VDOT Beltway Crossing Improvments -- Gallows and Little River Turnpike

Overview:  VDOT posted an announcement saying that "bicycle and pedestrian paths have been completed for the beltway overpasses with Fairfax County paths".  The VDOT web site was horribly vague about what the projects included, so I went out to explore.  I rode Gallows Road and Little River Turnpike.  I'll update later with information about Braddock Road when I have a chance to ride it.  

Generally the projects crossing the beltway include wider sidewalks and crosswalks marked with signs for drivers to yield to people in the crosswalks.  There are no on-road bike facilities or bike lanes on either of the beltway crossings that I rode.  

Initial Observations:  Some of the crosswalks have good site lines for those using them and for approaching automobiles.  Many have very poor site lines and are extremely dangerous.  The yield signs for the crosswalks are extremely small (14" square) and completely inadequate for marking the crosswalks.  They are often obscured by other traffic signs that are 36" tall and bigger.  

Tiny yield sign is lost in the visual clutter

The announcement talks about "trail extensions".  I didn't really find all the connections that the press release talked about.  I'll go through the connections as I look at each crossing.  

Gallows Westbound:  The sidewalk along Gallows Road now connects to the sidewalk on the bridge across I-495.  The sidewalk is about 6' wide, which is not really wide enough for a bicycle rider to comfortably pass pedestrians without getting quite close.  The crosswalks have quite good site lines, but the yield signs indicating to drivers that a crosswalk exists are woefully too small.  They appear to be about 14" square and are completely lost in the visual clutter of all the other signs along the road.  

Gallows Road West-bound

On the west side of the bridge, the sidewalk crosses the exit, but does not really connect to anything on the other side.  This appears to be a connection to a sidewalk or path that does not yet exist.   

Gallows Eastbound:  The Eastbound side of the Gallows Rd. Bridge has much better connections.  There are sidewalks and crosswalks that connect to the Fairfax Innova Hospital and to bike-friendly roads on the west side.  Woodburn and Holly Roads are ones that I use regularly and are quite bike friendly.  The site lines for the crosswalks are good, but the one crossing the ramp entering I-495 south has pedestrians and cyclists crossing a bit of road where cars are entering fast and trying to accelerate up to beltway speeds (55mph speed limit that is usually driven at 65mph+).  A 14" square yield sign is nowhere near adequate to promote safe crossing.   

The sidewalk across the bridge connects up well to the sidewalk on the east side of Gallows Road and makes the best connection for pedestrians.  The crosswalk on the east side has a traffic light and is the safest that I toured today.  

Conclusion:  As a cyclist, I'll stick to the road and avoid the Gallows Road Sidewalks.  I personally feel much safer mixing with cars because there are not really usable connections for cyclists on all sides of the bridge.  For novice cyclists, the sidewalks will get you across the beltway very safely.  You just need to make sure you're able to connect to where you want to go.  If you're inside the beltway and need to get to Fairfax Innova hospital, you'll want to cross on the south side of the bridge.  That is the side that has better, safer connections.  

Gallows Road Eastbound.  See the tiny yield sign?

Little River Turnpike Westbound: The sidewalks on Little River Turnpike are much wider.  They're 8 feet wide.  They connect up perfectly on the east and west sides and are a joy to ride.  This is arguably the safest way to cross the beltway…. or is it???  Unfortunately the site lines are sometimes much worse than what we saw on Gallows Road.  The first crosswalk has the same 14" yield sign to announce its location, but there's barely 50 yards of site line for cars that are entering fast and trying to accelerate up to highway speeds.  This is an EXTREMELY DANGEROUS crosswalk.  The crosswalk at the far side of the bridge is very good and has great site lines.  The wide path/sidewalk connects up to the frontage road on the west side perfectly.  It is a great way to cross the beltway!

Cars moving quickly plus short site lines equals dangerous crosswalk

Connection to Cross County Trail:  Nothing to see here, you bunch of Looky-loos.  When I read about bike trail connections at Little River Turnpike, I was SOOOOO excited… anticipating a connection to the Fairfax Cross County Trail.  As I rode across, I could see where it was!  I could see that people had used it!  I was so happy!   Then I got to the No Trespassing signs.  There is still no connection to the CCT on this side of Little River Turnpike.  

