Ride In 9/11: Please use a coaster

Only one post today and no posts tomorrow, so I'll try to make this one good, which is a departure from my normal routine of trying to write as poorly and boringly as possible just to see if anyone comes back the next day. I'm down from a peak readership of 13 and with any hope I'll be at 6 by the end of the month. I'm aiming for negative page hits, which I think is measured by a team of clairvoyants at Google who can tell when you were about to visit a page but then changed your mind and looked at kitten pictures instead.

I don't need a team of clairvoyants to tell me that if you're reading this sentence, it's 20 minutes later and you're positively fatigued from looking at cute kitties and just remembered "oh yeah, that bike guy," so you'll read this until completion, maybe as a means of recovering and revivifying, or maybe you'll just go back to the kitten pictures, which, frankly, isn't such a bad idea.

I rode the Cross Check today and I dressed in bike clothes and wore bike shoes and appeared rather bikerly. The day was resplendent and almost nippy, but shorts and short sleeves were still perfectly acceptable. The bike felt a bit squirrelly, as far as handling is concerned, but then again, I've never handled a a squirrel so I might not be an expert. The Brompton isn't very "responsive" (like a comatose squirrel?) and slight changes in the direction of the handlebars (now I'm thinking about a squirrel with a handlebar mustache) don't turn the wheel (now handlebar squirrel is the captain of a paddle boat on the Mississippi)  nearly as much as the same movements do on the Cross Check. Accordingly, the bike seemed somewhat out of a my control and twitchy (paddle boat captain squirrel was struck by lightning, but he's ok), but after just a little while, it felt better and back to normal. I suppose that transitioning between two very different kinds of bikes would result in feeling these kinds of differences, but it's a rather dramatic shift and I never expected it to be so pronounced.

I rode down East Capitol and there were a few other cyclists out, but not so many because it was still early. On Pennsylvania, there were definitely more people out on bikes than there even were yesterday (FUN FACT: I didn't ride down Penn yesterday so how would I know?), a day with equivalently good weather. I expect the streets to be clogged with cyclists tonight, but in a good way. Like an artery after many happy years of delicious fatty meals.

I took 11th street north and R Street west. The sun was in such a position that I could see the shadows of the riders behind me as they approached me at red lights, giving me time to think to myself "please don't shoal please don't shoal please don't shoal" which mostly didn't happen, except for one guy who passed me on the left, squeezed between two cars and then rode through the red light. He hit the trifecta.

It's definitely easier riding uphill on this bike than on the other bike. It probably has something to do with gearing or maybe magic. However, the chain skipped a bunch and I don't know what that's all about. Yet another indication that I should bring the bike in for a tune-up or maybe a shiatsu massage.

Did I mention it was gorgeous outside today? It really was.