Politics, open government, and safe streets. And the constant incursion of cycling.

Month: March 2012

Getting to National Airport Via Bike

Plane lands at Washington National Airport (DCA)
New Clarendon Cycles piece up at the Clarendon Patch about getting to National airport on your bike.  It really is a fantastic way to get there for weekend/quick trips.  And so long as your return flight doesn’t drop you back at DCA in the middle of rush hour, you can always punk out and return via Metro if you find yourself not really feeling like riding home.

Love Living Here

Started the week like this:

Climbing up Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah Mountains

Finished it like this:

View over DC from Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington

Crystal City Diamond Derby

Capital Bikeshare bikes at the Diamond Derby

DC’s Dandies & Quaintrelles, in partnership with the Crystal City BID, held the Diamond Derby over the weekend.  All I knew before I showed up was that it involved bikes, a parking garage, and a course set up by this guy.  So this is what I learned on the first lap (motion starts at :40):

[vimeo width=”650″ height=”488″]http://vimeo.com/38326075[/vimeo]

That was fun. The idea was to earn a point for every lap completed and collect points along the way. The part I obviously didn’t get was how to collect points along the way, so I finished way down in the standings. I did, however, figure out that we got points for dismounting and carrying the bike through a VéloCity minivan. Hope we didn’t do too much damage to it.

There were several other races in the evening, ranging from a kid’s event to a real race with qualifying heats and everything.  In between there was great food and drinks and people.

In any event, it was a great use of a parking garage that usually sits empty on a weekend.  Lots of credit to D&Q and the forward-thinking folks at the Crystal City BID for making this happen.

(I’ve put up an unedited set of photos here, if you were there and looking for photos of you.  I’ll get an edited slideshow up later this week.  Sorry, I missed the kids’ race, so no photos of that.)

Stone Town, Zanzibar

Kids jump off the promenade in Stone Town, Zanzibar

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