TheWashCycle

Frederick High Wheel Race

Frederick High Wheel Race by sso

That looks like Gwadzilla on the bike, but it's hard to be sure.

Frederick, MD hosted the Frederick Clustered Spires High Wheel Race on Saturday

It was the first high-wheel race in the United States, and one of only four races like it in the world. The rider who completed the most laps around the 0.4-mile course in an hour would be the winner.

Twenty men and five women competed in Saturday’s race. There were three married couples, one orthopedic surgeon and one Guinness record holder. Steve Carter, 68 and no relation to Keith, crossed the country on his high wheel in 33 days, setting a world record.

Rick Stumpf of Missouri won the men’s race with 42 laps and Carol Kennedy of Hagerstown the women’s with 37

Wobbling on a high wheel for only his second time was someone accustomed to going a bit faster: three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond, in town for Tour de Frederick, a weekend-long charity bike event.

LeMond rode in the victory lap, but did not race.

Unfortunately, the event was marred by a serious injury. One rideris in serious but stable condition at a hospital.

Police say 54-year-old Alison Torpey of Louisville hit her head just below her helmet in a fall from her penny farthing bicycle Saturday.

Monday Afternoon Commute - Railroad

Good afternoon

• CaBi posts another record with 203,896 Bikeshare rides in July. 
• Bikes abandoned at Metro stations have been tagged and after 10 days, they may be removed and sold at auction. And still more parking is needed. 
• While MDOT is installing the "Bicyclists may use full lane" on it's roads, most county and city transportation departments are not. 
• More grants: Montgomery County has been awarded  $40 million in grants for transportation projects at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda. Defense officials say the money will be used on projects including a bicycle and pedestrian path under Maryland Route 355 that will connect the medical center and a Metrorail station. But I doubt many cyclists will use this path. 
• The driver who struck and killed cyclist Lanie Kruszewski in Richmond last week claims he thought he hit a deer. Since 2002, he's been charged with reckless driving four times with one conviction. In two of the other cases, the charge was reduced to a lesser speeding violation. In the fourth case, the charge was amended to improper control/driving. In addition to those cases, Webb has gotten seven other speeding tickets. One of those was amended to disregarding a highway sign, and two were amended to a violation of defective equipment. He also was found guilty of a violation involving a right turn on red. So yes, it is impossible to lose your license in Virginia. As with the Pettigrew case I might believe that the guy thought he hit a deer. And, as in that case, I really don't care. It doesn't explain why he hit a cyclist with a light on her bike. And one has an obligation to determine - with 100% certainty - that they did hit a deer, and not a person, before leaving. So, while morally-speaking, driving away because you thought you hit a deer is better than doing so to avoid legal implications of hitting a person; legally it should be treated as the same thing. If his 2004 Dodge Durango has Airbag Control Module similar to the one the driver in the David Williams case had, I'm giving 10-1 odds that he was speeding.
• Bicycle railroad.

Monday Afternoon Commute - I prefer the Popeye's

Good afternoon

• A new "trail", the Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail, was inaugurated today. It doesn't include any new pavement or anything - just signs and education material. Still, I bike past this point every time I bike commute "But not far from the intersection with Eastern Avenue — near the Popeyes Chicken attached to the Shell gas station — is the spot where Commodore Joshua Barney placed his guns in a last-ditch effort to save the capital during the Battle of Bladensburg on Aug. 24, 1814." and I had no idea. 
• The new Park Service policy about mountain bikes on trails will not unleash bikes on every trail. 

Monday Afternoon Commute - instinctively Neanderthal reaction

Good afternoon

• In 1903, a bicycle race track called the Coliseum, opened on A Street NE, between 14^th and 15^th Streets. "The name was a bit of a misnomer, as it consisted of two short sets of stands at right angles at one corner of an oval course of 1000 ft. Nonetheless, it was considered one of the finest tracks in the country.....The crowd that evening was treated to [Elkes] traveling around the 1/5 mile track 5 times in 1 minute and 39 seconds, indicating a speed of 36 mph – this at a time when the top speed for a production automobile was something like 20 mph...Elkes would die almost exactly 2 years after his debut at the Coliseum when his tire burst during a race in Cambridge, MA."
• "If the purpose of bollards is to deter motor vehicles from accessing pedestrian and bicycle facilities, they should only be located at points where trails and streets intersect. This makes particular sense at points where a driver may mistake a trail for a street. There aren’t too many of these situations in Arlington, but the W&OD near Bluemont Park is no stranger to SUVs driving to the picnic pavilion. And I can imagine how bored teenagers might find it fun to try to drive up the access bridge from the Roosevelt Island parking lot. So yes, bollards do have their place."
• How Montgomery County should sign bike routes. 
• Once, when we were going to an art opening of an acquaintance of mine, my friends and I planned ridiculously over-the-top comments we could make about the art to complete strangers. One that sort of struck a chord and been repeated often was, "This work is all the more terrifying for its repulsive brilliance." It is praise I would bestow on this letter. 
• "Bicycle advocates in Washington are worried that the path to a possible deal in Congress on a transportation spending bill this week will involve throwing them under the bus."
• The US Census Bureau's "Profile America" feature (who knew?) focuses on the development of tires, inlcuding the invention of balloon tires by a Scottish veterinarian in 1884.

