Park Service "Waters" Bikers, Joggers

The roadway is wet, the bikers and joggers are wet

The National Park Service runs a pipe along the roadway of Hains Point and uses pumps to pull river water into a large scale sprinkler system - in their effort to water both sides of the roadway, they blast the water across the roadway, too. From time to time one gets a blast in the face - it's a little strange. Since it's hot, it has its positive aspects, but on balance I would rather not have this experience too often.


Putting his head down to avoid getting a direct blast from a sprinkler

Generally I'm pretty comfortable for anything under 30-40 miles on my road bike, but apparently due to an unusual amount of squirming as I tried to avoid the sprinklers, after a lap or so I wasn't and this was only a 25 mile ride.

The Park Service puts up a sign that notes that the river water is not potable - so we won't try to drink from the sprinklers, I guess. But is it suitable for showering?

Of course, if they feel that the grass on Hains Point needs to be green, I guess it makes sense to use the river water.

Best Bike Parking - for Some

Four spots set aside for three police bikes

In my office building on Capitol Hill, we are protected by federal police. This parking lot has 24 slots for bicycle parking, half in the center and half at one end of the garage. Through some sort of unspoken tradition, the bicycle commuters know who parks where. This has been upset by the police taking four of the 12 spots near the center in order (at least for now) to park three bikes. (One of the bikes is made by "Smith & Wesson" - well known for making bikes! Stop or I'll shoot you with my bike!) This has completely upset the bicycle commuter ecology right in the middle of the prime riding season. (Well, ok with the heat wave, maybe not entirely prime in the usual sense.) So the police have three bikes on the four closest most convenient slots and the staff who are bike commuters have crammed ten, eleven, etc bikes into eight slots to see how much paint they can scrape off each others' bikes.

These police bikes are locked up with the most absurd chains and padlocks - you would think they were locking them up in some high crime area and not in a garage guarded like a fort.

PS - I thought perhaps this gift of parking places to the police might put us out of compliance with the DC "for every ten spots for cars, one for bikes" law but they count the slots on bike racks in front of the building. 95 percent of the car parking is in a garage and 75 percent of the bike parking is outdoors. Oh well.

Cyclist-Diplomat Endorses U.S. Tobacco (1917)

The connection to cycling is a bit tenuous, but Alvey Adee of the Department of State was known to take long cycling vacations in France, so here he is said to draw on that experience to endorse American tobacco for U.S. soldiers serving in France over the French (or European) product.


This seems to be an endorsement of a way that The Times supported the war effort (during World War I)

Alvey A. Adee Says Boys Need U. S. Tobacco

Alvey A. Adee, Second Assistant Secretary of State, is a diplomat. Mr. Adee is generally given credit for the unusually diplomatic language in which the United States couches its communications to foreign governments. Mr. Adee has been in France several times, riding through the beautiful roads of that country, on his bicycle. Mr. Adee knows the French tobacco. But -- Mr. Adee is a diplomat.

So here is is how he sums up the smoke situation for the boys in France:

Times Smoke Fund,
Washington, D. C.
My experience with foreign tobacco during my bicycle trips over what is now the Battlefield of Europe, makes me very sympathetic to your plans for furnishing our soldiers with the tobacco to which they are accustomed. It is a very splendid idea. Very cordially,
Alvey A. Adee

Nice Steel Track Bikes for a Sunday

Fellow had these two bikes on his truck for riding at Hains Point (in Washington, DC).


Old school drilled holes in rims to lighten - and enhance appearance



French 1960s Abel Borne track bike - weighs only 13 pounds

Steel is real! But can be light.

Fellow said this was one of only 26 such track bikes produced.

Diplomats Need Cycling Exercise (1912)

Article in the Washington Herald from 1912 describes cycling tour in France of socialites, accompanied by an assistant secretary of state, Alvey Adee, who was noted for his cycling and cycling tours in Europe.


From the society page of the paper

Gen. Thackary believes that the whole consular corps should take a holiday on wheels for the improvement of the diplomatic service. For it would counteract the bad results of a life necessarily sedentary.

Alvey Adee at age 72 and his bike in Washington, 1914
Photo from the Library of Congress

More information about Adee.


Adee riding in Washington
Photo from the Library of Congress

Description of Adee's diplomatic career in "Washington close-ups" By Edward George Lowery, 1921.

Unusual Bike Commuter Hazard - a Black Bear

Newspaper article reports that a Florida man was removed from his bike by a black bear, managing however not to suffer any serious injuries.


Something that might be more frightening than an angry motorist

Police Ticketing Sunday Bikers, Haines Point

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Sunday morning at 9 am I took off to Haines Point in Washington DC to do some laps of the trianguler peninsula along the Potomac River. I have seen U.S. Park Police writing tickets at this same location, the junction of Buckeye Drive and Ohio Drive, before on a weekday afternoon but not on a weekend. Anyway, every time I went past on my laps, they had someone different (sometimes groups) stopped. I don't know if they were giving tickets or just warnings, but I suspect they were writing at least some tickets. It can be a $50 ticket if they write one. On my last time through, a bit after 10 am, there were two Park Police vehicles parked up on the median strip in plain sight and they were still pulling cyclists over.