Ride Home 5/20

Woo! Bike From Work Day! This, to my mind at least, is way better because at the other end of the bike ride waits the weekend and not another lame day of work. But, whatever- it's all good.
I don't think this is the bike the organizers had in mind.

I guess if you ride something called a Ninja, you probably just assume that it stealthily blends in everywhere. That is not the case.
These are the cats that I've been feeding. Now will you vote for me?

They are rather large and I considered WKS-ing out their faces so as to protect them from potential internet mockery. Since I'm pretty sure that the entire purpose of the internet is to share cat pictures, this will invariably bring more people to the blog than every before. Yay, self-esteem.
Traffic! It sucks, even for bike types. Especially when it's a closed lane on account of road work. When I could, I bailed to the sidewalk, leading to an especially awkward encounter. I was stuck behind a dawdly group of collegians, who just didn't much feel like moving over. I get it, that's cool. And then, oncoming was an older lady who looked sort of mean. She stopped walking, but because it took approximately 37 minutes after realizing I was there for the dawdly group (of 3) to actually move over, by the time they formed a single-file-ish line, they were practically even with the mean lady. The mean lady stopped walking. I passed the dawdly group, but as I passed the lady, she was all "I'm just trying to get by." Yeah, me too. Should have just waited in traffic.
The preponderance of New Jersey license plates on cars backed up on 34th street meant that Georgetown must have had some pre-graduation event. Normally, I don't say that bike lanes do much other than raise awareness that bicyclists may be traveling (this is good enough in my opinion), but sometimes they also help prevent drivers from staggering their vehicles and taking up the entire width of the roadway. Because the bike lane doesn't yet run all the way to Prospect, this was pretty much true- where there was a stripe, I could get by; where there wasn't, it was stagger city and there was barely enough room between parked cars and stopped cars for my bike. Paint is power, I guess.
The very same presumed Georgetown event made crossing the Key Bridge the worst and most frustrating thing ever. There's no way not to seem like a jerk when you're on a bicycle and trying to get past people. I think the best/worst moment was when, after multiple attempts to alert those in front of me that I was trying to get around them by use of my bell, a woman to ask the group behind her, "what's that ding ding? (verbatim)" IT'S ME! I don't like the paradigm of deference to speed- since this basically reinforces car supremacy- and I don't think that because I can go faster is the primary reasons that pedestrians should move slightly over. Rather, it's the belief that taking up the entire path by walking four abreast is not a good thing. Or maybe it's just the general obliviousness that gets to me- it's hard when drivers don't acknowledge your presence, but pedestrians! You guys are supposed to be on our team! Oh well.
It's cool to change lanes to overtake a car on the left. It's less cool when the car is clearly having engine troubles and the driver has indicated as much by going 5 mph and turning his flashers on.
Stopped at the store on the way home and picked up way too much stuff. Bike was a bit wobbly even. Just couldn't say no to the heavy stuff. If Bike Hubris isn't a blog/twitter name, I should probably reserve it now.
Legs kinda hurt through some of the hills on Wilson. I suppose it's been a long week. It's Bike DC on Sunday, assuming there's no rapture. I'm pretty excited about it (it'll be our first time. Official wife is riding too!) and it's not too late to register if you already haven't.