Still here

Hi everyone, sorry for the slowdown in posting lately. Sometimes life gets in the way of art - and both can get in the way of bike blogging. The relative dearth of DC cycling photo-ops in winter doesn't help. I'll post when I can until the spring bloom!

Best winter biking gloves?

From a reader:

I've looked all over the vast land that is the internet looking for gloves that are both attractive and functionally windproof. This winter I've tried 3 pairs of gloves: The CS commuter glove, the North Face Windfall, and a pair of columbia skiing gloves.

CS Commuter gloves - decent warmth, sub par grip, but looks good and simple, windproof. Windfall - hated these. Ski gloves - the best but toooo bulky.

Any suggestions out there for good looking bike gloves? Seems impossible, but I don't think someone on the internet has written about this yet! 

18th St and Columbia Rd

Yes, another Adams Morgan picture. There's that curved building again in the background. What can I say, I pass that way a lot, and it usually has decent bike traffic, a CaBi station, cool cafes... The area just has a certain gravitational pull. I used to live around there and it still feels like the center of my DC universe.

Pittsburgh

Streetfilms' interesting look at Pittsburgh, its infrastructure, and efforts to improve public space, livable streets, and biking. I like what they've done with Market Square.

11th and Irving St

A resolution

The Washington Area Bicyclist Association has an online Resolution to Ride Responsibly that area cyclists can sign:

Please think about how you ride, your responsibility to yourself and other road users, and what you can do to help as a member of the bicycling community.

The pledge itself includes:

• I resolve to be a more responsible bicyclist

• I resolve to better respect the rights of other road users

• I resolve to make a good faith effort to better follow the law

• I resolve to yield to pedestrians

• I resolve to help make bicycling safer and easier for all of us

Sounds reasonable and welcome. I know some are irritated by it for various reasons, but not me. While I think I'm already a responsible rider, I'm signing because I'm all for encouraging a more civic-minded collective biking mentality in DC. We need to always strive to be a positive and collaborative part of the overall transit-scape.

Think of it as good cycling citizen-ship. All of us, to varying degrees, can do even better on these points. This could make the task of cycling advocacy easier during this pivotal time, and help defuse the kind of driver hostility that we know is out there, right or wrong.

No one's saying absolute, strict compliance, just as (for example) none of us stop fully at every stop sign when driving. Just make being a good biking citizen a goal and a habit as best you can. If you're already doing that, great.

Let's seduce with reasonableness, even in the face of irrationality.

18th Street

And in biking news

DCC is very pleased, things are seeming downright sensible around here:

DC press doesn't fall for bike-baiting

The Washington Examiner published a poorly-researched article about bike lane opposition. But instead of jumping onto an anti-bike lane revolt, DC press and opinion leaders quickly saw through the rhetoric and put forth a more nuanced and sensible reaction.

No anti-bike revolution at DDOT, at least not yet:

Bellamy to serve as interim head of DDOT

[to DDOT employees] "I don’t know how long I will serve in this capacity, but regardless please continue doing what you’re doing, keep working on all the projects and programs that make DDOT shine."

And CaBi is using cool cargo bikes for maintenance vehicles!