No CCT access here!

Little River Turnpike Eastbound:  This is the best of the bunch when it comes to connecting to where people want to go.  Accotink Parkway on the west side connects the Fairfax CCT to the beltway crossing.  The yield sign is tiny, but the site lines are good.  On the far side of the bridge, the story is different.  The crosswalk has okay site lines, but the drivers are going EXTREMELY fast.  I stood at the crosswalk to see if anyone would yield to me.  After 30 or 40 cars crossed, a minivan tried to stop.  He couldn't do it in time.  I heard his ABS rattling as he tried to stop.  He ended up rolling through the crosswalk at about 15mph.  He demonstrated that an average Joe couldn't stop for one of these crosswalks in real-life conditions if he wanted to.  

Dude tried to yield, but couldn't

Conclusion:  I'm going to revise my original conclusion.  The last few times I've ridden that area of Little River Turnpike, it has been very ugly and not a place I am comfortable riding.  I've talked to 4 of my friends who ride through there regularly, and they gave me some local intel.   For experienced cyclists riding 236 across the beltway is probably safer on the street.  I'll go back and evaluate that again for myself.  If you ride through the area, give it a good look and let  me know what you think. 

Here are more photos of my trip if you're interested in seeing more of what I experienced:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedrogringo/sets/72157639414919304/

I'll report on Braddock Road in the next few days. 

Happy Riding.  

Pete

Bike Advocacy is Sometimes like Selling Vacuum Cleaners Door-to-Door

Me:  "Hi.  I'm Pete with Washington Area Bicyclist Association and Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling.  Do you have any employees that ride their bikes to work?  We're giving out free bike lights to help them be safe on their way to and from work."

Coffee House Manager: "What an awesome idea!  Thank you.  We've got three people that ride to work!"

Carry-out Pizza Place Manager: "All of our employees are rich.  They don't have to ride bikes."

The Lights

And so on… 

Let me back up and explain what was going on.  Like the intro says, I work for Washington Area Bicyclist Association.  One of our sister groups is Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling.  I work as the Suburban Outreach Bike Ambassador.  If Santa was a cyclist and Christmas was a cycling holiday, I'd be the elf that brings 2-wheeled happiness to all the good (and bad) girls and boys.  I don't actually give away bicycles.  Rather I bring the joy of CYCLING to people.  

One of my favorite activities is helping people ride safely.  Visibility is a big part of that.  Every year WABA and FABB give away hundreds, if not thousands of sets of flashy lights that make it much easier for people to see.  We give them to everyone, but my real goal is to get them on the handlebars and seat posts of the folks who may not be able to afford a good set of lights on their own.  Going restaurant to restaurant asking if places have employees that ride is a great way to get lights where they need to be.  

Vienna, Virginia

In three hours of walking around the restaurant district of Vienna, Virginia, I don't think I had the same response twice to the introduction at the top of this blog post.  My buddy Alex joined me for an hour of walking around town and he had the same reaction.  There were, however, some common threads:

1) The vast majority of people responded positively and really liked what we were doing.  
2) No-one understood what we were doing after the first introduction.  We had to repeat ourselves at least once every single time we walked into an establishment.  No matter how simple or complex I made the pitch, no-one got it the first time the words left my mouth.  Almost everyone got it by the second delivery.  Two people never did understand the concept of giving away lights to people who ride, even after many attempts to explain.  
3) Coffee house managers were overwhelmingly positive about the idea.
4) Pizza carryout places were universally negative to the idea.

Alex and I: This week's Hot Deals

The best interaction came when I was walking around before Alex joined me.  One coffee house employee tracked me down 5 minutes after I'd left her place of work, handed me a free cup of fancy coffee, shook my hand and thanked me.

The funniest/most negative was an older woman in a completely vacant diner surrounded by restaurants that were packed with customers who told me that she didn't employ "The kind of people who have to ride bikes to work."  The contempt in her voice didn't escape me.  

