Fast Commute to Work

My route from south Arlington to Capitol Hill

According to the GPS driven app on my phone, the distance from my front door to work is 9.25 miles using my usual bike route. Today, thanks to some wind from the south (which is unusual in the morning), it took only 34 minutes and 18 seconds and my average speed was 16.2 mph.

Just to be clear, I'm not someone who obsesses about the speed of my bicycle riding efforts, but someone was asking about how far my occasional lunchtime jog is and I now have a so-called smartphone and found an appropriate app, so I was curious mostly to know what it would report as the distance of my commute. Years ago I estimated using Google maps that it was around 9.6 miles, so apparently I was a little high since it is almost exactly 9 1/3 miles. Oh well. I was amused today when I used the app riding in when I realized that the wind was coming from the south and that I would be a "fast" time (fast for me) because that wind pushing me up the river makes a difference. I don't think there are too many days where my commute is under 35 minutes. (Again - not that I'm paying much attention.)


Fanciful sail-bikes from 1894

One of those ideas from the 1890s that didn't catch on.

July Fourth Bicycle Race, 1902

From the the New York Tribune, July 5, 1902, an article about a bicycle track race on July 4, 1902. (I on the other hand went to Nationals baseball game today.)

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CYCLING. KRAMER DEFEATS LAWSON IN STRAIGHT HEATS - BALD WINS HANDICAP IN CLEVER FASHION.

The largest attendance of the year — fully eight thousand people — witnessed the bicycle races at the Vailsburg track, near Newark, yesterday. While no records were broken, the sport was excellent throughout, and the onlookers watched the finishes of the races with the closest attention. The weather was a little too warm for the spectators, but was of the ideal sort for the racing men, who do their best work when the sun scorches the pine ooze out of the board track.

Vailsburg is a merrymaking sort of a place. The enthusiasts who went to the track yesterday carried their pockets full of firecrackers and pistols. When a finish was to their liking the men and boys arose to their feet and let off noise and din, giving full play to their patriotism and satisfaction at the same time. When Kramer defeated Lawson, just returned from abroad, there was a fusillade of fireworks which made the rafters of the grandstand tremble.

And how did [Eddie] Bald win "in clever fashion?"

Bald, who had a lead of 100 yards, was in in good position from the start. Entering the homestretch Bald was in front riding with all of his oldtime fire and spirit, with nearly a dozen riders in a close bunch behind. One hundred yards from the wire one of the riders In the front rank went down with a bang bringing down five others with him. This left Bald with a clear field before him. He won by nearly twenty yards. None of the riders who fell were severely injured,

Tour de France in the American Press - 100 Years Ago

I'm confident that there was more reporting in the U.S. press 100 years ago than I found, but there certainly wasn't much in Chronicling America. In fact, I just found the one story from 1913 (not 1914).

From the New York Sun for July 28, 1913. This would seem to be all the coverage for that publication for the entire race.

BIKE RACE GOES 3,367 MILES

Winner Covers Distance In 197 Hours 54 Minutes

Special Cable Dispatch to The Sun.

Paris, July 27. The bicycle race round France, which began on June 29 with 140 competitors, wound up to-day, The total distance of the race was 3,387 miles and It was run in fifteen stages.

Twenty-five survivors started in the last stage of the race this morning from Dunkirk to Paris, a distance of 212 1/2 miles. All of these arrived here within twelve to fourteen and a half hours. The two leaders made the same time for this leg of the race, 12 hours 5 minutes.

Theiss [actually, Phillipe Thijs, of Belgium] won the first prize of $1,000, besides other prizes for different wins at various stages. He made the total distance in 197 hours and 54 minutes. Garrigou, who finished second, went over the entire route in 198 hours. The first and second men averaged more than seventeen miles an hour for the 3,367 miles.

The race was run again in 1913 but then World War I intervened so that the next running after that was in 1919. Note that in this article, the phrase "Tour de France" does not appear; it is "the bicycle race around France."

Four Mile Run Detour Re-Opens

This past Monday the detour for the Four Mile Run trail near the south end of National Airport was removed. The section of the trail that was under the bridge that was removed (see above) was widened somewhat and is edged on the inner side with some raised concrete. Work was being completed yesterday but the fences that enforced the detour were completely removed, so I am fairly sure it is OK to say the detour is done. It was open again this morning on the way to work.



The photo above shows the trail east of where the detour started - you can see that the bushes have taken over some of the trail while the work has been going on. Presumably Alexandria (I think this part of the trail is theirs) will send someone along to trim things up.

I was stopped to take this photo and blocking about 1/3 of the trail. The fellow in the photo came upon me and said, "excuse me" in a cranky tone which I took to be his way of complaining that I was blocking his speedy transit of this area. I don't know why people don't communicate more directly. What he clearly meant was, "you are in my f---ing way." Oh well. Mostly other cyclists seemed extremely pleased that the detour was over. I agree.

