May 17, 2007
Bike To Work Tomorrow
Quick, informal poll: Raise your hand if your drive, slug, or Metro to work each day. Now keep your hand raised if you hate your commute. One more -- keep your hand up if you have a bike. For all of you out their that still have your hands up (virtually, at least), why not pull that old dusty Diamondback off the back porch, give it the WD-40 treatment, and ride it to work for Bike to Work Day 2007?
Tomorrow, thousands of people will meet up at one of 24 "pit stops" throughout the metro area, forming massive bike commuter convoys that will converge on Freedom Plaza. The Washington Area Bicyclist Association and Commuter Connections, who organized the free event, will offer breakfast, entertainment, speakers, and chances to win bikes and other prizes at each pit stop. To be eligible for the prizes and a free t-shirt register for your preferred pit stop, which can be found from the farthest corners of the 'burbs right into downtown. Each convoy will be led by an experienced bike commuter who will make sure everyone stays safe and no one gets lost.
And even if you don't have a bike, or just haven't gotten around to fixing that flat tire, Bike the Sites is offering free rentals for anyone who needs a bike. Visit their website or call 202-842-BIKE to reserve yours.
Photo by Eye Captain
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Did you mean that people should lube their bike chains with WD-40?
Most bike mechanics I've spoken to recommend using a lubricant specifically for bike chains. WD-40 can act like a solvent and dry out your chains quicker.
On the other hand, maybe you meant people should use WD-40 and a good piece of cloth to remove grease from their bikes. You can also use WD-40 to clean your chain as long as you wipe it off and reapply a suitable lubricant.
Slug to work? Not to be dense, but what does that even mean?
Christine, I believe slugging is a mix of carpooling and hitchhiking. People line up and get picked up by strangers who are looking for a passenger so that they can use HOV lanes. Therefore, in a sense, the passenger is a slug (not in the snail without a shell sense, but in the coin or token sense)
slug-lines.com/
I'm definitely pro-bike. However, there is need to remind the occasional users who will be out en masse tomorrow that DC law prohibits bike riding on sidewalks in the Central Business District (generally considered to be the downtown area south of Mass Ave.), requires bike riders to ride in the streets in same direction as traffic, and to obey all traffic regulations (Speed limits, traffic lights, stop signs, etc.)
Not that I expect to see much enforcement of this stuff on a day like tomorrow - but it is pretty obnoxious to be riding a bike on a crowded downtown sidewalk. Some people are so proud of themselves for taking part in a noble cause that they forget things like that. A little common courtesy please.
sucks that they don't have reverse commutes for people that live in the city and bike to the burbs for work.
Don't forget to fill up on synthetic testosterone before you leave the house. Whether you are racing up Alpe d'Huez or K street, you can't seriously ride a bicycle without it. Oh yeah, fill up on toddler urine before you leave the house too. Just in case.
If I'm biking to Freedom Plaza, I'm not really biking to work, am I? I'm biking to "not-work," which is where I would be before I started biking.
This whole event is a syntactical nightmare!
Bike to Work day is also known as "Stinky Sweaty Employee Day."
An aside: did anyone else see that bike messenger run the red light at 14th and I St yesterday and get slammed by a car? It was one bloody, glassy mess. I think the biker wasn't too seriously injured. But he will have a sizable bill to repair the driver's car - whose windshield was completed smashed.
So I should be immensely grateful I'm not going to work in the morning tomorrow, that's what you're telling me?
Given how few bicyclists understand that the law does apply to them (I swear, they are the Paris Hiltons of transit), I foresee many bloodied pedestrians and exasperated drivers filling the ERs tomorrow.
Haters. Boo-hoo, bikers suck. Whaaa, bikers run red lights. Stomp-stomp, bikers get to work before me. Arrrgg, I'm fat and lazy and will probably die of coronary disease.
Morons. I'll just wave as I ride past you in traffic.
Yes, clearly if you don't bike to work you must be an inactive person. Obviously biking to work is the only kind of exercise a DCist could engage in.
Or maybe you just have a real job (i.e. - you wear a nice suit) and don't want to get to work in need of another shower - sweaty and with helmet hair.
To each his own - enjoy the rain on your ride tomorrow.
I'm pretty sure that you had to pre-register by last Friday in order to receive a t-shirt at tomorrow's event.
And, epmd, I believe that a number of riders who work out in the 'burbs meet up at Freedom Plaza first thing and then bike out to work.
I'm on board with the hygene issue... I'd love to bike to work if I had an extra half hour when I got there and the keys to Mr. Burn's executive washroom... But I mean come on, changing clothes and washing up in a government office bathroom??? Sick. Plus, the bathroom is already full with coworkers doing the same thing in the morning that came in by car or metro.
I wear a suit AT work. I get there way earlier than I would in my car because a) I don't shower before I leave for work b) I'm not sitting in traffic all morning. This leaves me lots of time to shower. I don't always carry my suit with me, sometimes I leave a few at work. I'm lucky to have a shower at my office, I know not everyone has that perk. My ride to work is mostly down hill, so on the nice days I hardly break a sweat going to work, and that is a bonus most people don't have either. As for helmet hair, well that is easily enough fixed, it's called a hairbrush.
I will enjoy my ride in the rain tomorrow, it's amazing what a little rain gear and a fender will do to keep you dry.
Here's how to lobby for bike commuter shower stalls: Bike to work, use that monstrously expensive terrorist-chemical-panic-detox shower out in the hall, and shrug when colleagues complain about the wet carpet.
You don't have a monstrously expensive terrorist-chemical-panic-detox shower out in the hall? What did your outfit do with all that Homeland Security cash, buy Jacuzzis?
i biked into the office today, 20 miles from Arlington to Herndon. Considering i only bought the bike less than three weeks ago and hadn't ridden prior to that in years, i was pretty proud of myself.
i went European until lunch and then caught a shower.
Plus, i know have a cool free t-shirt and water bottle from the Vienna pit stop.
Good times, good times.