Space

From this:

Driven in part by riders’ demands for a greater sense of comfort and safety on the road, new apps and gadgets are promising to do for the bicycle what air bags and satellite navigation did for the family car. What used to be a simple, healthful mode of transport is fast becoming a tech festival on wheels.

Among the gadgets listed are a really loud horn, laser that "makes" bike lanes, an inflatable helmet and a lock that unlocks by smartphone. Neat.

Remember the Space Race? Maybe you read a book about it or saw a Tom Hanks movie about it once. Maybe you were there, racing the Russians to space or maybe you just played Lunar Lander on an old Apple II. Anyway, Those guys had to figure out a way to get a rocket to the moon, a way to keep astronauts alive on the lunar surface, and a way to launch them back to earth safely. To to this NASA had to solve a million problems and also invent TANG because solving extraordinarily complicated space travel problems leaves you parched and you need a refreshing orange powdered drink after a long day of hypothesizing, testing, developing, building, re-testing, and honing all in the name of solving a previously unreconciled cascading set of immensely complicated problems on the cutting edge of the available technology with the end goal of achieving something that had never been done before.

Bike safety isn't like that. It's kinda already been figured out and already implemented. Like in those places where people do a lot of biking already and they do it safely and it's not a big deal. And they manage to crack the problem of bike safety without lasers and smartphones. So, maybe we should just do that too. It's not a question of Space, it's a question of space. People have already solved the problem. Let's not reinvent the wheel. Let's just embrace another Cold War tradition and steal it.

Sports

I sometimes feel like the reaction to fair weather bike commuters is akin that of season ticket holders when the team makes the playoffs. "Where were you in April?," they ask, except in this case April is January. "That cap looks awfully new. Bet is still has the tag on it," they say except maybe it's a cycling jersey instead of a baseball cap or maybe I should've said "team jersey" as the example would have been better because of exact parallelism. "Ugh, you don't even know the players' names. You're just here for the excitement," they say as if being somewhere for the excitement is the worst thing ever. "It's not your thing. It's my thing. It's my thing because I've been here longer. I committed to this before I knew it would turn out great. I committed to this when the outcome was unsure. I staked a claim to this thing and I did it every day and I'm going to continue to do this every day because this is my thing and this is how I define myself and this is the defining thing I define myself by because I committed to it," they imply because everyone knows that there is a limited quantity of fandom molecules that exist in the world and each new bandwagoneer laps up those that should RIGHTFULLY belong to someone who purports (or purports to purport) to care much more than others, except not the others he accepts as caring as much as he does and who have sufficiently demonstrated their commitment to caring by maybe passing some kind of look-up-and-down or maybe because he knows them and he's seen them there or maybe because they say so and say so decisively.

Bike commuting modeshare in DC is 4%. There's plenty of room to grow. The stadium is not at capacity; it's barely been built. And you don't build a stadium for just the season ticket holders. Also, I don't know where luxury boxes fit into this analogy or how maybe referencing massive cable tv deals might help or hinder this metaphor. Professional sports are complicated. 

Happy spring. 

A Totally True Story Not In Any Way About Bike Commuting

I was walking to the Metro this morning because I'm a daily Metro commuter and there was this guy in front of me also walking to the station. We neared the escalator and he did a quick zig, cutting across my path to grab a copy of the Express from the ledge and then zagged back in front of me and while I had to stutter-step a little to avoid walking into him, it's not that much of a big deal because clearly he just was late in his decision to grab a paper and that's fairly forgivable. He stepped on the top step of the escalator and I followed him and we both took a few steps down the left side and then he came to a full stop and this time I bumped into him.  Maybe there was someone in front of him. There was  no one in front of him, but he just decided to stop anyway. I said "excuse me" and I moved to the right and shuffled around him and it's not that big of a deal. I guess he just doesn't get the whole 'walk on the left, stand on the right' thing. I got to the bottom of the escalator, removed my wallet and metro card and walked to the fare gates and then from behind me I heard the heavy thuds of the footsteps of someone running and as I went to turn my head to see what was happening, the same guy from the escalator ran past me and cut in front of me at the gate I was about to use. He didn't have his metro card out and isn't in any way prepared to do the task for which, for some reason, he decided to run towards at full speed. I waited for him as he fumbled in his pocket and eventually got through the gate. I followed and then decided to quicken my pace a bit to get around this guy who, now on the other side of the gate, dawdled slowly towards the next escalator. Weird guy, I think. I stepped on the next escalator, this time waiting on the right side, figuring I might as well just stand as no train was coming for another six minutes, when behind me I heard a heavy sigh and felt a tap on the shoulder. It's that same guy! And he's trying to walk down the escalator on the right side, even though there's no one standing on the left. Part of me wants to say nothing and refuse to move over, but I'm like 'fine, whatever' and step to the left. The guy then proceeded to run down the escalator and continues, running down the entire length of the platform.

