Ride In 6/3

O glorious day! Or something. I felt up to snuff, or at least up to sniffle, to going to work today and I figured if I felt well enough to work that meant I was well enough to bicycle. It'd been a few days since I rode, but you know what they say about riding a bike- it comes back to you like riding a bike.
Banker's collar = only if you want to look like a douchebag. Also, worn with wrinkled, loose khakis= half-assing it. It's the trenchant fashion analysis that keeps you coming back. It's also the trenchant fashion analysis that probably prevented me from winning that contest I've been flogging for the past week or so. Thanks for your support anyway! Congratulations to the winners! Here's some of their prose:

I wanna give a strong shout-out to Rodney and the dudes at Grove Street; so stoked on the place and need to make a trip home to check out the shop. Here’s an edit of their RI trip-these dudes go hard!

Next year.
It was a beautiful morning weatherwise and not even the exhaust from the white F-150 I followed too closely could dampen my spirits or carbon monoxide (I'm using this as a verb, much like Culture Cycles using edit as a noun) my lungs. Who doesn't love riding too closely behind pickup trucks? Some day I'll see something really cool in a truck bed and it will be totally worth it. "Cool" things you can see in a truck bed include:

• lumber
• tools
• a German Shepard
• That's about it. 

I tend to be skeptical of those who choose to wear shirts with no sleeves. What aren't you trying to hide, I ask. I rode behind someone in a white tank top who was riding behind his friend in a yellow tee shirt and they were both of the type that looked like they want to go faster than is practicable on a bike trail used primarily by commuters on a weekday morning. Yellow shirt, at one point, rode off the trail on the grass rather than turn his bike slightly. I found this off-putting. We three eventually found ourselves behind another triad of bicycles, led by someone who looked rather uncomfortable on his bike and especially uncomfortable with the idea that there were other people riding behind him. I sympathize.
I was at the tail and apparently the only one who had a bell on his bicycle. My ding envelope wouldn't cover the whole group, so I didn't even bother. What would be the pointing of forewarning pedestrians when five other people previously biked past them? However, I did discover something more effective than a bell at getting people to move over: my hacking cough. Nothing says make way like the wet throaty cough of an oncoming could-be-consumptive.
The Vuelta a Sudafed continued across the bridge where I saw a woman standing in the middle of the sidewalk holding her iPhone horizontally, perhaps in an attempt to make a video. If I'm in the video, perhaps I could post it here since "edits' are apparently what win you bike blog contests. I looked bikerly, though not as bikerly as the superbiker riding a Javelin down the rough cobbles (I don't even know if they're actually cobbles, since cobbles are supposed to be rounded and the rocks that jut from the street are considerably jagged) shouting to himself. He was garbled and looked dismayed and I couldn't hear him clearly but he might have been saying "Good thing my bike has a custom butted scandium front triangle."
Another mess on R street. I think it's field trip day at Duke Ellington and that accounts for the coach buses parked in a way that caused a total cluster. I rode the sidewalk rather than wait because I am impatient.
There seemed to be way more cars on the road than usual, which is especially odd for a Friday. Maybe everyone was getting an early start to the beach. My impression of this town is that somehow people don't work in the summer. I would like one of those jobs. Maybe next year, when I quit this one after winning an internet blog contest.
When you take the lane, it's important to take all of it. You can't be shy about it. Especially when you're taking it on a curving downhill. If it looks like there's enough room for someone to pass you, she'll try. Since I don't like to be passed on a curving downhill, I pretty much rode just to the inside of the yellow stripe. It's safer- really.