Ride In 5/14: Abigail Adams, part II

Don't try to fix your bike on Monday morning before work. And don't leave things like swapping out brake pads until its too late and it's raining and you're questioning your ability to stop if you don't put in new ones. In short, it's sort of a frustrating to be held hostage because you've disabled your brakes and need to fix them prior to leaving. It's doubly frustrating when your have the dexterity of a drunken lobster, especially insofar as replacing the pads requires the slotting of a metal pin through a tiny hole. I managed to "fix" the brakes without cursing and without cutting myself (how this happens, I don't know, but I can't even do routine bike maintenance without bleeding) and the whole operation from start to finish only delayed my leaving by about 10 minutes. And it actually worked and I appreciated my newly refound ability to stop my bicycle in a reasonable distance. So, huzzah. I only swapped out the bad pads. I might need to do the front ones. Or I might need to sell this bike and get one with disc brakes. Or I might need to give up biking entirely and start riding a donkey to work. "Ass on an ass" would be what they would say. Also, I'd change the name of the blog to Life in the Ass Lane which might lead to its being found by some really disappointed perverts. But hits are hits and butt hits are hits too...
It rained, like I said. It was as bad out as it looked, no more and no less. I wore a jacket and this superbiker in front of me wore a see-through poncho (or maybe it was saran wrap) and he had his socks pulled up high over his lower calves. He yelled at a driver for cutting him off and blocking the bike lane and at the time I didn't think it was justified (the yelling), but I must be feeling less generous about it now because, like, screw you, buddy. Either pay bike taxes or get out of the lanes.
Thanks to Marc for sharing this. If you live in an urban area, don't do any of these things. Ever. There are simply too much other people around for you to engage in such self-centered nonsense. My suggestion is that if you want to work out on a bicycle, buy a 40 pound Dutch Bike For the Rest of Us, load it up with groceries, attach a kid trailer to it (kid optional. don't kidnap one if not readily available) and then bike it around town every day and up a bunch of hills when the situation calls for it. Just a suggestion. Bicycling Magazine is the anti-TFTS.
My desire not to shoal found me stopped behind a bicyclist who planned to turn and I just stood at waited 5 seconds after the light turned green. Duped.
Cops pulling over tour buses. Tour buses said "Haymarket." Anti-labor? Other cops playing bag pipes. It's National Police Week. And in case you didn't know, friend of the blog and soon-to-be karaoke partner of the blog, Kate, recently finish the Police Unity Tour. That's a really great accomplishment, so many, many props in her general direction!
My general direction took me up 11th and I did the thing where I squeezed between an idling bus and a parked car and I almost couldn't get through because there was barely enough room. Then I did that other thing where I observed all of the bicyclists heading in the other direction. More than I would've expected. Probably low for Bike to Work Week. Thanks to some over-strenuous gardening yesterday, I participated in bike to work weak.
Almost no one on the crosstown. One person on Mass. I rode behind her for a while and then I don't know where she went but she ended up at a bike racks next to me at work and said something about it being "fun" riding in the rain to which I responded that it "always is" making me sort of sound like an ass because it insinuates that I'm some dope who rides in the rain all the time, which while true, isn't something I'd really want to insinuate to a stranger.