Tuesday Morning Commute - Bodhi he is not

Today, Neptune will complete it's first orbit since it was discovered in 1846. Happy sort of birthday Neptune.

• WABA puts the fight for Safe Routes to School funding into local terms "Since 2006 the Washington Area Bicyclist Association has educated over 26,000 children in the District of Columbia in safe bicycling and pedestrian habits." That's funded by Safe Routes to Schools. You can contact your representative at the link above.
• WABA's also pursuing a grant from the Pew Trust/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Impact Project. This grant will fund an assessment on WABA’s push to add an on-road bike facility on Alabama Avenue SE, from Martin Luther King Avenue to the Suitland Parkway. They made it past the first round into a group of 40 finalists. 10 projects will get funding. This happens to be the same street where a cyclist was badly injured over the weekend.
• I'm not sure the NH contraflow lane is as bad as these three make it out to be, but then I don't use it regularly. It does need work, that will hopefully come when the intersection gets a full redesign.
• Not much for Dr. Bikelock this week, just a discussion of earbud use, which commenters correctly identify as illegal in Virginia for both cyclists and drivers (one ear is ok). 
• This seems to pop up several times a year. Someday it won't be news anymore I suppose. Anyway someone robbed a bank and made their get away on a bicycle. This time in Alexandria. Don't worry, he wore a helmet, and he appears to have gotten away.
• This was mentioned briefly yesterday in the comments, but a couple of lead cyclists in the Tour de France were hit by a French TV vehicle in Sunday resulting in a pretty nasty crash.
• Revolution Cycles is organizing a bike ride to the Nationals Game on July 31st. The $40 fee includes everything, including a bike rental.
• Arlington police are handing out warning slips to cyclists caught running red lights along the recently repaved Custis Trail.

Comments

[Michael H.]

In other sports news, tonight's baseball All-Star Game will include the representative from the Washington Nationals, relief pitcher Tyler Clippard. Clippard is known to be a bike enthusiast. He has been shown riding his bike or wearing his bike helmet in some behind-the-scenes features this season, such as this video:

http://www.masnsports.com/drew_storen/2011/07/an-insiders-look-at-the-storen-clippard-household.html

His roommate is fellow Nats reliever Drew Storen. Storen is also a bike fan. Both of them frequently ride their bikes to the stadium.

[Riley]

Even with the best of panniers I can't imagine that WABA would condone riding a bike with bags of money full of exploding dye packs no matter the helmet hygiene exhibited by the cyclist / robber.

[Math Geek]

Props to Hoogerland. He finished the stage and accepted his KoM jersey, bandaged legs and all. Video link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJarentZE2g&feature=watch_response

[Shawn]

The NH lanes are...weird. I've ridden on them and waited a long time, and they make me feel more exposed when I have the bike light than the bike light on Penn. Ave. at 15th. I drove out of town past them this past weekend and a few cyclists got impatient at waiting at the light and cut in front of me when I had the green, and looking at the light situation, I'm not even sure what they did was legal, but the way the lanes are set up doesn't make it clear to me or those cyclists what the proper procedure was to be. If it were me, I would have ridden with the cars, confusion be damned.

[Blue-eyed Devil]

Funny, I spoke briefly with a constable along the Custis Trail in Rosslyn yesterday morning who was warning cyclists who ran the stoplight along the trail that they would soon be ticketed ($100) for doing so. I happened to see her stop a young lady cyclist who had just busted the red in front of me (I stopped because I saw squad car). When the light changed, I promptly rode up to the two and, as the cop was finishing with the cyclist, took both earbuds out of my ears and asked about the 3 pedestrians who had crossed against the light along with the cylist, and whom the cop completely ignored. She rather aggressively explained that the police were "targeting cyclists" because of complaints and that we were at greater danger than the peds because we were moving faster and "had a blind spot" (yeah, you know where this is going).

Of course, I pointed out the irrationality of such selective enforcement (and that, by her reasoning, I was henceforth free to slow down to a walking pace and "run" the red light) before suggesting she focus on the cars near Key Bridge that engage in all manner of unsafe violations, such as turning from the far left (through or left-turn only) lane of the west exit of the parkway onto Key Bridge because, well, the silly drivers in the right-turn lanes are actually waiting for right-of-way peds and cyclists to cross. At this point, the cop was even less friendly than when she yanked the cyclist out of line, so I decided it was time to leave before she manufactured a violation and called for backup. I just didn't see the point of having to appear in court later to hear a judge tell me that, right or wrong, I should never question a law enforcement officer's judgment.

Anyway, all this to say that, not only didn't this constable seem to understand that ignoring several people breaking the same law to get at others was selective and wrong (and wasn't doing much for public safety), but she didn't seem to know about the earbud law. Oh, and she was illegally parked (and with no flashing lights) on Route 29 to boot.

[CyclingFool]

Props to Koogerland indeed. When I saw him go down I thought there was no way he'd get back up, especially if Paul and Phil's description of the fence as barbed wire were accurate. But he did indeed hop back on and make it to the end of the stage.

I hope that Tour de Crash is over and we can finally get down to the Tour de France! :)

[Michael H.]

Mark your calendars for Thursday. In Stage 12, the Tour returns to the Col du Tourmalet, one of the most famous climbs at the Tour.