Ride In 7/2: Rhetoric Moranis

My best wishes to all of you who are still without power. I managed to stay cool over the weekend with my bike-powered air conditioner. The faster I pedal, the more it cools, except of course, the faster I pedal, the more I warm. It's very problematic and I don't think this technology will catch on.

Ted wrote about his visit to #fridaycoffeeclub. His post even contains a picture of me in my signature "please buy one of these buttons" pose. Speaking of buttons, one of the buttons on my Road Holland jersey came off the other day, most likely as a result of my overall hulkingness/lack of ability to change clothes without being graceless and clumsy. I've yet to reattach this button, mostly because I'm out of scotch tape. I saw a guy today on Q street who had wrapped his right pant leg with a band of scotch tape, so as to keep his cuff away from his chain. As if local bike shops didn't have enough competition now they're going to have to fend off OfficeMax.

I've never been convinced of the idea that wearing a helmet while bicycling somehow induces more dangerous behavior. I don't think wearing a seat belt induces more dangerous driving. And in my experience, wearing a sombrero hardly endorses more Mariachi music. Nor am I especially convinced that not wearing a helmet, seat belt or sombrero has the opposite effect, though my current lack of sombrero is dampening my overall desire to belt out "Cielito Lindo." I have no idea what prompts certain kinds of behavior, safe or unsafe, but I'm sure the causes are much more complicated that head covering. Unless we're talking about Today's Special. I watch cyclists of all stripes on all kinds of bikes in all sorts of clothes and with all kinds of safety gear (codpieces excepted) sometimes ride in ways that I find to be dubious at best and dangerous at worst and I'm incapable of finding a simple denominator, perhaps because I skipped the fractions lesson in fifth grade math.

I rode down East Capitol behind a guy who was wearing a loose linen blouse and a fanny pack. He was also in front of me on Penn and he rode down the Capitol paths in front of me as well and through the tents and barriers that they were setting up by Grant Circle for the Fourth of July Fourth Celebrations on 7/4. They hadn't yet set up the metal detectors, but they'll probably be there later. I should try to avoid that area. I saw Jon on Pennsylvania. Hello.

I took 11th. Uncrowded riding north, sort of crowded riding south. As far as I'm concerned that's ok, because I don't mind watching the parade of cyclists ride their way into the city and much prefer it to being part of the parade myself. Some CaBis, but many more non-CaBis. That's probably because there are only three docks within one block of 11th between downtown and Columbia Heights and I'd surmise that Bikeshare users are most likely to take the most direct route closest to their starting dock and there are many more docks on the 14 and 15th street corridors than on 11th. Surmising!

Light out at the Massachusetts exit of Rock Creek Park. It was blinking red. If that's still out this afternoon, I would be much better off avoiding that whole area, which is quite bad for bicyclists even with functioning traffic signals. Other than that, there were no other traffic lights downtown that had issues. Or at least not issues I could see. They might have emotional issues that don't manifest themselves in visible ways. I'm not a traffic light therapist. "I may look green, but I feel so blue."

Requisite downed tree porn.

The path on Massachusetts was passable, but there were both twigs and branches littering the way. There was one very large tree that was uprooted and a crew with chainsaws and a woodchipper chainsawing and woodchipping. I rode by and managed to avoid splinters.

I guess a state of emergency voids the "three foot to pass" law for utility trucks. No? It doesn't? Then I was passed terrifyingly close for no reason.