Commuting in Heavy Rain

Attention neighbors! The flash flood warning has been extended until 3am. BE SAFE! #dcflood #Flood #arlingtonva #columbiaPike pic.twitter.com/AiT0KMlR54

— Columbia Forest (@CFCA_Arlington) July 29, 2017

Tweet shows Four Mile Run as it was during my afternoon commute

The Washington Post called it a "heavy summer rain event" that was "very strange." Perhaps not the most sensible day to commute by bike? Where did I put my common sense?

Yeah well.

For one thing, in the morning there was no rain at all - the rain was only going to show up later in the day. It is easier to deal with any rain, including heavy rain, if it is only on the way home. Even if the stuff in my Timbuk2 bag got wet on the way home (although it didn't) it's no big deal once I'm home. Also, I have done this commute for a long time and I have a good sense of where the problem areas might be in different kinds of weather. I had decided that aside from getting pretty wet, there were few serious risks. I didn't ride down Independence Avenue but rather more slowly through the Capitol grounds and down the National Mall. Once I get past the Jefferson Monument to the 14th Street bridge I am on trails the whole way home (for about seven miles). There are parts of the trail that can flood, but there are ways around those spots.

It was 70-some degrees (ie, around 20 C) but I decided to wear a rain slicker. I wore a thin wool t-shirt under it. Of course, I was soaked after riding 10 miles, but I was neither cold nor hot.

The main problem is having water mixed with sweat (or who knows what) run into my eyes that then irritates them. It is kind of hard to ride with your eyes closed. I have this cap-thing I wear under my helmet (see below) that has a bill which is usually great but it failed with this amount of rain and my eyes got pretty irritated; I had to stop several times as a result.



My main concession to common sense in this weather is to ride at a conservative pace - it is easy to misread what you are seeing with water accumulating in unusual ways and it is better to ride into trouble at a moderate speed than while riding as fast as possible.

One aspect of being out in the rain in weather like this is how striking it is how little people driving cars are thinking about how unusual the weather is or are making the slightest adjustments to it. A modern car, with radio (or whatever) on, windows shut, AC turned up, isolates the driver a significant amount (says the cyclist). I could give examples but I am suddenly bored by this subject.

Shakespeare Would Ride the Bicycle if Alive Today

Brochure from Cleveland Indian bicycle company-Shakespeare Would Ride the Bicycle if Alive Today

Libraries sometimes have in their collections brochures that are treated like a book. This is such an example - the University of Delaware had digitized this "book" that is a 12 page brochure from the Cleveland Bicycle Company, published in 1896. It is available from the HathiTrust digital library consortium web site in full. I found the cover the most amusing; the remainder is not so clever (and one is reminded of certain kinds of unfortunate default racism of earlier times).

It seems an odd marketing approach in the America of 1896 to try to tie cycling to Shakespeare.

And would Shakespeare have been amused??

Title : Shakespeare Would Ride the Bicycle if Alive Today
Corporate Author: H.A. Lozier & Co.
Language(s): English
Published: Cleveland : The Company, ©1896.
Subjects: H.A. Lozier & Co. > Catalogs.
Bicycles > Catalogs.
Physical Description: [12] p. : col. ill. ; 14 cm.

Bicycle Sign With Bike Made of PVC Pipe

Photograph from a new collection online of color photographs, "Roadside America," that doesn't have any bicycles however. This sign is made to look like a large bicycle, made (it appears) mostly of PVC pipe.

Title-The Great Escape bike sign, Route 29
Contributor Names-Margolies, John, photographer
Created / Published-1988.
Subject Headings
- Signs (Notices)--1980-1990
- United States--South Carolina--Spartanburg
Format Headings
Slides--1980-1990.--Color
Genre-Slides--1980-1990.--Color
Notes
- Title, date and keywords based on information provided by the photographer.
- Margolies category: Main Street signs.
- Purchase; John Margolies 2008 (DLC/PP-2008:109-4).
- Credit line: John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008), Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
- Forms part of: John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive (1972-2008).
Medium-1 photograph : color transparency ; 35 mm (slide format).
Call Number/Physical Location-LC-MA05- 1777 [P&P]
Source Collection-Margolies, John John - Margolies Roadside America photograph archive
Repository-Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
Digital Id-mrg 01777 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/mrg.01777
Library of Congress Control Number-2017703891
Reproduction Number-LC-DIG-mrg-01777 (digital file from original color transparency)
Rights Advisory
No known restrictions on publication. For more information, see "John Margolies Roadside America Photograph Archive - Rights and Restrictions Information" www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/723_marg.html
Online Format-image
Description-1 photograph : color transparency ; 35 mm (slide format).
LCCN Permalink-lccn.loc.gov/2017703891

This article has a photograph of the building along with the bike-sign on top.

Women Bicycle Racers of 1898

"Young women who will strip for the seven days bicycle race championship" - click through to Flickr to zoom

From the New York Journal and Advertiser, November 13, 1898, photographic supplement.
www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030180/1898-11-13/ed-1/?sp=15

Riders identified are Tillie Anderson (who today seems the best known of these riders, with an entry in wikipedia), Clara Drehmel, Lissette (last name not given, identified as "Mlle. Lissette" who was a French rider), Lizzie Claw.

This newspaper often tried to appeal to what one could consider a prurient interest - here, the notion of the women racers "stripping" in order to race (which is demonstrated in a sequence of photos on the page).


Lissette shown in mid-1890s photo from France

Trails - Just Like Roads?

OK excuse me for a little grumpy kvetching.


