Clarendon Cycles

Arlington Celebrates Bike Month in a Big Way

If it's May, it's Bike Month in Arlington.

Arlington celebrates Bike Month in a big way every year. From a massive regional event like Bike to Work Day to the small group discussions at Bike Arlington's Two Wheel Tuesdays, Bike Month events aim to show just how easy and enjoyable it is for anyone to use a bicycle. The easist time to learn how to ride a bike is when you're a kid, of course, and Arlington Public Schools will join in the national celebration of Bike to School Day. This year, it will take place on Wednesday, May 8. Arlington’s an especially good place for kids to bike to school, with lots of multi-use paths connecting low-traffic streets to neigbhorhood schools. So while the adults are still aruging about who can and can't take the bus, the kids can just enjoy the fun …

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Legally Blind Couple Takes to Bikes, Skis

Husband and wife Bob Hartt and Bonnie O’Day of West End Alexandria are cycling enthusiasts who ride tandem with captains.

  About this sponsorship: In honor of the 60th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary’s historic ascent of Mount Everest, Patch and Grape-Nuts are teaming up to highlight those who inspire people around them to climb their own mountains. One nice spring afternoon or evening, you might spot West End Alexandria residents Bob Hartt and Bonnie O’Day on a bicycle built for two — or, in their case, on two bicycles built for four. Hartt and O’Day, who live in Seminary Heights, are legally blind, but that hasn’t stopped them from enjoying cycling and cross-country skiing. The couple rides tandem bikes, which allows a guide—the captain or pilot—to ride on the front of a two-seated bicycle, and the visually-impaired person, called “the stoker,” to apply…

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On Tap: Projects to Make Arlington Even More Bicycle-Friendly

As Arlington warms up, so does progress on cycling infrastructure.

Winter not only takes a lot of people off their bikes, it also put a lot of the improvements to cycling infrastructure on pause. Striping is harder to apply, new construction is harder to manage in the cold, and labor is often scarce. But spring brings back the work, and Arlington’s got a number of bike-related projects on tap. Last month, Capital Bikeshare (CaBi) finally expanded to Columbia Pike. This long-awaited expansion will help extend the range of Arlington’s existing CaBi network, providing something of a middle ground between its well-established locations in Crystal City and the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor. Two of the new stations are along Columbia Pike, and one is near the Gunston Community Center. As the year progresses, the …

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Ed

4:26 pm on Thursday, May 2, 2013

C.D. I must disagree...it is not so obvious..how about: 1. For Fairlington residents to be able to show of their beautiful community to family and friends while taking a leisure bike ride...unless you own and have many bikes at your disposal. 2. For Fairlington residents to ride to Shirlington bus hub and commute to work by public transportation instead of driving into D.C. - therefore preventing…   more ›

The Old Bike Shop Opens in Arlington

The shop at 2647 N. Pershing Drive opened Thursday in Arlington.

The Old Bike Shop hopes to bring something new to Arlington: inexpensive used bikes targeting the entry-level rider. "The bikes are completely refurbished," said owner Lawrence Behery, 37. "It's an inexpensive opportunity to own a high quality vintage bike that they no longer make anymore." The shop, at 2647 N. Pershing Drive, opened Thursday. BikeArlington showed up with maps, decals and pins to help celebrate the opening. Shop mechanics hand pick bikes for the store's inventory and refurbish them on site. Behery sees his shop as a safer and more reliable alternative for secondhand bikes than websites like Craigslist. "Arlington is a critical area as far as the opportunity being presented now," Behery said. "There was a lack of accessible…

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Clarendon Cycles

Clarendon Cycles: Rolling Through the Winter

Ride through the winter? Yes you can. Just be careful about it.