One pizza delivery place manager yelled to his crew, "What the *expletive* was that all about?" before we'd even got to the door.  Even three attempts, one from Alex, two from me, hadn't been successful at explaining what we were doing.  

The bottom line:  I spent 3 hours walking around Vienna.  Alex was with me helping out for a little over an hour.  We gave out just short of 50 sets of bike lights.  Every set of those lights got into the hands of someone who really needed and wanted them.  Even though I felt like a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesperson, wee had positive interactions with over 100 people and really only one or two negative reactions to what we were doing.  Even the establishments that didn't have people who commute by bike got to see that there are people out there that do and that WABA and FABB are out there trying to make their lives a little better.  It was a super positive night!  

Be seen!  Get home safely. :D

Pete

FABB/WABA Suburban Holiday Shopping Ride

The best response that I got when I proposed this ride was "Ho Ho NO. I'll follow you to Certain Death, Pete, but not to Tyson's Corner (a fate worse than . . . )."  

I think many people dread crowds and parking problems associated with holiday shopping at the mall the week before Christmas.  The mall can get a bit crazy this time of year.  My goal was to make it fun.  I did this by getting there by bicycle and by bringing  along as many friends as I could.  I've also wanted to share how amazingly easy it is to ride to Tyson's Corner by bicycle.  That was the genesis of the Fairfax Advocates for Better Bicycling (FABB) / Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) Holiday Shopping Ride.  Both FABB and WABA are all about showing people that it is easy to live by bicycle.

Tyson's Corner Center jumped in immediately as a sponsor.  Mosaic District enthusiastically supported this too.  Freshbikes Mosaic provided both shopping bags and bicycle security services (me with a bunch of U-locks and cables) to make this all possible.  I rode the cargo bike with buckets on the back to help people with transporting their purchases.  In the end, I was the only one filling the buckets with stuff that I'd bought.  It wasn't that others didn't shop.  They brought their own means for carrying their purchases home.  

The route was simple.  Nine of us rode from Vienna, Virginia to Tyson's Corner and completely bypassed the lines of cars waiting to get into the parking garage.  We picked up two more riders along the way.  Bicycle Parking is right next to the mall entrance in spot that had Mall Security and a police officer right next door for added bicycle security.  The outdoor German Market was really nice!  The local artisans and bakeries were the backbone of my shopping for the day.  We got a lot of shopping done before even setting foot in the mall.  We enjoyed two hours of shopping inside and a nice lunch before loading up our purchases and heading south.  

The second stop on our shopping ride is the Mosaic District.  This eclectic group of shops and restaurants is quickly becoming one of my favorite hangouts.  In addition to being home to my favorite local bike shop (Freshbikes) there are many small local shops, MOM's Organic Market and plenty of restaurants, Target and the movie theater make it a great place to be.  It is quite easy to get to by bicycle and has good bike parking in the garages and out on the street.  We spent an hour there shopping and getting coffee before heading back to Vienna.  

What was my favorite reaction after the ride?  "Thanks for organizing and leading the ride, we got a lot of shopping done. We'll be riding to Tysons instead of driving again in the near future."

This was the first of many, many rides of this kind.  Many thanks to Tyson's Corner Center, Mosaic District and Freshbikes for making it possible.  

Pete 

Nemesis Met and Possibly Vanquished?

From time to time I encounter people who repeatedly drive badly around me.  It happens less often than it used to, but I still have some people who continue to pass too close time and time again.  Reston Limousine Service operates a route that seem to drive badly around me every time I encounter them…. the route that serves Marymount University.  I've never been able to catch up with him to ask the driver give me a break.  Today while riding on Fairfax Drive, their bus passed close enough that the side view mirror brushed my shoulder while I was in the bike lane. 

Luckily it was right near the University, so I knew a stop was coming up soon.  I followed and chased and managed to catch up at the next stop.  I poked my front tire into the door as he was closing it.  He looked up, expecting me to go off on him.  I simply told him that the law is that he pass with at least 2 feet of space… that 3 feet is more polite.  I smiled and told him to have a good afternoon.  He smiled back and apologized. 



