Ride Report: 3/3/2014

Started near Capitol Hill as the next-to-last snow trailed off. My brakes quickly became useless in addition to being pointless as the pads froze and packed with ice, but there was almost no traffic to stop for so I continued. Skidded down the hill on Constitution, then cut first second third tracks in the Pa Ave bike lanes, where I spotted DC's finest parked in the bike lane for the security of Israel or something. Huffed my way up 15th St, then across the Lafayette Park plaza to continue on Pa Ave all the way to Georgetown, spotting just one other rider out on an orange bike - we exchanged "have fun" and "be careful" pleasantries. I skidded out just a little in icy car tracks on M just past Wisconsin and nearly got run over by a taxi-van who seemed impatient to get nowhere.

Snow problems...

Some days it feels like DC is the best city on earth to bike around - but it doesn't feel like that every day.

“The standard bike lanes…get plowed with the rest of the street, the majority of bike lanes are already already taken care of”

DDOT Bicycle Program Specialist Mike Goodno believes that to be true. He's quoted here from a recent WNEW radio interview examining DDOT and DC-DPW's performance at clearing DC's bike lanes, cycletracks, and other paths.

His position isn't borne out by what's plainly visible to anyone who cares to look.