at Waldport, Ore., after cycling 4,209 miles over 93 days."
• This is only related to biking in the tiniest of ways, but it may be the most fascinating obituary I've ever read. If it were a movie, I'd be rolling my eyes at how unbelievable it all was.

Comments

[CyclingFool]

I had randomly come across David Goodrich's Crazy Guy journal early on during his journey while I was doing some leisure reading and researching routes. I followed his adventures the whole way across the country. His journal is here in case anyone's interested.

[charlie]

what has been the singles highest ridership day?

With the current number of bikes, I don't think you can hit 10K.

[washcycle]

A little over 5000 I think.

Some systems average over 10 trips per bike per day, we would just need to spike that high.

[charlie]

People riding beyond the 30 minute times would be a major impediment to the 10x figure. Seems like when we have a spike, we also have "bike-hoggers". Not that it is a bad thing. Perhaps you can make a revenue target instead....

[tdcjames]

Is Mark Blacknell, the author of the "Wrong Way to Use a Bike Lane" article, saying motorists shouldn't merge into the bike lane before turning right? I thought that was the law in DC, though maybe it's different in VA.

I'm glad someone else hates seeing cyclists going the wrong way in the bike lane as much as I do, though. Seriously, it just endangers other bikers doing the right thing, and for what? To avoid the incomparable hassle of crossing the street? (Or going one block over, if you're on a one-way?)