Ride In 5/23: Trent Franks and Beans

What is this blog? It's a place where I write about my bike commute. And why do I do this? Because, um, it's, uh, interesting, maybe...? And what happens when it isn't interesting? I make stuff up I write a bottle episode. Ok, I don't do that either. I just sort of slog through the heres and theres of what I recall to have happened. So here are some things.

"Air in my tires makes me happy," is what John Denver would have sung had he been wearing sleeves and also bicycling. But air in my tires does make me happy because it makes bicycling marginally easier and vastly more enjoyable and better yet, this so-called "air" is completely free since Big Air (no, not Jacksonville's newest and largest inflatable fun center but the euphemism for the scheming corporate cabal who control our air supply, but not our Air Supply. Two paragraphs in and we've already got Denver and Air Supply- this post, like the air supply in Denver, seems quite thin) has yet to figure how to monetize it, except through the sale of floor pumps, which would also be the name of a kind of women's shoe exclusively used for walking on floors, but not for dancing on the ceiling. Oh, and since we're here, we might as well do this.

I could ride up 16th street SE for one block, but I ride up 15th street SE for one block. It has a bike lane. 

[Fourth Wall Alert: It thunders. Should be a fun ride home. If the post later includes ZAP! in 72 font, it means that things went poorly for me and Benjamin Franklin has collected more royalties on his patenting of lightning strikes. The People's Intellectual Property History of the United States is a fascinating alterna-history]

Maybe six of us on East Capitol all heading towards the Capitol and maybe another six heading in the opposite direction. Seemed like everyone was on a bike this morning, if everyone means twelve people. I saw a bunch of families bicycling together as well. Seems better that way since you're not stuck a car subjected to children's music or children's NPR, which I find to be considerably precocious or would if it existed. 

I sort of love the Pennsylvania Avenue cycle track, even if its design is suboptimal. Something about riding down the middle of a grand boulevard never gets tiresome. 

Up 11th street. It's sort of empty heading northbound in the morning. I have no preoccupation whatsoever about talking the lane, especially south of New York Avenue. There's two travel lanes in each direction and that's ample room to pass a cyclist if one is so inclined. So people deal with it. And this is perfectly tenable and I wish that society at large could reasonably posit to the angrier of drivers that maybe they could just calm down a bit, slow up for a moment, change lanes and not have an aneurysm about it.

Fixies with front baskets. It might be a thing. 

Nothing exceptionally interesting happened on R street. Unfortunately, the instinct of a great number of drivers is to drive in the bike lane seemingly without first checking for bicyclists in the case that the travel lane is blocked. Also, I've noticed a lot of drivers with their cars in reverse in places where driving in reverse seems wrong and unnecessary. I can think of only a few situations in which I feel compelled to do anything backward, and even fewer of those situations involve driving. The other day I watched a guy reverse his car at 25 miles per hour for half a block. But it's the cyclist who only slows down at a stop sign who's the menace to safety and well-being. 

The quality of our roads is lacking. It's very uncomfortable sometimes to ride a bike over the bumps, juts and ruts. It's easy to think of a street as a ftwo-dimensional plane, but bicycling on it reveals its third.This revelation sort of sucks. I ride a pretty sturdy bike and even I wonder how much it can take sometimes. Were I mayor, I'd not be engaged in a series of ridiculous campaign corruption problems, but perhaps even more important, I'd advocate for better quality roads. Better quality roads for a better quality of life. Better living through asphalt. 

I noticed this for the first time today. I've biked this way for almost a year. Is this sign new or does everyone just ignore it? 

No turn on red from Massachusetts to Wisconsin

So, if you're into following laws, don't do that. It's amazing how important literacy is for the correct handling of oneself in public space. Levar Burton should be the new Ray LaHood.