Washington DC ~100 years ago

Check out the cyclists riding inbetween the streetcar tracks. It kind of looks like the road is segregated with cars on the outside and everyone else mostly in the middle. 

Here's roughly the same shot today. 

Drasine

From the Smithsonian Snapshot

This week’s Smithsonian Snapshot celebrates National Bike Month with the forerunner of the modern bicycle: this ca. 1818 draisine.

In 1817, Karl Drais, a young inventor in Baden, Germany, designed and built a two-wheeled, wooden vehicle that was straddled and propelled by walking swiftly. Drais called it the laufmaschine or “running machine.”

A forester for the Grand Duke of Baden, Drais used his laufmaschine to inspect the Duke’s forest. The laufmaschine soon became a novelty among Europeans, who named it the “draisine.”

By 1818, the draisine craze reached the United States. Charles Wilson Peale, a well-known portrait artist, helped to popularize the draisine by displaying one in his museum in Philadelphia. Many American examples were made, and rentals and riding rinks became available in Eastern cities.

By 1820, the high cost of the vehicle, combined with its lack of practical value, limited its appeal and made it little more than an expensive toy. The two-wheeled vehicle would not become sustained until pedals were added in the late 1800s.

Donated to the Smithsonian in 1964, this draisine is the oldest cycle in its collection of 61 cycles. They reflect social trends and technological developments that have shaped the growth and popularity of riding since 1818.

To view more bicycles, motorcycles, automobiles and other vehicles at the Smithsonian, visit the National Museum of American History’s “America on the Move” exhibition.

This item is one of 137 million artifacts, works of art and specimens in the Smithsonian’s collection. It is not on display. To learn more about this item, visit the National Museum of American History’s website.

Pedaliante

1937 04 18 - 8882 - Washington DC - NASM - Pedaliante by thisisbossi

The propeller-equipped bicycle used to develop the Pedaliante, a human powered aircraft piloted by a "very strong cyclist".

"A second experiment conducted during a trip to Paris involved a propeller-driven bicycle designed by Bossi. The test rider achieved a speed of 37 km/h (23 mph), but one drawback was noted: the gyroscopic effect of the propeller generated so much torque that the bicycle became unstable. Bossi concluded, erroneously, that a successful human-powered aircraft would therefore require two counter-rotating propellers to cancel out the effects of torque – similar to the design of a helicopter. In light of these findings, Bossi decided to design an aircraft incorporating this difficult requirement."

Wednesday Afternoon Commute - New Transport Plane

Good evening

• On Friday, the DC Committee for the Environment, Public Works and Transportation will have its public oversight hearing for the Bicycle Advisory Committee.
• New Bikey Stuff, like the Stanton Park CaBi station and bike lanes on 3rd NE and R NE.
• The SW waterfront will have as many bike parking spaces as car parking spaces. "A second Capital Bikeshare station will be installed at 9th Street and Maine Avenue to join the one already at 7th Street (which will move slightly from its present location to be closer to Maine Avenue)."
• Two tandem bicycles crashed on H Street - in 1896.(sorry for the late reporting)
• Dandies & Quaintrelles River Ride this Saturday
• NJ Bike advocates push for access to transit at more stations. 
• Bicycle Safety pamphlet from the 40's.

The pantsleg roll is timeless.

Sailors bicycled over to Arlington Farms, a residence for women who work in the U.S. government for the duration of the war, from Washington in search of a date.

When I went to Virginia looking for dates, I usually wound up at Carpool. But whatever.

Wednesday Afternoon Commute - This is why we can't have nice things

Good afternoon

• "An Ohio building constructed around the first Wright brothers’ bicycle shop has been declared a public nuisance and may eventually be demolished, despite a resident’s effort to preserve the site." If only there were some source of federal money that could be used to preserve buildings of importance to the history of transportation. If only.
• Bikes Belong will "provide financial and technical assistance for cities to develop physically protected cycling infrastructure. The six to-be-determined cities will then serve as models for other American cities looking to incorporate street designs that make cycling appealing to residents of all ages." Are you listening Alexandria and Arlington.