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

Category: Virginia Page 2 of 34

2012 Clarendon Cup Kids Race Photos

This year’s edition of the Air Force Cycling Classic Clarendon Cup kids race was as amusing as ever.  If you’re looking for shots, check back in this space on Monday.  In the meantime, here’s last year’s edition of the Clarendon Cup kids race (with captions!).

Clarendon Cup Kids Race 2012

North River Gorge Trail

North River Gorge Trail, George Washington National Forest, Shenandoah Mountains, Virginia

Virginia Fails at Basic Human Decency. Again.

As you’ve certainly heard by now, Bigot Extraordinare Rep. Bob Marshall and the clown show that is the Virginia GOP continued Virginia’s grand tradition of hatefulness when:

[T]he judicial nomination of Mr. Thorne-Begland, a former Navy fighter pilot who is gay, was sabotaged by an ugly campaign of homophobic bigotry led by Virginia Republicans. In a vote at 1 a.m. Tuesday, the GOP-dominated House of Delegates, with an avowed homophobe leading the charge, killed his candidacy, thereby ensuring that Virginia state courts remain free of openly gay judges.

The usual attempts to obfuscate and cast doubt upon the reasons behind the vote have quickly made their appearances, of course.  While Virginia’s got a well established tradition of narrow-mindedness and willingness to use the power of the state to discriminate, one thing it simply cannot stand is actually labeling these actions for what they are.  Waldo Jaquith does a great job of sorting out the vote here.

Arlington Public Schools & Cycling

The role of APS and cycling is something I’ve generally avoided touching on, mostly because I’ve had a hard time figuring out what, exactly, APS is actually doing in that arena.  But I’m pleased to say that there’s been some recent successes in engaging the folks at APS, and I’m learning a lot more.  So I suppose it’s probably not great form to immediately ask them for more, but that’s what I did here, in my latest Clarendon Cycles column.

Electric Bikes & Arlington Cycling

My latest Clarendon Cycles piece is about e-bikes, prompted in part by my meeting with the Trans-America Electric Bike Tour crew.   I’m being quite honest when I’m describing it as a *click* moment, where I finally move from e-bike skeptic to e-bike appreciator (if still not quite an outright embrace).

Boris and Anna’s tour covers all sorts of interesting things.  Check ’em out.

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.)

Clarendon Cycles: Time for Arlington County to Take Its Own Advice

Here’s this week’s Clarendon Cycles column, in which I suggest that Arlington County could do a better job of integrating bikes into its own transportation strategy. At the very least, getting parking enforcement on bikes strikes me as a no-brainer.

201 CaBi Expansion in Arlington

Are you as tired of talking about CaBi as I am?  Even if you are, it’s still growing and will definitely be changing things in Arlington this year. That’s the subject of my new Clarendon Cycles piece.

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