Icy roads and snowy paths. They’re not here yet, but they’re coming. We almost had them this past weekend. While riding in Arlington’s winter conditions does require a bit of extra effort and care, it’s still quite doable. There are plenty of great resources for learning more about winter riding. A couple of years ago I wrote about dealing with extended darkness, the potential for slick surfaces, and extra debris on the streets. The Washington Area Bike Forum continues to be a great place for Arlington-specific cold weather clothing and equipment advice. There’s plenty of discussion of the question of when to use studded tires (ice) or big knobby tires (snow) for the neophyte at the forums. I’m done belaboring the plowing issue — well, …

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Cycling’s Challenge: The Windshield Perspective

Arlington County temporarily shuts down a major walking/cycling commuter route with no detour.

No doubt many regular readers of this column will be expecting me to tee off on last week’s inexplicable and unannounced closure of a very busy part of the Custis Trail — with no detour. It sent cyclists and pedestrians onto Lee Highway against traffic. The drivers themselves had no warning that the lane in front of them would be filled with cyclists and pedestrians simply trying to get to their own destinations. It was more than half a day before the county, in response to complaints, put a detour in place. Some, quite understandably, see this as a failing of Arlington County to follow through on its promise to be a cycling- and walking-friendly community. And, I suppose, in a way it is a failure. But it’s not a failure of intent. I’m …

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Bikes Count

Arlington County's efforts at collecting hard data on bicycle use helps guide and evaluate the effectiveness of its planning for bikes.

Even the most casual of observers could tell you that cycling has been on the rise the past few years in Arlington. But as encouraging as that observation may be, it's not a particularly helpful one, especially if you’re trying to make sure that the streets are safe for increasing numbers of cyclists. Arlington County recognized this problem a few years ago and has built a network of automated counters that recognize bikes and pedestrians at key points on our streets and trails. Traffic engineers have been using automated data collection for years, but almost exclusively for vehicles. Those looking for better data about cycling traffic have usually relied on staff or volunteers actually standing along a trail or road and counting bikes as …

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Connected Cycling: Social Media Resources for Arlington, DC

Arlington cyclists benefit from a vibrant, informative and open online community.

Last week I had a chance to sit down with a local government agency that has a lot of responsibility for maintaining some of the area's busiest paths. The agency occasionally had trouble finding out, in a timely way, about the latest trail blockages. As they put it to me — if they don't know about it, they can't fix it. And sometimes it takes days. While that makes sense, and no institution is omniscient, I was a bit surprised by this. Every day, I get timely and reliable reports on cycling trouble spots, be they crashes, bad signals or flooded trails. I'm not special — anyone can get them. Over the past few years, as both cycling and Twitter use have increased, an organic online community of Washington-area cyclists has grown into …

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Thanks for Moving Cycling Forward, Arlington

Taking a moment to thank those who make Arlington a better place for cycling

I'm not much of a traditionalist when it comes to Thanksgiving, but I do think it's good to stop and appreciate what we've got from time to time. A recent outside view of what makes Arlington good for cycling reminded me that we've got a lot to be thankful for here. I wrote a bit last year about some of the people making Arlington a great place to ride, and now's a good time to update that. A lot has happened in the past year. Capital Bikeshare's long-anticipated expansion really took off, with stations now saturating the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor. Arlington also developed a very smart analysis and plan for Capital Bikeshare's future. There was also progress on infrastructure. Some of it was standard bike lane striping, completing gaps in …

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Clarendon Cycles

Clarendon Cycles: Visibility Is Key

Now's a very good time to reassess your visibility on Arlington's streets and trails.

It's time for that semi-annual get-your-lights-out reminder. Eastern Standard Time is here, Bike Arlington is doing light-giveaways, and it's well past sunset when most of us are heading home from work. So what's the point of a reminder column? As BikeHugger recently asked — Do people not realize that it's time for lights? Well, no, they don't. Not enough of them, anyway. And by people, I mean everyone using our streets and trails. Cyclists and pedestrians are not as visible as we think we are, and this leads to unsafe situations. Ask any driver or cyclist who's happened upon a "ninja" runner — dressed all in black, save perhaps a small reflective stripe on his shoe — crossing the street or sharing the trail with them. It should go without…

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