Sometimes putting a human face on a cyclist can change how people drive around them.  With luck, this is one of those times.  I'll know more when I encounter this driver again tomorrow.

Baby it's cold outside.... and wet.

Yesterday was a difficult day to be on the bike.  The morning started dry and in the mid to upper 20s.  By 8am the rain had started and the temps were right at freezing.  Though the rain wasn't a downpour, it was steady and soaking all day long.  The temperature didn't get much above freezing all day.  We were fortunate that the ground was warm enough that it didn't get icy.  

Photo by Ricky Lee Albores

I left the house at about 7am and didn't get home until bout 4pm in the afternoon.  I stopped a few times to warm up with coffee and get some lunch, but I was out doing advocacy work the vast majority of the day.  

I've been talking a lot about winter clothing, but I haven't really talked about what to do when it is raining and cold.  I got quite a few questions from friends on Facebook who were also out riding yesterday.  Many of them got very cold and wanted to know what I wore.

Here's the laundry list: 

Core: Castelli early winter long sleve base layer, Rapha wool jersey with an Endura Flyte rain jacket on top.Legs: Giro New Road wool blend bibs with Hincapie winter (fleece) shorts on top. Both had chamois, so I'm doubled up there. Over the top I used Endura Venturi 3/4 rain knickers. Embrocation on my lower legs (exposed skin) was Mad Alchemy Cold Weather - Medium.Feet: Swiftwick merino wool socks. Lake winter boots (MTB version sealed with SnoSeal bees wax sealant). Outdoor Research goretex gaters over the top.Hands: I changed gloves 4 hours into the ride since my first pair of gloves were wet. Assos liner gloves with Pearl Izumi WXB Lobster Glvoes (last year's model. Mostly waterproof and super warm) were good from 7am-1:30pm. I switched to Assos Liner gloves (the same ones from the morning...still wet) with Assos Early Winter gloves as a middle layer and Pearl Izumi WXB shell gloves over the top. The PI WXB shell gloves have no insulation, but are almost completely water proof and wind proof. My hands started out cold, but within 10 minutes were toasty warm and stayed there for the last 2.5 hours of my ride.
Head: Assos rain hat with a Laser Helium helmet with lexan cover on it that seals up all the vents.

When I felt myself getting too warm, I did one of two things... I either unzipped the jacket a few inches, or if it was raining a lot, I just backed off the riding a little and let my body back off generating so much heat.
When I got home, my jersey and shorts were dry. My base layer was a little damp from persperation, but most of that came in the last few climbs at the end of the day. My feet were dry and warm. My hands were wet, but warm.

There are three, maybe four jackets on the market these days that I'm aware of that can do what mine did today. None are cheap. Assos Sturmprinz is by far the best. Endura makes the Flyte and Venturi jackets. Rapha's rain jacket is legit. Showers Pass' top of the line jacket works great, Is the cheapest of the bunch, but seems to have build quality and endurance issues.

I've never found a garment that works as well as the Endura Venturi knickers, though in all honesty, I have not tried Assos rain pants. I'd guess they are up to the task.

Sorry that the answers all involve spending money. Rain + Cold has no inexpensive remedy. I know of some folks that do well with rain capes. They don't have to breathe because they're totally open at the bottom. For me, one gust of wind and I'm soaked.
   

Winter Skin Care

It's getting cold and windy out there.  We've talked about keeping warm while you ride.  We're pretty familiar with how to take care of our skin when it's hot out.  If you're new to riding all winter, you may find some of this helpful.

Sunscreen: Just 'cause it is cold out doesn't mean you can't get a good burn.  Slather yourself before you go out.  Not only will it protect your skin from the sun, it also helps it from being dried out from the wind.  Exposed skin takes a beating from a cold wind.  

Embrocation: Not sure if everyone gets this, but I know my legs really get pretty beaten up in the cold.  I tend to wear knickers even when it is pretty cold an cleave my shins out to in the cold.  Even when I wear tights or pants, my legs come back pretty raw if I don't do something with them.  Embrocation is a balm made of essential oils that are blended to provide warmth for your muscles and protection for your skin.  They come in different levels of warming from no warming up to stuff that really heats your legs up!  

