Ride Home 6/11: Squid Pro Quo

Does this blog have any rules? If I saw something this morning and I neglected to mention it, can I post it in this ride write-up? Because I neglected to mention a march of hundreds of people heading down Pennsylvania Avenue. I believe they were advocates for the disabled community. They walked along the south side of Pennsylvania and the group stretched for three blocks. I can't recall their chants. Something about equal access. Access is pretty hard word to rhyme, so I can't blame them if their slogans were less than memorable. In any case, here's the International Disability Rights Monitor. Disability rights is a worthwhile cause, so if you have extra money, maybe you could give some.

I rode home and it wasn't raining and I appreciated that. It was muggy. And I wore loafers. I brought these loafers with me to the foot doctor to show him how warped the soles were and I rode to work in the shoes that I normally keep at work and I intended to bring my bike shoes with me, but I forgot them and rather than wear home the shoes I rode to work in (with the sole (shoe pun?) intention of leaving them at work, I decided that I would just wear the loafers. It looked weird.

Supinators: mount up!

Anyway, the first thing they teach you at "How to Bike in Bike Clothes But While Wearing Loafers" Class (I paid $150 for this. I might've gotten ripped off) is that it's not really different from biking in other shoes. It sort of reminded me of "olden times," before sneakers existed and grainy pictures in which old timey children, maybe who just got out of Ellis Island or something, cycled in three quarter pants and vests and newsboy caps and big clunky shoes. Those old timey children are probably all dead now. Probably from vest poisoning.

A young woman in a Jetta decided that it would be clever do pull into my lane without looking to see if it was already occupied. It was occupied. I occupied it. Mid-way into her pulling over (she was stuck behind a driver waiting to turn left), I yelled "NO!" and that got her attention and that's how I ended up not on the hood of a Jetta. There's not (yet) a bad tv show called "The Driver Whisperer," but if they hold auditions for a host, I might put in for it. Though my whispering could use some work.

Can't wait until the Brompton gets here.

Q (which I find increasingly mind-numbing) and 11th (which is less numbing, but not exactly stimulating) and I'm overall wondering if I need to figure out a better way to go east and south. A bike route should be many things, but I'm not sure boring is one of them. If it's too rote, then you stop paying attention and why you stop paying attention, then you run out of fodder might not notice things that you might want to notice. Unfortunately, bike infrastructure in DC isn't separated enough to truly relax.

Another Tommy Wells sighting. I've taken for granted that a member of the DC Council bikes to work, but 1/13 (currently 1/12) is a much higher percentage than the 3.1% of DC residents who get to work by means of bicycle. So, huzzah?

I haven't mentioned zombie joggers in a while. There are still zombie joggers. Thus concludes my report on zombie joggers.

East Capitol and around the family (guy with xtracycle, woman with trailer) that I always see and then past a woman on a CaBi and then I saw someone who looked like someone I should now, but don't, by the park. I rode behind a guy trailing a hot dog cart from his truck. I jumped the light to cross 13th to get to A and then I passed a woman holding a jump rope, presumably for her kid, and then it was home.

No rides tomorrow. This is an open letter to anyone who might want to write a guest post:

Hello, 

Do you ride a llama to work? No? How about a bicycle? Cool. And do you have an overwhelming desire to try to describe it using words and maybe even syntax? And then have it read by scores of bored office workers? Well, have I got a proposition for you. But this isn't about my propositioning you. It's about my asking you if you'd like to write a blog post. It's easy. And it's fun. It's so easy and fun, a llama could do it. So, if you happen to ride a bicycle to work/anywhere tomorrow and something/nothing happens and you'd like to describe those things in writing, I'd be very happy to post it right here. Well, not right here, but at Tales From The Sharrows, a blog recently referred to as "sometimes funny" by my mom. Your post doesn't have to be funny. It could be serious. It could even be about Yahoo Serious. That's my pitch. Ride a bike. Write stuff down. Get it posted on "the interwebs." If you are struck by the desire to do this, please email your submission to TaLeSFRomTHesHarRoWs@gmail.com (that's weird capitalization, right?). If you are not struck by the desire to do this, that's ok too. Maybe you could do woodworking instead. Like, make a spice rack and then take a picture and I'll post that picture on this blog and you'll be famous in the cross-section of people who like hastily constructed spice racks and even more hastily constructed bike commuter blogs.

Vaya con fritos,

TFTS

I'm back on Thursday.