Ride Home 6/7: Sam Spade, D.D.S

It's not the first car that passes you too closely that you should be upset about. It's the second. That's because you're probably in the process (if you are like me, at least) of flailing around with some sort of wild, outraged gesticulations and then when the second guy buzzes past, you're not really ready for it and since he's already seen your crazy gesticulating, you have to figure out an entirely different way to mime outrage, so as to differentiate the second guy's malfeasance from the first guy's. This might be a good reason to withhold your ineffectual gesticulations, since someone who is willing to drive two tons of metal within a foot of you probably isn't the kind of person who will feel chided by waving arm motions. This happened to me in Ward Circle, as soon as I left work. I thought that I had taken the lane. Not enough, I guess.

But I don't like to let some stupid thing early in my ride serve as a reason to ruin the rest of it, especially on a nice day like today. I'm much prefer to have my ride ruined by stupid things interspersed throughout. Luckily, my ride was very much not ruined. Nor was my ride through ruins, like a bike commuter in Athens. Or someone who secrets a Brompton into the British Museum, which might or might not be my new goal in life. You really haven't seen the Elgin Marbles until you've seen them while trying to frantically flee from security guards on your folding bicycle.

I sort of want to get aluminum fenders and maybe a new rear rack for this bike. And maybe some different bar tape and maybe a new saddle bag. Pipe dreams. I mean, an achievable pipe dream, but there's only so much money you can spend on accessorizing your bike: all of it.

Here's the sign that indicates the turn lane weirdness that I wrote about yesterday. I still don't get it.

"Begin Right Turn Lane. Yield to Bikes. Eat Your Vegetables"

There's a square a pavement that's been removed on 11th. It leaves about a two inch deep gap in the roadway. The drivers of the two BMWs next to me swerved to avoid it. High-end Bavarian engineering, hundreds of brake horsepower, and thousands of pounds of vehicle and a two inch drop is simply too much to handle. I suggest a more rugged ride, like a bicycle.

Saw the guy who raced the superbiker last-ish week. He raced me too. He won.

Saw a guy with a dog on his back, riding down the Capitol paths. I've seen him before. The dog just doesn't look that comfortable. And the dog wasn't even wearing a helmet. If I were to sell bike helmets for dogs, I'd call them hel-mutts. I would make approximately $0 from this venture. Probably make Copenhagenize though. Not in a good way.

I got shoaled by a lady and it might have been an accident because I think she said "sorry" as she rode past me. It was one of those things where she was arriving right as the light turned green. Her apology was fairly unnecessary. Sometimes it happens. It was sort of weird that she said anything at all. Maybe she didn't say "sorry" and I just imputed that. Maybe she said "sari" in reference to my Delhi Cycle Chic outfit.

I might miss #fridaycoffeeclub tomorrow. If I do, someone drink an extra coffee for me.