Newsletter: support your neighborhood bike shop
It’s been a flat tire kind of a week. Don’t know about you, but I had three, two within an hour of each other.
After the third one—I hit a bump on Michigan Ave in front of Catholic University and the tire made an explosive farting noise—I was out of spare tubes and patch glue. Stopped at the hardware store, but they didn’t have the right size tubes (the family cargo bike takes a slightly unusual 24×2.6). I checked the bus schedule, but it wasn’t promising, and I wasn’t sure I could lift the massive bike onto the rack anyway. So I pushed the bike home, grumbling, sweating and deciding that maybe it’s time to replace the tires too.
I got home and started googling for new tires. It was a long journey, but in the end, I finally found exactly one online store that had the tires I needed… Conte’s Bike Shop, in Cathedral Heights, DC.
The total cost for new tires and tubes ended up being less than a hundred bucks, plus a long walk and a couple of scraped knuckles from taking the wheel on and off.
The takeaways here are maybe a bit vague but there are several:
- Make sure you have more than one spare tube handy.
- Support your local bike shop, we need more of them around.
- Even deeply annoying bike maintenance is usually cheaper and less time consuming than minor car maintenance. Just saying.
Things to do this week
- Tuesday: Check out the next phase of the 14th St NW Bus Priority Project.
- Ongoing: Share your vision for more vibrant, inviting public spaces in downtown DC with the Office of Planning.
- Ongoing: Support Duke Street for ALL Alexandrians
- Ongoing: Provide Feedback on Franconia Road and Commerce Street Corridor
- Ongoing: Weigh in on DDOT’s Plans for Bladensburg Rd NE
- Ongoing: Weigh in on what transportation should look like in Georgetown
- Ongoing: Support protected bike lanes on Mt Olivet Rd NE
- Ongoing: Support this community petition for bike lanes on Good Hope Rd
- Ongoing: Don’t let the MoCo Council take away the Little Falls Linear Park
A fun route idea for the weekend
Ride to a pool or a splash pad. It’s too dang hot.