in the dark
Thu Aug 21 02:57:57 EDT 2014
Riding home from work this morning, leaving Georgetown on the Capital Crescent Trail I overtook a couple of guys with blinkers but no headlights. I dropped back to ride with them and give them some light. (This actually wasn't a good idea.) They were heading to Bethesda, which meant they'd be staying on the trail. I usually switch from the paved trail to the dirt/gravel towpath at Fletcher's Boat House. But I stayed on the trail to the Arizona Ave trestle, the last place to connect to the towpath. The trestle goes across the C&O Canal and Canal Road, and then the trail turns away from the Potomac River. When we stopped to part at the trestle, they didn't have the light to continue to Bethesda, but they didn't really have the light to return to Georgetown, either. (And I don't know what they were going to do when they got back there.) But I was going to continue out the towpath and then take Chain Bridge into Virginia, which wasn't any good for them.
If I had not been there to "help", they probably would have turned back to Georgetown before going a quarter mile (0.4km) into the dark. ☹ An off-road bike trail is amazingly dark at night. We're 4 days before the new moon, so the moon wasn't up yet, and its light would have been negligible. The CCT has heavy tree cover, so even a full moon wouldn't have helped much. (Light on the canal, shadow on the trail.)
I realized later that at the boat house they could cross the canal and get to Canal Road, which is paved and street-lit, but they shouldn't be riding there either without lights. And of course there's the question of why they were riding from DC to a MD suburb after midnight with no lights. I don't think they had helmets, either. ☹
One of the guys was riding a fixed-gear bike. You've got to be a lot more serious about cycling - and more fit - than I am for one of those. It's a single-speed bike, but there's no freewheel (no coasting). If the bike is moving, your legs are moving. If the bike is moving fast, your legs are moving fast.
Tuesday 21:45
I did another towpath rescue tonight. (From Georgetown to the Arizona-Ave trestle, the C&O Canal Towpath and the CCT run roughly parallel, sometimes only 3 feet (1m) apart.) 3 guys (teenagers) called out as I was passing by. One had a flat tire, and needed a pump. I had a pump. Tire didn't hold air. He probably needed a patch. He didn't have patches. Nor tire levers. (Some people are really lucky I happen across them....) So we got his tire patched, and I hope they made it to Alexandria without further incident. At least these guys had lights.
The guy had a really nice bike. And he seemed to know what he was doing. He knew he had Presta valves (high-end bike), and he needed tire levers. But he/they apparently didn't know enough to carry a pump, patch kit, and minimal tools.
I guess it's just youth. Eventually you learn to carry lights and batteries, air pumps and patches, tools.... There is some non-zero chance of needing these things, and if you ride enough, long enough, everything with a non-zero chance of happening will eventually happen. To you.
Hmmm, I don't seem to have made note here of stopping to help a woman with a flat tire at about the same spot a few months ago. (Jody. Five patches, and it still wouldn't hold air. She eventually phoned her husband to pick her up.) Found it in my bike-mileage log: June 23. That was right after the weekend with a problematic disaster exercise at work, and anniemal going to Wicker Man at the hippy farm flaming drunk.
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/689669.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
Riding home from work this morning, leaving Georgetown on the Capital Crescent Trail I overtook a couple of guys with blinkers but no headlights. I dropped back to ride with them and give them some light. (This actually wasn't a good idea.) They were heading to Bethesda, which meant they'd be staying on the trail. I usually switch from the paved trail to the dirt/gravel towpath at Fletcher's Boat House. But I stayed on the trail to the Arizona Ave trestle, the last place to connect to the towpath. The trestle goes across the C&O Canal and Canal Road, and then the trail turns away from the Potomac River. When we stopped to part at the trestle, they didn't have the light to continue to Bethesda, but they didn't really have the light to return to Georgetown, either. (And I don't know what they were going to do when they got back there.) But I was going to continue out the towpath and then take Chain Bridge into Virginia, which wasn't any good for them.
If I had not been there to "help", they probably would have turned back to Georgetown before going a quarter mile (0.4km) into the dark. ☹ An off-road bike trail is amazingly dark at night. We're 4 days before the new moon, so the moon wasn't up yet, and its light would have been negligible. The CCT has heavy tree cover, so even a full moon wouldn't have helped much. (Light on the canal, shadow on the trail.)
I realized later that at the boat house they could cross the canal and get to Canal Road, which is paved and street-lit, but they shouldn't be riding there either without lights. And of course there's the question of why they were riding from DC to a MD suburb after midnight with no lights. I don't think they had helmets, either. ☹
One of the guys was riding a fixed-gear bike. You've got to be a lot more serious about cycling - and more fit - than I am for one of those. It's a single-speed bike, but there's no freewheel (no coasting). If the bike is moving, your legs are moving. If the bike is moving fast, your legs are moving fast.
Tuesday 21:45
I did another towpath rescue tonight. (From Georgetown to the Arizona-Ave trestle, the C&O Canal Towpath and the CCT run roughly parallel, sometimes only 3 feet (1m) apart.) 3 guys (teenagers) called out as I was passing by. One had a flat tire, and needed a pump. I had a pump. Tire didn't hold air. He probably needed a patch. He didn't have patches. Nor tire levers. (Some people are really lucky I happen across them....) So we got his tire patched, and I hope they made it to Alexandria without further incident. At least these guys had lights.
The guy had a really nice bike. And he seemed to know what he was doing. He knew he had Presta valves (high-end bike), and he needed tire levers. But he/they apparently didn't know enough to carry a pump, patch kit, and minimal tools.
I guess it's just youth. Eventually you learn to carry lights and batteries, air pumps and patches, tools.... There is some non-zero chance of needing these things, and if you ride enough, long enough, everything with a non-zero chance of happening will eventually happen. To you.
Hmmm, I don't seem to have made note here of stopping to help a woman with a flat tire at about the same spot a few months ago. (Jody. Five patches, and it still wouldn't hold air. She eventually phoned her husband to pick her up.) Found it in my bike-mileage log: June 23. That was right after the weekend with a problematic disaster exercise at work, and anniemal going to Wicker Man at the hippy farm flaming drunk.
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/689669.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]