31.5 Pounds of Fun

Pink Electra Townie - 31.5 pounds

This bike belongs to my wife but I ride it to and from a shopping area that is about a mile away on the weekends sometimes. The three-speed hub shift reminds me of riding a bike-share bike except it has a coaster brake, which takes some getting used to - it also has a rim brake for the front wheel, which does most of the real work of stopping.

The odd geometry that makes it possible to put one's foot on the ground easily while sitting on the seat works for me OK but I sort of feel like I'm hanging on the handlebars somehow.

I guess some components are heavy - given that the frame is aluminum tubing, 31.5 pounds seems a lot. But then the kickstand probably ways several pounds . . .

How Bicycles Are Built (in 1896)

How Bicycles are Built. (article)
Author: Monroe Sonneschein
Publisher: [Chicago : : R. Sonneschein], June 1896.
Journal title: American Jewess : Vol 2 : Issue 9.; Page(s) 457-465.

This article provides a surprising type and amount of information compared to others I have seen from this period, particularly since it was intended as a tutorial for women readers assumed to know little about bicycles who would use this information to inform purchase of a bicycle. (While I think it is a interesting article, I'm not so sure that much of what is covered would be useful for a successful bicycle purchase, however.) I think it is worth looking at the entire article - here are some highlights:

HOW BICYCLES ARE BUILT. This article is written with a view of enlightening the purchaser of a wheel, who, as a rule, knows nothing about the construction and mechanical advantages of one bicycle over another.

Scientific men who have made bicycle-building their study all agree that the construction of a modern safety is one of the most delicate and intricate problems in mechanics, easily taking rank with locomotive or bridge-building. In most high-grade wheels there are about one hundred separate and distinct parts. Including duplicates, there are some seven hundred and fifty pieces in all. The puzzles and conundrums propounded by the wise men would seem easy of solution in comparison with the task of assembling the parts of a bicycle into one compact, rigid and smoothly-running machine. It is an undertaking requiring the highest degree of mechanical intelligence.

In a gun,"the factor of safety," as it is termed by engineers, is never lower than 12, which means that it is designed to be 12 times stronger than the strain it is calculated to withstand. In general machinery, the "factor of safety" is from 4 to 5; but in a bicycle it is but 1 1/4, in order that the machine may be as light as possible. It can therefore be readily understood that the greatest care must be exercised in its manufacture.

Guns are designed to be safer than bicycles?? Apparently.



Image from the book "A Wheel Within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Ricycle. . . " by Frances E. Willard, 1895. This book is available here - hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89098879422

More from "How Bicycles Are Built:"

A bicycle frame must be designed to withstand all manner of strains, such as longitudinal, tortional and vibrational, and their many combinations. It must stand up well in collision and the shock consequent to a fall at high speed. And right here let me state that too much rigidity in a frame is almost as faulty as not enough of it.

The bearings of a bicycle are perhaps its most interesting feature. The wear upon these parts is almost constant, and the material used should be of the finest steel tempered in oil all the way through, and not only case-hardened, because casehardening is merely hardening the outside of the metal. When such a temper is used, the hardened surface soon wears through; and the balls, reaching the softer metal of the inside, in a very short time eat away the bearing.

After the frame, the putting together of a bicycle wheel is the most important step in cycle-building. Each spoke is tested to support a hanging weight of not less than 1,000 pounds. The hub-the foundation of the wheel-is turned from a solid bar of steel. A hole for the axle is bored lengthwise through its center, as well as many smaller holes in the flanges around the outside of its ends, to hold the spokes.

In the wooden rim there is, of course, a hole for each spoke. These holes are "countersunk," and "washers" are introduced to prevent the spokes from pulling through the rims; for it is an interesting fact that, while the weight in a wooden wheel stands on the spokes, in a bicycle wheel it hangs on the spokes, the spokes above the hub supporting most of the weight. Were it otherwise, the wheel would quickly collapse; for while the tiny wires are capable of bearing an enormous lengthwise strain, they would immediately bend under a trifling compressional one.

Wheels with rims made from wood were still common at this point.

There is no device known to mechanics which minimizes friction to so great an extent as the ball-bearing. Running parts equipped with it may truly be said to possess the poetry of motion; yet how few among the thousands of wheelmen understand its magical workings!

The complete articlehas additional details about bicycle manufacturing practices of the 1890s.

A Norwegian Approach to Routinizing Climbing of Steep Hills

They could use something like this in Seattle

Pretty flat around Washington DC, but I can easily imagine having something like this in various places I have been.

It does not seem, however, to have caught on even in Norway where they developed it, so probably not very likely to been seen in this country any time soon.