Ride In 12/14

After two days swaddled in the superbikerly synthetics, I decided to ride today in normal people's clothes, the only concessions being a velcro strap around my right ankle, a helmet, and the green bike button on my coat's lapel. It felt pretty good. I slung a messenger bag around my shoulders, having first filled it to the brim with precious, precious buttons (do bags have brims?), and set off on another chilly winter morning commute through the woolly wilds of the settled district roughly parallel to the United States Capitol.
The wilds prove neither woolly nor wild and the ride itself was quite mundane. I barely even had to fend off any animals, the exception being a lone squirrel that I didn't so much have to fend off but simply ride around. I'm writing a letter to the editor of my local paper about these scofflaw squirrels who think that they're being "sooo green" with their lifestyle choices but never seem to stop at stop signs. Share the road, jerks.
There's a kind of Bikeshare commuter who dons the reflective yellow jacket and biking clothes and there's another kind that doesn't. I'd say this is "observational humor" but there's nothing humorous about this observation and it's barely even an observation. I just hope that the people who wear the bikey stuff are doing it out of comfort and not because they feel like specialized (Specialized?) clothes are needed to ride a bicycle.
There's a thing that I've started doing along Pennsylvania Avenue that I need to stop doing because it's sort of jerkish and needlessly imperiling and that thing is slowing down to almost a snail's pace in order to block a driver from making a u-turn across the center bike lane. I do this while simultaneously trying to lock eyes with the driver. I've not once made that Robert DeNiro from "Meet the Parents" move with the eyes and the fingers. Like I said, I need to stop doing this. So long as there aren't bollards that run parallel to the lane for its entire length, u-turns will continue to happen and no amount of passive-aggressive eye-locking and slowing with make a difference. Having more cyclists in the lanes might help.
Someone mentioned this the other night to me, but Timbuk2 bags are everywhere. Almost as ubiquitous as the yellow jackets.
Some kind of sercurity hubbub at the White House, maybe related to a motorcade, shut down Pennsylvania Avenue and Lafayette Park and forced bicyclists to ride along 15th to McPherson "Won't Someone Think of the Grass Seed?!" Park. It's a reminder of a cycle track route that could have been, but wasn't. I guess Vermont is ultimately a better route, but I still would prefer a cycling route that doesn't need to be closed every time the President wants to drive somewhere. #dcproblems
The rest of the ride was a bit of a blur, not because I was going fast, but because I don't think there was anything that distinguished it from a normal trip, or at least nothing worth mentioning. So, as has become standard for this blog, let's talk about buttons some more. Thus far, 53 have been purchased, which is amazing. It's more than amazing. It's a-mah-zing. I'd like to thank Ann for mentioning them on the WABA bike forum and I'd like to thank Anne for posting on the goDCgo holiday gift guide. I have an entirely Ann/Anne-based marketing strategy, so if you know of any Anns/Annes/Ahns/Ayns that want to continue to publicize these buttons, please send them my way. I'd also like to thank all of you, even the non-Anns/Annes, for your continued reading, support, and button purchases. I look forward to seeing some of you at the WABA Holiday Party and seeing others of you at other places and not seeing those of you who have magical invisibility cloaks.