4/12/12

Ride Home 4/12: Turns out that the building's heat had been turned off

Felt a bit under the weather on the way home. There's nothing too bad about biking home when you don't feel so great so long as you remember that you're not feeling so great. I think it was just allergies, so I'll rebound as soon the pollen dissipates or goes wherever pollen goes when it doesn't go in my eyes and nose.
You can almost always tell that it's a taxi behind you.
Traffic on Q was all sorts of backed up, so I elected to ride through Dupont Circle and down Mass on the other side. It's really not as a bad as I had thought it was, or at least hasn't proven to be that bad over the last few times that I've tried it. It got worse as we got closer to Mount Vernon Triangle, the we being me, the hundreds of drivers and a woman on a bike who alternated between the sidewalk and the street, a tactic I soon adopted once I realized it would be much faster to do so than waiting behind stopped cars. It might or might not be illegal- I'm not totally familiar where the downtown DC sidewalk bike ban starts. Yes, I'm aware that I could easily look this up. In fact, here's the map. Presumably that means both sides of Massachusetts Avenue which is just great since Massachusetts is sooooooo bike friendly. I think that if DC were actually serious about getting bikes off sidewalks downtown, it'd do a lot more to focus on developing bike infrastructure in this area. In any event, in case DDOT is listening, that map could be improved by highlighting the bike lanes in that area.
Oh, another thing I did was yell at an old lady "I like your poodle" because I did like her poodle, which was a standard and silver. I didn't hear her response. Sometimes I'm just moved to yell at old ladies, but it's almost always about liking their dogs. This might also be illegal downtown.
I was heading towards BicycleSpace to drop off some sharrows buttons, but I'm not really that good at navigating to the new shop and I wended too far east before heading north and then screwed up and crossed Mass at 11th and salmoned down L, first on the sidewalk and then in the street. This was a terrible idea and I looked like an ass, especially when the cars and bikes started coming in the opposite direction and I just stood next to the concrete barriers which narrowed the street to one lane, trying not to make eye contact with anyone because my look would have been sheepish as I was very much breaking the law and doing something stupid and just generally in the way. So, yeah. I got exactly what I deserved for not just going the right way.
Then it was through the Convention Center and out the other side, down 7th for half a block and the button handoff. Many thanks to BicycleSpace, which continues to be the best bicycle shop in DC. (Note: other bike shops may compete for second place by purchasing buttons. It's some serious Louis XIV stuff)
7th took me to K and then to 5th and then to G to then to 4th and then to E and then to First NW and then back over F and then another stop to drop off another button. Sometimes when I diverge from my normal route, I'm reminded how little I actually know my way around. Like, I know generally where things are, but the specifics are always tricky. If I was drawing a pirate treasure map, there wouldn't be an X so much as a few squiggly lines that maybe didn't even intersect.
In case you're wondering, traffic was terrible by Union Station and remained terrible until after Stanton Square. I wonder to what extent drivers realize that they cause delays for bicyclists and pedestrians. I doubt that it even registers. Cars go fast, remember?
Saw a Segway locked to a sign.
I took this picture when I was walking Ellie, but I noticed it previously.
Is Segway commuting the new thing? Probably not.

3 comments:

  1. I don't know, it might be. I've noticed a lot more Segways around Farragut Square over the last couple weeks. Always businessmen. It's really bizarre.

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  2. I have to ride up 23rd for about 3/4 of a block on my commute and I take the sidewalk (slowly) so I don't have to salmon in the stream of oncoming cars. There's a police station along that 3/4 of a block, but I've never caught any grief.
    The problem with the no bikes-in-Downtown-business-district-thing is that they're using a map that was created with a different purpose altogether. The business district map is all about buildings and blocks, so the borders (23rd, Mass Ave, etc.) are fine for that level of granularity. Not so for our purposes.
    I think one could argue pretty convincingly that the boundary is the street so as long as you're on the outside sidewalk (West side of 23rd, North side of Mass Ave), it would be pretty easy to contest a ticket in court.

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  3. I get really tripped up trying to navigate by bike in NE...it's like bike commuting Thunderdome up there and I just avoid it, which maybe I shouldn't do, but whatevs...I have yet to see a Segway at work, but I did see an elliptigo parked at the bike rack a couple weeks ago. I can't imagine riding along the shoulder in FFX county would be particularly enjoyable on an elliptigo, but people continue to surprise me. I have a feeling that the upcoming warm weather will only increase the amount of these types out on the road, for better or worse.

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