There's no train for six minutes and the platform began to fill. The weird guy (as I've begun calling him) briskly jogged from one end of the platform to the other. "Gotta keep my heart rate up," he said to an old lady. "Good exercise," he said to no one in particular. I figured I should just try to ignore this dude, but it was difficult to stay clear of him entirely as there's only so much space on the platform and since he was jogging back and forth, it's not like I could necessarily know where to stand where to avoid him. Eventually, the lights on the platform flashed and the train pulled up and now, even though, I shouldn't have been surprised by this, the guy heretofore jogging broke out into a full sprint, seemingly racing us other passengers to one of the train doors. He stood directly in front of the closed door and as soon as it opened, he dove (I can't think of a better word to describe it) for a gap between some of the standing passengers, failing to let others exit the train before he entered. They grumbled and shuffled out and those of us waiting to board the train also grumbled a little about the guy who ran in front of us to get on the train first even though there seemed to be plenty of time to board. The old lady from earlier made her way onto the train and headed for the open seating reserved for the elderly and disabled and just as she was about to transfer her weight from her cane to sit down, the weird guy espied the empty seats, lumbered across the car and slid himself into one, placing his backpack on the other. He proceeded to turn up the music on his headphones and popped open a bag of Funyuns, crumbs of which cascaded from the sides of his mouth to the floor with each chomp. Someone else stood to allow the old lady to sit and the train passengers, myself included, scowled. Someone under her breath said "asshole." The guy remained oblivious to the notion that we were all scowling at him.

It was my stop soon and I moved towards the door to await the train pulling into the station and I thought about how strange a commute this had been and I was happy to be nearing the end of it. The door opened and I stepped onto the platform. I began my walk to the escalator when once again, that guy, having shoved his way through the closing doors of the train, proceeds to run past me, looks over his shoulder back at me, ensuring that he was, indeed, running faster than I was walking, and bounded onto the escalator. He raised his hands over his head like Rocky, extraordinarily satisfied with himself and the speed with which he ran from the train to the escalator. I think I heard him say "King of the Metro!" but maybe I misheard. I did hear him clearly when he took out his phone, dialed and then said, "Hi, Mom. I am awesome at Metro!" That was weird.

Clearly he didn't understand. Clearly he didn't realize that no one on the Metro was racing him from platform to escalator. Clearly he was unfamiliar with the established practice of walking on the left and standing on the right and letting the train empty before boarding and offering seats to the elderly and disabled. He didn't do anything "illegal" per se, but his behavior was odd and incongruous and seemed to do nothing to do anything but annoy his fellow travelers. He wasn't really following any of the established norms of commuting by subway and didn't seem to be in any way aware of this.

It's weird that there are Metro commuters who are like this. Oddly out of touch with their surroundings, unable to glean that perhaps their behavior isn't in keeping with that of those around them, seemingly unaware that no one is competing with them to see how quickly they can board or exit a train, placing their own quest for "awesomeness" ahead of anything else. Very weird. And it's weird that they fail to notice that this isn't the prevailing behavior of everyone else, people who are just trying to get to work and are aware that others are just trying to do the same. Maybe if that guy just realized that what he was doing was alienating and out of touch and made him seem like kind of ... an asshole, maybe then, he'd change his ways and it would make it better for everyone. Maybe then. But how to explain to someone that they're acting this way? How can I convey to these kind of train passengers that they should pay attention to the behavior of those around them and maybe think about not cutting people off and waiting their turn and giving sufficient space and showing proper deference to more vulnerable passengers and not trying to "race" people who clearly have no interest in doing that? I just don't know.

Opportunities

Below, a hodgepodge:

• Do you have a Bikeshare key and also hold the opinion that there simply aren't enough hand-crafted leather goods in your life? Well, aren't you lucky that you can now buy one of these great leather Bikeshare fob holders. You should email Matt at mlsteenhoek@gmail.com if you're interested. Combine your commitment to bikesharing with your commitment to leather goods with your commitment to supporting local producers with your commitment to buying (for now) few-of-kind accessories with your commitment to preserving this somewhat easily breakable plastic stick. I'm on fob #5, having broken the 4 others (including a prized black key) and prior to buying this, was keeping my key in my wallet and it was interfering with all of the no money that's in there. This thing is super cool. I bought mine for $35, which is half the cost of a yearly Bikeshare membership, but also the cost of the one and half weeks of Metro commutes, so you can make up your own mind if that's a good deal or not.

