I was going to wear normal people clothes today (hot pants, feather boa), as is my normal Friday habit, but the then impending and now totally here severe rain suggested that perhaps I should wear more bikerly clothes, which are more pleasant to wear in rainstorms. Riding in wet denim, I find to be a tad uncomfortable. If I had wanted to switch back to normal people clothes early in my ride, someone had the presence of mind/goodness of spirit to leave a pair a khaki dockers in the bike lane along East Capitol. I declined.
I took Massachusetts to E, foregoing the typical route on account of a suspicious vehicle closure on Pennsylvania Avenue. I still don't know what makes a vehicle suspicious. By the park, I rode behind a guy on a CaBi who was wearing kahki dockers, so I ruled him out as the mystery "I left my pants in the bike lane" pseudo-contest that I had invented. The ride up Massachusetts was relatively tame. I didn't have to fend off a single zombie or cannibal. I did have to ride past Union Station and that wasn't especially fun. I even put myself in the wrong left turn lane and waited for a little until I figured out that I shouldn't be there.
E Street has rolling hills. They roll from roughly first street to roughly 15th street. Very few other bicyclists rolled on them today. At least not when I was there.
By the time I got to 13th, I saw that they had reopened Penn and my diversion was for naught. I mean, other than the excitement of riding down a vowel street. WABA does the 50 states ride- I'm trying to put together the Alphabet ride, in which bicyclists will try to ride on each letter street. It will be very excited, especially for the bookish or those of you who have just re-learned letters thanks to your kids and Sesame Street.
I got the Friday Coffee Club and only one person was there. Because everyone else was outside, sitting at the tables around the corner. Whoops.
After coffee, I decided that I would ride up 17th rather than cut back across the White House and go up 15th. 17th is a perfectly fine street, but not exactly accommodating for bicyclists. It's plenty wide, but you have to be willing to mix it up with buses, taxis, emus and cars, except for the emus, of which there are sadly none. I did ride for a little on Connecticut Avenue, which is nothing like how it's portrayed in Monopoly. I cut across the park in Dupont, admired the fountain, and then it was Massachusetts up the hill and past the embassies.
Past Wisconsin, I was passed too closely by an out of service Metrobus. It was in service enough to be speeding, so I'm not really sure what that was about. Maybe it was the end of shift.
I don't recall seeing too many other people out on bikes this morning, Friday Coffee Club attendees excepted. Should be an interesting ride home. There's a gap in the weather now, so I'm going to head out. Please be safe out there. There's no heroes in bike commuting, so if it's too bad to ride, don't. Have a great weekend, but only after reading tonight's ride home post, which I hope to write tonight. Right.
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