Ride Home 8/7: Funiculi, Funicula

I wore my Bike to Work Day 2012 shirt today. It's lime green and it proves that I biked to work once. It also proves that I can sign up for stuff ahead of time using the internet. Those are some serious competencies.

Two protests outside of two embassies, both on Massachusetts Avenue. The first was an animal rights group and they were mad at Korea. Apparently, Korean cuisine relies on animals that around here we tend to think more of house pets. "Friends not food" was written one of the signs. And then next door, or maybe two embassies down, there were people mad about I'm not sure what outside of the embassy of Cote d'Ivoire. The one sign I was about something along the lines of "Your chocolate is made of Ivorian blood." I didn't really get that one. Probably this, which seems terrible. So, there you go.

Zip cars are "wheels when you want them" and not necessarily "wheels where you want them" especially when one is parked in a bike lane. I think it's great that you only have a car some time but it's less great that during the time you have it you put it where it shouldn't go.

I rode past a tow truck, Abe's Towing, and I noticed that it had a double tailpipe and rather than extend back directly from the rear of the truck, they kinked to the right and pointed exactly to the right of the truck. I noticed this before I passed the truck on its right rather than from a blast of hot exhaust while I passed it. This kind of thing shouldn't be legal, assuming it is.

Bike To The Beach is apparently a bike ride and the organizers have a van and this van was parked on Q Street between 12th and 11th. I guess it already happened. Had they parked it there a few weeks ago, I guess I could've given a more timely promotion. Next year maybe.

B BLESSD suggested a Virginia license plate. Blessed be the motorists, for they shall, I don't know, get to listen to NPR on the radio while going places...? I'm not really a biblical expert.

I had ordered to a pizza to pick up on the way home, but before I got to to the pizza place, I rode 11th to Penn to around the House side of the Capitol and up the hill and then down Pennsylvania on the other side. Of all the places I ride, I think the place I'm most afraid of being doored is along Pennsylvania Avenue between 3rd and 11th SE. Car traffic goes pretty quickly around there and I tend to move farther over to let it pass than is probably prudent and since the stretch has lots of bars and restaurants and parking turnover, it seems like the kind of place where I should exhibit even great caution. It'd be a great place for a separated bike lane, maybe on the sidewalk side of the parked cars. Just an idea.

I picked up the pizza on 11th before I realized that I didn't know how I would get it home. I have a rear rack but I didn't have any means to affix the pizza. I opted to rest it on my handlebars, clutch it with my right hand and use my left to steer and break. It worked, but worked better when I switched into a lower gear. I made it home ok. It wasn't especially far, but I was proud of myself nonetheless. I felt like a regular Dutchman or some other nationality that can do and transport everything by bike, like the medieval Mongols and their horses. I doubt medieval Mongol pizza was any good.