• Do you like biking and also hold the opinion that giving some cash, some time or some positive word of mouth to a new nonprofit community used bicycle program is a worthwhile use of your cash, time and/or mouth? Well, aren't you lucky that you're now reading about Gearin' Up, a new nonprofit community used bicycle program based in NE DC. Here's their funding page. I think it's a neat project and one that really helps close the gap between the bike services that we need and the bike services we currently have.

• Do you like WABA and also hold opinions about dance parties, biking to work on a day, and trail ranger-er-ing? Well, aren't you lucky that you clicked through on some or all of those links. Now, here's the thing about the summer trail ranger program that a lot of people don't know. You get Trail Ranger immunity, which is like diplomatic immunity but better. Not only are you immune to criminal prosecution, but you also develop physical invulnerability to poison ivy, mosquito bites and sunburn. Or at least I hope that those things are true because those powers would be super useful for a job like that. But even if such a thing as Trail Ranger immunity does not technically exist, it's still an amazing opportunity to help the #bikeDC community (which really, really, really relies on the rangers) and also to get paid for riding your bike around DC in the summer.

Some unsolicited advice on grocery shopping by bicycle

I am a bike commuter and I am also a daily grocery shopper, which is a habit I picked up a number of years ago and haven't ever really been able to shake. It's not that I don't like to plan ahead- foresight is twice as good as two-sight!- it's just like I like to buy what I need only a meal or two ahead (aside from pantry staples) and this is especially important when you enjoy fresh produce and seemed to be cursed by a series of refrigerators that barely work and/or have been placed under some kind of evil curse to spoil food as quickly as possible. Or maybe I shop daily because I bike commute and not the other way around, but I do have access to a car and could theoretically just go once a week, pack the trunk to the brim with Funyuns and be done with it, but I don't do that, so the predilection for daily shopping must be deeper than just a habit forced upon me by my mode choice. Anyway. Maybe you don't like grocery shopping as much as I do (I think I have Stockholm Syndrome about it and that also explains why I'm always buying Swedish Fish) and maybe you like grocery shopping and prefer to do it by car and both of those things are ok with me, but if you're inclined to want to try to do your grocery shopping by bike or already do your grocery shopping by bike and want to compare methods (because you're a weirdly competitive person or something?), then I offer you the below.

Some thoughts about grocery shopping (and not Deng Xiaoping) by bike:

1. Have you ever driven a car in a grocery store parking lot? I've seen demolition derbies that are less barbarous. It's absurd. Everything you've ever wanted to learn about the malignancy of car culture can be learned in a Whole Foods parking lot on the day before a snow storm. It would make Thomas Hobbes blush (if he weren't so pale from being so dead). Rolling up to the store on your bicycle, for the most part, spares you from this malarkey. Bike parking, while not always great and not always sufficient, rarely requires the same selfish maneuvering or hastens the same kind of deep personal suffering as does circling in a crowded parking lot, trying to find a place for your car. And bike parking tends to be closer to the door, though if you're the kind of person who it put off by the idea of walking from the other end of the parking lot, you're probably not the kind of person who is going to bike there. In any case, choosing to bike to the store spares you a lot of the crazy car parking nonsense that so many people find to be so frustrating, so, as far as I'm concerned, you're already ahead. So would walking or taking the buses, but this is a bike blog, so woo bikes. Also, your bike can prove useful for carrying groceries, though a mule would also do that and you don't see me advocating shopping by mule. Yet.

2. I like to use my pannier as my grocery bag.  For one, I'm already carrying it with me, so it's not an extra thing to remember. I walk around the store and put my groceries in there with my other stuff and when it gets full, I'm done. I've yet to have to make a Sophie's Choice, shoving my day's worn clothes behind the Entenmann's endcap in order to make more room for the the steeply discounted day-old muffins, but I suppose that's always an option. Maybe you're better than I am in judging spatial relationships, but I've definitely screwed up in estimating how much my bag could hold in relationship to how much I've already put in my basket (I don't use carts- they are cumbersome and unwieldy and should be left for people who are buying 11 dozen take-and-bake pizzas for some reason) and it's never a good thing when you're cramming stuff into your pannier that maybe you could've held off on buying. So...

