Ride Home 7/12: The Tintoretto Code

Let's do this thing.

I thought that I would take advantage of it being Friday and find some roundabout way home that involved new streets and backways and byways and then I remembered that it was Thursday and I felt deflated and defeated and I just took the normal way home, which involved a "technical descent" down Massachusetts. I'm not sure what a "technical descent" is, but sometimes I hear racing commentators mention it, so I'll just assume that it's a thing that applies to my bicycle riding as well. I don't wear that aerohelmet for nothing. I've never heard a racing commentator talk about a "technical trundle," but that's how I would describe my fairly slow lumber from the the base of the hill on Massachusetts by Macomb to the near top of the hill on Massachusetts by Wisconsin. Also, I don't think that bike racers are compelled to stop at red lights, nor negotiate limited road space with cars (Hoogerland and Flecha excepted, of course).

I got stuck behind a bus on my longer, less technical (I'm just going to start describing every part of my ride as "technical." In fact, I might just use "technical" in all sorts of contexts, including descriptions of sandwiches. "I'll have a pastrami on rye, with a technical application of mustard, please") descent down Massachusetts and there's not much one can do when stuck behind a stopped bus. Actually, there are lots of things one can do when stopped behind a stopped bus, including play with one of the paddle ball things, but what I mostly meant is that one can hardly manage their way around a stopped bus on a bicycle (which doesn't have a gad pedal for near instantaneous acceleration) by moving to the other lane and zipping along without considerable concern about one or many cars approaching quickly from behind. It sucked and I sucked in fumes.

First in war, first in peace, first at the light at Waterside Drive. There were no bicycles involved in the Revolutionary War, but I'd like to imagine George Washington crossing the Delaware on a converted rail bridge, maybe on a tandem with Lafayette.

You ever notice how Q Street bike lanes go like this, but how the R Street bike lanes goes like that? I'm headlining Bike Lane Def Comedy Jam. Q Street Bike lanes go like "fine" when they're unoccupied by drivers or parkers or those in the process of transitioning to one from the other, like caterpillars to butterflies.

Uneventful 11th (though, by most standards, it's the most "exciting" part of my trip, scoring at least three "woo hoos" on a scale of five) and then a left on to Penn, where a very earnest guy sped in front of me do rush off to I don't care where. New bollards at Pennsylvania and Constitution, thanks in no small part to the considerable twitter lobbying efforts of Dave. May he long outlast them (in that they'll probably be knocked over by careless and inattentive drivers within the next two days).

Monumental Washington. Natural History + Washington Monument looks like the Hagia Sophia. 

Slow going up the Hill and then SPOILER ALERT, as I passed 2nd NE, I looked over to see none other than Veronica, giver-awayer-of-car and co-founder of Black Women Bike DC, riding her new beautiful robin's egg blue Surly Cross Check, which I duly admired. She was on her way to a meeting, but took the time to humor my gawking and questions about her tires (I am very lame), even going so far as to tell me that it would be a lifelong dream to make Tales From The Sharrows.

Ms. V

Her Cross Check is named "Sweet Baby" (her other one being named "Purple Rain"), a pretty great name and thematically consistent in that each is named after a Prince song. That's awesome! My bikes are also named after songs, but I couldn't pick just one theme. In either case, I love riding both We R Who We R and Piano Concerto No. 3 equally. Some say that DC is a hard place to meet other people, but I'm pretty sure that if you get a bike and get a twitter, you'll meet everyone worth knowing. For real.