H NE street question

[Meerkat]

I'm new to the forum and new to riding as well. Shortly after getting my (new to me) 620, I had an unfortunate introduction to the asphalt courtesy of a bridge joint. Both me and the bike are a little banged up, but nothing that time and a shipment of parts from Italy won't heal.

As I was riding home in my car along H St NE, I had a flash of terror as I saw where they are installing street car tracks. What the heck would I do if I was riding on my bike. Is there a safe way to cross those slippery metal things that run the same direction as the lane I'm in? These are even worse because they are tracks, not just bridge joints. With my new found respect for shiny/slick metal things in the road, I would likely go around an extra block to avoid crossing them  at less than a 90 degree angle. Thanks in advance for the input.

[zooom]

sorry about your "off "....and I hope you took pictures of the joint in question and your bike and all at the time to submit a claim to DCDOT....


anyways...crossing a rail doesn't have to be done perpendicularly...but it should be done at an angle...if possible at a angle of at least 35 degrees or more...45 might be better...but I haven't been down to H St NE in a while ( read like 6 months) so I don't know about the placement of these tracks in relation to lane and spacing and whatnot...( BTW, I am for the streetcar project as I understand it to be running from Union Station out to like 20th st NE and back, which means I could potentially go to some of the bars down there and leave my car elsewhere!!!) ....but that is my .02 FWIW and sorry for the off tangents...

[696DCRider]

Welcome to the forum.  That road is a nightmare on a bike.  Besides the street car rails, the concrete is destroyed everywhere.  I felt like I needed a dirt bike to ride on there.  I felt like one wrong move and I would be laying on my side on that road.  I live in the city and ride around in it all the time, so I face some nasty roads all around.  I would probably avoid that road if at all possible though; at least until they finish with their road projects.

And in reference to the street car rails, I have ridden over them once.  I didn't have any issue, but they are a little intimidating.  As the previous poster said, as long as your going at as much of an angle as you can, you should be fine.

[The Mad King Pepe']

45 degrees or more is what I would recommend when crossing rails.

In general I try to be very careful when going over metal, especially when wet: it's as slippery as oil!

Take care, ride safe and atgatt (All The Gear, All The Time).

[Meerkat]

Thanks for the replies! Gear definitely saved me. Hope to get out and see you guys at one of the weekly meet-ups sometime soon.

[tocino]

Always scary when you have to cross at non-perpendicular angles - and as people have siad, H St. right now is f***ed. Two things to remember (even when crossing at 90 degrees) is to weight the pegs (i.e. get your butt off the seat a bit) to have the weight low, plus puts you in a better stance to shift around and accommodate the bike should it start moving around under you. Second bit of advice is to loosen up on the bars. Natural reaction when you see something coming that you are going to go over (tracks, 2x4, massive H-Street crater) is to tense up hold the bars tight. This doesn't let the bike recover on its own; the front wheel acts like a gyroscope so if the front end does get crazy it will try to straighten itself out. Unless you've got a death grip, and then the force goes to you.