3. Keep a spare bag (or two) on your bike or in your bike bag. The kind of bag that I really like to use in case of emergencies is a drawstring bag that you can wear as a backpack. I got mine from the AAA MidAtlantic table at last year's Bike to Work Day. [Previous sentence not intended to make your head explode]. What I like about it is that it folds (read: crumples) up very small for storage and can be worn. That way I don't have to sling it over my handlebars, which is a very "ugh" way to have to ride your bike. It can be done, but not by me, because I have very little balance and the bag ends up banging against the spokes of my front wheel and that makes both a terrible sound and perhaps puts me in a state of jeopardy vis-a-vis breaking my bike and falling down.

4. Don't wear your helmet in the store. Please don't do this. Please. I promise you that the risk of canned corn falling on your noggin' from the upper shelves is marginal at best. This is more an aesthetic appeal than a pragmatic one. I just think you look like a dork when you wear a bicycle helmet inside a grocery store.

5. Shop for what you need and be pretty rigorous about it. Going by bike probably ins't the best time to browse. Yes, you can probably (if you really work at it) figure out a way to bring home the 24 pack of toilet paper or the 36 pack of variety Utz snacks or a billion diapers, but if this is a daily shopping trip and you haven't already accounted for how you're going to easily do this, it might be better to wait for a different trip or maybe one in which you're not going by bike. Again, I'm not gonna tell you how to live your life. You do you. It might just be easier.

6. This isn't bike specific, but I really don't like using and then throwing out all of those plastic bags for produce, so I bought some reusable mesh bags. I guess I could've just kept reusing the same plastic bags and spared myself the additional expense, but I didn't do that and now I have these instead. I keep a few of them in my bike bag and try not to forget to put them back in my bike bag when they're empty again.

7. There are various bungee apparatuses that might prove useful to you, such as bungee cords and bungee nets and I have both of these things, but generally, I just try to fit everything I can into my bag and don't really avail myself of these things. But I have in the past, especially when I rode a bike with a front basket. I've used the bungee cords to secure growlers of beer and also pizza boxes, so their utility is unquestionable.

8. Remember to lock your bike. It would really suck to have it ridden away while you're inside.

9. You can definitely bike home eggs. Just put them near the top of your bag. Generally, the stratigraphy of my pannier looks like this: work lunch container (which is typically glass), work clothes, heavy or solid groceries (canned goods, milk, dried pasta, anything boxed, anything frozen, beer), then eggs, then produce. Try to construct even layers. I tend to buy a lot of kale, not because I even like kale, but because it serves as excellent padding for more delicate groceries. I also stuff kale in my shoes to keep my feet warm and as noise-dampening insulation in various home renovation projects. Never actually eaten the stuff, but gosh, it sure it useful. Bread is very tricky, because sandwich bread is squishy. Mostly I cope with this by not getting upset if my bread gets squished because, seriously, there are more important things in life. But I guess one way you could mitigate this by leaving the top of your bag open and leaving the bread near the top. Just not on rainy days.

10. About backpacks or messenger bags: you can definitely shop by bike with these, though they might not carry as much (though that's ok), especially if they're already full of your work clothes and/or laptop or whatever. That also means your groceries are resting up against your back and that might prove uncomfortable. There's maybe a decent amount of stuff you could cram in there, but then you also lose the ability to use a backup backpack, unless (and I've done this), you're willing to wear two backpacks to bike things home.

Everyone's grocery shopping needs are different, though for the most part, a bicycle is more than sufficient for your shopping and with just a tiny bit of preparation (especially if you're going to the store alone. You can, I bet, shop by bike with kids, and countless people do, but I've never done this so I can't speak to any additional steps you might want to take into consideration) and the simple recognition of the reality of your carrying capacity you can avoid the headaches of shopping by car and further find utility in the very useful tool that is your bike. If I can do it, anyone can do it.

I've doubtlessly forgot a ton of things. Leave your insights in the comments.

UPDATE: A thing I forgot: be very careful riding around grocery store parking lots. People, as I alluded to earlier, aren't always the best and more conscientious drivers in parking lots, so continue to be mindful of that and, you know, remain cognizant of the world around you, no matter how distracted you might be by your impending purchase of on-sale frozen burritos.

One other thing about grocery shopping by bike: maybe your preferred grocery store isn't very bike accessible and that's why you don't shop there by bike. I get that. I've written the above from the perspective of a very spoiled urban bike commuter who has access to ample grocery stores on his commute route and fully acknowledge that these conditions aren't universally shared. I wouldn't suggest that anyone taken upon themselves the decision to shop by bike in conditions where simply riding a bike are hostile, though I would, as always, suggest advocating your local policymakers and politicians for a change in those conditions, that you, if it is your inclination, can subsequently shop for your groceries by bicycle.

UPDATE 2: Do you live or shop in Arlington, VA? I once wrote this authoritative guide on bike parking at Arlington grocery stores and maybe it's still accurate!