In temps below 50 degrees, I'll use a non-warming or very mild warming embrocation.  I'll go to medium below that.  I personally don't use the really hot embrocations.  My skin doesn't like them that much.  

The awesome thing about embro, in addition to helping keep your legs and muscles warm, is that it keeps your skin really smooth and healthy… protecting it from the wind and elements.  

Note:  Applying the warming embrocation is something to be careful with.  The stuff in it that warms your legs can also be uncomfortable if it gets on your tender, soft tissue.  You also don't want to touch your face or eyes if you've got any embro on your fingers.  Trust me, you'll be inventing new curse words if that happens.  I apply warming embro using latex gloves and then toss them away.  It makes everything easier.  

Note2: Embro works best on shaved legs.  It is easier to apply and remove.   

Post-ride skin care:  I'm a guy… facial skin care isn't high on my priority list.  I generally use a moisturizer (read hand cream) on my hands and face after I get out of the shower.  Suave vitamin E lotion is my fave.  It is cheap and works well. For people who really care more about what they use on their face, I generally suggest going with something a little more heavy duty to repair and replenish what the cold takes out of the skin on your face.  

If you're looking for the simple answer for everything…. just go to town with the Suave lotion and you'll be okay.  If you want more in-depth information, read on!  

On my legs I'm more systematic.  Decades of winter riding has beaten the heck out of my legs.  If I don't take care of them, the skin really begins to hurt.  I've found a few things that work well.  For every day use, I use Trader Joe's Vitamin E oil.  It smells good and feels good on my skin.  My legs feel great right away.  If the ride was wet and my skin is really beaten up, something like Bag Balm (it is actually a cow udder ointment) from the drug store gives a bit more relief.  Bag Balm is also great for saddle sores.  It is good to have a tin of it around the house.  The third product I just started using is from Donkey Label, a company that makes embrocation and chamois cream.  It is called Recovery Oil.  It is designed to not only repair your skin, but also helps your muscles recover when you use it as a massage oil.  I use it just before getting out the Foam Roller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foam_rolling).  My legs feel great after. 

I know that's a lot of information.  It makes my legs feel happy though. 

Happy winter riding!

Pete

Powhatan Dirty 200

From the brain of the person that brought you the Kill Bill Century and the 140 mile fixie MoCo Epic, I would like to present the Powhatan Dirty 200.  

The short pitch:  I'm likely going to be too poor to attend the Dirty Kanza 200 this year.  That doesn't mean that I am going to sit on the sidelines, watching the internet while friends do a leg-breaking gravel grinder ride next year.  

Similar to DK200, the PD200 will be a self-supported, 200 mile gravel grinder done in one day.  I'll create a century version too, for those who want a tough ride, but don't have a 200 mile day in their legs.  I'm talking about it now because I want to train and I want others to be able to train for it.  

Different from DK200:  This is not a race or even a supported ride.  Basically I'm going to go for a ride.  If you'd like to join me, you are completely welcome to.  You will need to be completely self-sufficient.  You can have a support crew resupply you, but you're not required to.  You can carry tons of stuff with you.  You can resupply at country stores along the way.  I'll try and make it so there is a place to resupply every 30-40 miles.  You will need to have a plan to be picked up if you need to bail mid ride.  The plan will likely take the form of making sure you've got a loved-one or friend who can pick you up if you call.

Date: TBD -- Late May or Early June, 2014 is my choice.
Route: TBD -- but it will include some time on the C&O as well as gravel road miles in Loudoun, Montgomery and Frederick Counties.  Some of the roads will be familiar.  Some may be new to you.  There will be pavement. 
Why? That's a question that takes a bit extra to answer…
Because it is there and needs to be ridden.
It is an opportunity to raise money for my favorite charity.
Finishers will get a PD200/100 Finisher frame sticker.
The photos and stories will endure for EVAR!

Let me know what you think.  

Love,

Pete