Lucky Run trail re-striped just like a roadway

Above is part of the multi-use trail near my house, that runs next to a steam called "Lucky Run." Streams in this part of the world are often called a "run" (for running downhill, I guess). The stream is the right.

Riding home from work a while ago, I came across a private company with road type equipment applying these nice new painted yellow lines the trail. A worker encouraged me to avoid riding through the fresh paint. Yes . . . the trail has been here all the 25+ years I have lived here - the previous yellow lines had faded into oblivion but apparently someone decided to spend a few dollars to freshen that aspect up.

I have no problem with spending money on the trail - far from it. However as money to spend on this trail, and most others I see, applying yellow lines seems far less useful than doing some maintenance. As you can see in the photo, there are cracks in the asphalt. It is possible to apply some glop (sealant) on those that keeps water from building up below, then freezing and expanding and creating bigger raised cracks, which are prevalent elsewhere along this trail. If such raised cracks appear, they can be ground down and then sealed. (This was done about five or so years ago on the Mount Vernon Trail at some point when the National Park Service must have been better funded - it greatly improved the trail.)

I don't see the need for the yellow stripes on a trail like this, really. This is not a little roadway. The most important thing for all trail users is to apply common sense in their use of the trail.


Who yields to whom? An Arlington County sign with different users

As it happens, this particular Arlington County sign is not from near my house but elsewhere on the trail network. Arguably these are becoming less common because horses on County trails are almost nonexistent (at least around this southern part of the County). While intuitively it makes sense that people on wheels (cyclists and also skaters) yield to foot traffic (here for some reason hikers, not simply people walking) I suspect all that is meant by that is that cyclists aren't to force walkers off the trail from behind. I am a bit suspect of the Virginia use of the word "yield" in such laws since all that motorists have to do for pedestrians (or cyclists, by the way) in a crosswalk is "yield" while in DC the motorist must stop. Hmm.


Effectively part of the Four Mile Run trail with a dollop of asphalt for fun

Meanwhile elsewhere on the local trail system a company doing some road resurfacing left a six inch tall pile of asphalt on the small sidewalk that in this particular location connects to wider segments of the local multi-use trail network (and is reasonably heavily used, in fact).. Thank God no one has had the idea to put a yellow link down the middle of this. This is a location where most people thankfully do apply common sense; for example, I usually stop my bike if another bike is coming - it is too narrow for two oncoming bikes to get by one another without some avoidable risk. Or sometimes the oncoming cyclists will stop first. The asphalt, already here for about five days, just adds to the fun.

Washington Post "Bicentennial of the Bicycle" piece

Washington Post short visual feature covering the highlights of the 200 year history of the bicycle.

The presentation in the print edition of the Post was a little more easy to digest than the online version - online the "trends" that are to the right are more difficult to connect with the "turning points" that are to the left (assuming I am understanding the approach correctly).

It may or may not be that the people who prepared this knew much about the subject, but the emphasis on "firsts" means that the main trends are obscured. The Rover of 1885 is not that significant itself but rather as an early example of a bike that is more recognizably similar to a modern bicycle and the kind of bike that led in the U.S. to what was generally considered a "bicycle craze" in the 1890s. The 1890s bike craze itself is not mentioned. However the authors get it right when they characterize the following decade in the U.S. as "the automobile rises, the bicycle falls." It would have been good to mention however that the League of American Wheelmen along with the bicycle industry of the 1890s pioneered the "good roads" movement that gave way to advocacy for highways and so on for motorists.


A cyclist and his typical bike of the 1890s that is much similar to a modern bicycle

One of the authors is named Pope but amazingly (or is it ironically) there is no mention of Colonel Albert Pope, the most well known manufacturer of bicycles in the 1890s who then moved on to try to succeed as a maker of automobiles (which didn't go so well). His "Columbia" brand for bicycles in particular still exists; the company claims some derivative connection to the original Pope Manufacturing Company.


An ad in an 1890 booklet for Columbia bicycles manufactured by Pope's company

The most surprising omission is the development of well-organized and reasonably funded bike share systems in North America in the 21st century, following their introduction elsewhere in the world. Washington's Capital Bikeshare is a leader in this area, in fact.

Four Mile Run Renewal

This "intersection" has been widened

This can be a complicated spot for cyclists and pedestrians to negotiate when several come together at once going in several directions. As part of a project to improve the area along the nearby stream, the asphalt was completely redone here.

I was glad to see that a segment of fence was moved so that it was no longer aligned with the concrete walkway. Previously when riding towards the concrete walkway from the asphalt while turning to the right the end of the steel fence could be something a rider could end up crashing into if anything went wrong. That risk is now reduced - good!


Fence has been moved away from concrete walkway

Oddly though gentle curve of the asphalt edge along the right is straightened out for about the last two feet. A reasonable principle of road design is that the curve of the roadway should be consistent and predictable - it seems neither of those that it straightens out. Now of course this is in plain sight, but when riding and paying attention an oncoming bicycle and possibly walkers or runners, it is better if the edge of the path is laid out predictably, not oddly.

It almost certainly looks like a small thing, but over almost twenty years of commuting and other riding, it is just this kind of thing that I have negotiated poorly, leading to dumb falling accidents. Now the asphalt part of the intersection is much wider, but when turning to the right the concrete walkway is just the same relatively narrow width as it was before and a rider will naturally gravitate as far as possible to the right while making the turn when there is an oncoming bicycle.


Asphalt curves to right but straightens last two feet or so for no obvious (good) reason

It's great that there is more asphalt to help reduce some of the difficulty navigating this intersection and that the fence was moved, but the one detail could have been better. Well, in my view anyway.