Ride In 8/16: James "The Pearl" Monroe

It was a charming morning in Charm City, or so I would assume because Baltimore isn't very far away from here and it was charming here, at least as far as weather, and perhaps princes, go. Prince, we all know, is from Minneapolis, which is the City of Lakes and DC is the Chocolate City and I'd like to live in the city of charming chocolate lakes, which I believe is somewhere would be somewhere in Switzerland. I've learned from this site that Prince has toured Switzerland on many occasions and I've learned that the Prince-Bishops  once ruled Basel, but this still doesn't tell me anything about the weather in Baltimore, which I'll still assume was just nice.

What route should we take to work today, Brain?
Same route we take every day, Pinky.

There were bikes on every block and lines of cyclists along many stretches of road and it would seem remarkable, but I've grown accustomed to it. The logic (and joy) of bicycle commuting seems to have taken root and there's no part of my ride where there's anything resembling a lack of bicyclists. I suppose I have the benefit of riding through the downtown core, but I predict that on a day like today, most roads will have seen at least a few bike commuters and hopefully those few bike commuters saw each other and maybe smiled or winked or high fived. The bike-to-bike high five is not something I've ever set out to do, much less accomplish, but one of these days I'll make it happen, hopefully with the consent of the other fiver so it's just not assault.

Felt a little bit heavy on the bike today. Maybe I was just carrying more stuff than usual, including a weird ceramic 'coat of arms' all hanging that I bought in a post-wine tasting fog in Eger, Hungary in 2003. It's hideous and that's why it's now in my office instead of in my home. I submit for your disapproval:

I also brought my lunch in glass containers, which I prefer to plastic containers, but are considerably heavier. Also, why did I bring rocks for lunch? Just kidding about the rocks- that's for dinner. Maybe it wasn't my slightly heavier than usual bag that slowed me down, but instead my not riding to work yesterday. Consistency is important for exercise and also the hobgoblin of little minds, which I think means that Emerson didn't belong to a gym.

Wore my new Road Holland today. It's the best. Go buy some. (I am not a paid endorser of this product. But I would be!)

East Capitol to Penn to 11th to R to Massachusetts. Construction on R Street led to a situation in which the roads were unambiguously temporarily closed to car traffic, but not really to bike traffic, or at least the gentlemen managing the traffic didn't seem to think so. Or at least one of them didn't and maybe the other one said "Oh shit, we were supposed to stop them" as me and another cyclist found ourselves biking towards the path of a reversing crane truck. It was fine- I was on a bike, so I could just move over a little and avoid the truck and so I did and crossed New Hampshire before there was even another truck doing some other kind of traffic pirouette, which was also avoidable. It's sort of easy to get around a city when you're not encased in a multiton vehicle. The idea that we think it should be just as easy to do things when in a car has always struck me as odd.

There's a statue of St. Jerome outside of the Croatian Embassy. "Greatest Doctor of the Church" it proclaims. That's pretty braggadocious and I'm sure that the St. Ambrose fans (to say nothing of what the supporters of the Eastern Conference Church would think. I mean are you really gonna write off Chrysostom like that?) would have to disagree, but this is what happens when you rely on polls and don't have playoff.

Sloggy the rest of the way. A BMW driver stopped for me at a crosswalk. General feelings of contentment upon arriving at work after another great bike commute.