5/18/12

Ride In 5/18: In Germany, it's Bike to Wurst Day

So this is sort of my Christmas or Super Bowl or both (when Santa and the elves take to the frozen tundra of the North Pole and concuss themselves for our seasonal entertainment and/or to celebrate the birth of Our Lord Savior with wild touchdown celebrations), in that it's Bike to Work Day and biking to work is sort of my thing. It's so much my thing, I've fashioned a whole blog out of it. It's been extremely lucrative as well and thanks to the proceeds of the vast readership of this blog, I can eat Ramen for breakfast and lunch! But joking aside, I love Bike to Work Day. I love that it emphasizes biking (fun) and working (less so), thereby appealing to the duality of our nature, appealing to the libertine and Puritanical sides of the American ethos and affords hack bloggers with pretensions towards profundity to blather about it. Today's bike to work day, at least down by the Reagan Building also emphasized a lot of people yelling about Ethiopia. So, that was something different.
Here's a bunch of bicyclists stopped in front of me at a red light. Take that internet commenters!
Pennsylvania Avenue
Up until this point, it didn't seem like there were any more bike commuters than usual. I'd say there were at least 20 people there.
Here's some shots of people milling around:


Love a good mill shot. I'm basically the Ansel Adams of "people milling around at bike events" photos.
For some reason, Bike to Work Day is marked through the gifting of t-shirts. I'd suggest socks, but that'd be way too controversial.
I accosted some local leaders and gave them buttons. Here's me and my Council Member. I look like I'm both very sleepy and very angry. My rage is narcoleptic. And here's the Director of Planning. I also managed to give a button to another CM. My unofficial goal is to get sharrows buttons to each member of the DC Council and the mayor. It's good to set goals.
At the pit stop, I saw many I already knew, met a few people I know from the internet, and exchanged pleasantries. It's was a nice gathering. I regretted that I couldn't stay longer, but I had to divert myself to Swing's for a #fridaycoffeeclub, where a few brave souls hung on well past 9:30. I didn't actually go inside to drink coffee. And then it was off to work. The roads were pretty clear and easy. Usual route up 15th and over R and up Mass. The creeks were fordable. The hills were climbable. The dales were, well, I'm not totally sure what dales are, so let's say they were dale-able...? All things considered, it was a beautiful day for a bike ride and I'm looking forward to the ride home, which will commence shortly. Enjoy.

2 comments:

  1. Your picture with Tommy Wells made me think of this:

    "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry because I backup my rage with facts and credible sources."
    --The Credible Hulk

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  2. Bike to Work Day did give socks one year (2008? 2009?)! The weird thing was, though, you had to give them the socks you were wearing. Strange.

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