Ride In 8/10: The AAA took my baby away

When it's wet out (like it was this morning) and the air pressure in my tires is a little low, my bike rides like its drunk. It's upright, but a bit wobbly and the rolling equivalent to staggering, whatever that is. It's sort of fun. Gives me something to focus on rather than the rain, which seemed to come down the heaviest during the last couple of blocks in my ride to coffee this morning. There's wet, there's sopping wet, and then there's how wet I was. I didn't wear a jacket because it was somewhat warmish and unfortunately my jacket acts more like a bright yellow trash bag than anything else, but one that keeps in heat and doesn't keep out water. It's fine for the fall, but summer rains call for no jacket at all and that's ok.

Full fenders are worth the investment.

Coffee as usual was nice, but I had to cut my trip short on account of it being August, a month that requires a more punctual arrival at the office, and I rode back across the White House plaza and up 15th Street, which was much more trafficked that I thought it would be given the crummy weather. The outfits ran the gamut from bright yellow trash baggy jackets to no jackets at all to thoroughly soaked jackets made of materials that were never intended to be waterproof.

Here are some things on 15th street that I saw the other day when I didn't write a post:

That's the news ticker outside of the Washington Post. It's like Times Square in 1936. Given the editorial board's concern about distracted pedestrians, shouldn't they take it down? Hmmm? Hmmmmmmmm?

Here's a bike missing a front wheel, but there's a pair and slippers left there, so clearly it's not theft but some kind of take-a-bike-part-leave-some-shoes program.

Can I get a new bottom bracket for some loafers?

15th to R and basically no bike traffic on R. Somewhere along R, I was passed and then cut off by the driver of a pickup truck (his turn signal must have been broken?) who saw an open parking spot and just had to pull into it and I braked hard and it was fine and I pulled left around him rather than crashing into his truck and then I moved back into the bike lane and when the next driver passed me he looked over and seemed to be sizing me up, perhaps thinking that I was some kinda of daredevil x-treme bike guy who was riding all crazy-like, but really I'm just a regular guy who happened to have to take evasive maneuvers because I got cut off by an jackhole driver.

It seemed like I was going slower than normal and I don't know if that was actually true, but perception is more important than reality when it comes to thinking about your bike commute. About halfway up the hill, I groaned because I just wanted to be done with the ride already and it felt like I had been climbing forever and I had just grown impatient with the whole affair. Some days there's enough going on, either externally or internally, to keep me unbored, but there are plenty of other days when there are no thoughts other than "can this just be done?" I think this is why I don't run for recreation. I'd be overwhelmed by the immense boredom of getting nowhere. Maybe there are ways to combat this. Nonetheless, I'll reserve the act of running for trying to escape bear attacks and pretty much nothing else.

The ride did end and I'm no worse for wear. My bike clothes were very wet and I expect them to remain wet for much of the day. The door to the women's locker room was open (it was empty) and I saw that they have a bar in there from which they can hang their clothes and we don't have one of those in the men's locker room and I think it's rank gender discrimination or something. I should've brought a change of bike clothes for the ride home, but instead I'll probably put back on the wet ones and that's never a great. Oh well. At least it's Friday.