DC Walmart
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2015 05:10:50 +0000
Monday 7/13
Biked the shorter, paved route to work. On the short, steep, but no-longer-impossible hill a couple of blocks from home there were a couple of trucks doing the cement-pumping thing (foundation for a new house?), and there was a guy standing around just gawking at the bike (and/or me) as I went by. I'm sure he was doubly amazed that I rode up that hill. He probably never even noticed the substantial little hill before one gets to the difficult hill.
I took the paved route home and made it in an hour. (Not an hour of motion, but from the cage to the shed in an hour, including waiting at red lights.) I am definitely faster on the new bike. I've gotten to the office on the new bike in an hour taking the longer route. Coming home is much more uphill. I think the best scheduling listed for the Metro coming home was 55 minutes. It can easily be longer, with a long, sometimes cold wait for the bus, and sometimes long waits for trains also. A long winter wait for the bus is pretty miserable, especially if it's wet also. In the winter on the bike it is sometimes cold and sometimes comfortable, depending on whether I get the clothing right. Plus the Metro is $7.20 round trip (off peak).
Tuesday 7/14
I have finally been to the Walmart near my office. I wondered how they could fit a typical Walmart into an urban setting. Multiple floors?
Nope, it's all on one floor. There's just a whole lot less in it than in the other Walmarts I've been to. I was looking for 2 things in particular that I'd seen elsewhere (South Hill, VA), and I found neither. It's not as "super" as I would expect of a "Supercenter". I did find (vanity of vanities) a bike helmet that matches my new bike, and I've been using a helmet that should have been replaced years ago simply because of its age, and it has had at least one good knock (when I got doored by a taxi), which is also cause for immediate replacement (according to the helmet people, who of course want to sell more helmets). And I got their last pack of self-stick tube patches, but I think those were the same price at the bike shops.
It was good to see what was there, and it's not that far out of my way, but it's not going to be a regular haunt. Open to midnight 7 days a week is a plus, but if I'm on a bike I'm not going to want to carry anything heavy/large 10 miles home.
The traffic was so bad going east on H St approaching Mass Ave that I cut over to the sidewalk and walked the bike the last few blocks. (Riding on the sidewalk is illegal in most of downtown DC.)
An additional annoyance - I took the speedometer off the bike when I locked it outside the store. It reset in my pannier while I was shopping. (I had recorded the numbers from my ride so far though.)
So I'm doing a web search on "zefal artica helmet", and both Google and DuckDuckGo want to correct "artica" to "arctica". It seems that many of the vendors and reviewers have spelled it "arctica". Does this mean the manufacturer has misspelled "Artica" on all its packaging? I'd think that's unlikely. A new word with a sound you like avoids any trademark problems. (Allowances made for the Romney 2012 campaign.)
Hmmm, the packaging in the Walmart photo on line does say "ARCTICA"; the one I bought today says "ARTICA". What's up with this, Zéfal?
And the only photos (found by two search engines) seem to be from Walmart. (Curiously missing were any hits from a Zéfal web site.) Is this a vendor-specific product? Different models (or branding?) for bike shops and mass merchandisers (like Walmart)?
A few reviews:Good buy!! 5/7/2014
5.0 stars by An anonymous customer
I bought it because it's the same color of [sic] my bike.....but fits me way better than the first one I got! So I think it's a great buy!
Hard to find green helmet 6/24/2014
4.0 stars by kayaked
I love site to store, even though the helmet was first sent to a walmart 200 miles away. The green helmet was hard to find in stores, but on line I found it. Fits and looks great. Zefal Arctica Cycling Helmet, Adult Men's
Color fades quickly 8/30/2014
1.0 stars by angryjohnny1
I bought this helmet specifically for its bright color. After just four months of admittedly a lot of time in use in the sun it has faded to a dull light green. The color is still bright in a couple spots where it's shaded, like under the visor so it's clear that the fading was caused by sun exposure. I haven't had any problems with it otherwise.
I'll admit I too bought it because it matches my bike. But I was way overdue to replace my old helmet, it fits OK, and it's CPSC approved. If it fades, that may be disappointing.
I'm going to have to move my lights from the old helmet. Shouldn't be too hard.
Is a used helmet worse than nothing? Supposedly, after one good smack the foam's impact-absorbing capability is gone. It doesn't look any different. It looks like it could still compress again - perhaps not as far. But isn't that still better than no helmet at all? And as for places with helmet laws, how will they know the condition of the helmet on someone's head? (Of course, the obstinence there is from people who don't want anything on their heads, compromising their cooling and/or freedom.)
Wednesday 01:26
My brother's garage door opener died Monday. I went over after work tonight to help him install a new one. Since he has a 8' (2.4m) high opening instead of 7' (2.1m), he needed an extension. There were 2 different extensions that were supposed to work with this model, but the one he got doesn't work. So we didn't get the new opener installed, and he's going to have to go exchange this extension at a farther-away store in the chain to get the other one.
I was able to work out a bike route from my office to his house. It was largely similar to my route to Ad-Hoc Singers' rehearsals, crossing Memorial Bridge and passing the Iwo Jima Memorial, but it followed a trail on the south side of Arlington Blvd (US 50) around Fort Myer to Pershing St; in the past I'd left Arlington Blvd at Rhodes St. This new route avoided some nasty hill climbing into a very congested part of Arlington. I don't think this trail was there before. It hadn't turned up in my map reading before, and it looked new.
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/753280.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
Monday 7/13
Biked the shorter, paved route to work. On the short, steep, but no-longer-impossible hill a couple of blocks from home there were a couple of trucks doing the cement-pumping thing (foundation for a new house?), and there was a guy standing around just gawking at the bike (and/or me) as I went by. I'm sure he was doubly amazed that I rode up that hill. He probably never even noticed the substantial little hill before one gets to the difficult hill.
I took the paved route home and made it in an hour. (Not an hour of motion, but from the cage to the shed in an hour, including waiting at red lights.) I am definitely faster on the new bike. I've gotten to the office on the new bike in an hour taking the longer route. Coming home is much more uphill. I think the best scheduling listed for the Metro coming home was 55 minutes. It can easily be longer, with a long, sometimes cold wait for the bus, and sometimes long waits for trains also. A long winter wait for the bus is pretty miserable, especially if it's wet also. In the winter on the bike it is sometimes cold and sometimes comfortable, depending on whether I get the clothing right. Plus the Metro is $7.20 round trip (off peak).
Tuesday 7/14
I have finally been to the Walmart near my office. I wondered how they could fit a typical Walmart into an urban setting. Multiple floors?
Nope, it's all on one floor. There's just a whole lot less in it than in the other Walmarts I've been to. I was looking for 2 things in particular that I'd seen elsewhere (South Hill, VA), and I found neither. It's not as "super" as I would expect of a "Supercenter". I did find (vanity of vanities) a bike helmet that matches my new bike, and I've been using a helmet that should have been replaced years ago simply because of its age, and it has had at least one good knock (when I got doored by a taxi), which is also cause for immediate replacement (according to the helmet people, who of course want to sell more helmets). And I got their last pack of self-stick tube patches, but I think those were the same price at the bike shops.
It was good to see what was there, and it's not that far out of my way, but it's not going to be a regular haunt. Open to midnight 7 days a week is a plus, but if I'm on a bike I'm not going to want to carry anything heavy/large 10 miles home.
The traffic was so bad going east on H St approaching Mass Ave that I cut over to the sidewalk and walked the bike the last few blocks. (Riding on the sidewalk is illegal in most of downtown DC.)
An additional annoyance - I took the speedometer off the bike when I locked it outside the store. It reset in my pannier while I was shopping. (I had recorded the numbers from my ride so far though.)
So I'm doing a web search on "zefal artica helmet", and both Google and DuckDuckGo want to correct "artica" to "arctica". It seems that many of the vendors and reviewers have spelled it "arctica". Does this mean the manufacturer has misspelled "Artica" on all its packaging? I'd think that's unlikely. A new word with a sound you like avoids any trademark problems. (Allowances made for the Romney 2012 campaign.)
Hmmm, the packaging in the Walmart photo on line does say "ARCTICA"; the one I bought today says "ARTICA". What's up with this, Zéfal?
And the only photos (found by two search engines) seem to be from Walmart. (Curiously missing were any hits from a Zéfal web site.) Is this a vendor-specific product? Different models (or branding?) for bike shops and mass merchandisers (like Walmart)?
A few reviews:Good buy!! 5/7/2014
5.0 stars by An anonymous customer
I bought it because it's the same color of [sic] my bike.....but fits me way better than the first one I got! So I think it's a great buy!
Hard to find green helmet 6/24/2014
4.0 stars by kayaked
I love site to store, even though the helmet was first sent to a walmart 200 miles away. The green helmet was hard to find in stores, but on line I found it. Fits and looks great. Zefal Arctica Cycling Helmet, Adult Men's
Color fades quickly 8/30/2014
1.0 stars by angryjohnny1
I bought this helmet specifically for its bright color. After just four months of admittedly a lot of time in use in the sun it has faded to a dull light green. The color is still bright in a couple spots where it's shaded, like under the visor so it's clear that the fading was caused by sun exposure. I haven't had any problems with it otherwise.
I'll admit I too bought it because it matches my bike. But I was way overdue to replace my old helmet, it fits OK, and it's CPSC approved. If it fades, that may be disappointing.
I'm going to have to move my lights from the old helmet. Shouldn't be too hard.
Is a used helmet worse than nothing? Supposedly, after one good smack the foam's impact-absorbing capability is gone. It doesn't look any different. It looks like it could still compress again - perhaps not as far. But isn't that still better than no helmet at all? And as for places with helmet laws, how will they know the condition of the helmet on someone's head? (Of course, the obstinence there is from people who don't want anything on their heads, compromising their cooling and/or freedom.)
Wednesday 01:26
My brother's garage door opener died Monday. I went over after work tonight to help him install a new one. Since he has a 8' (2.4m) high opening instead of 7' (2.1m), he needed an extension. There were 2 different extensions that were supposed to work with this model, but the one he got doesn't work. So we didn't get the new opener installed, and he's going to have to go exchange this extension at a farther-away store in the chain to get the other one.
I was able to work out a bike route from my office to his house. It was largely similar to my route to Ad-Hoc Singers' rehearsals, crossing Memorial Bridge and passing the Iwo Jima Memorial, but it followed a trail on the south side of Arlington Blvd (US 50) around Fort Myer to Pershing St; in the past I'd left Arlington Blvd at Rhodes St. This new route avoided some nasty hill climbing into a very congested part of Arlington. I don't think this trail was there before. It hadn't turned up in my map reading before, and it looked new.
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/753280.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]