Ride In 9/4: Ermine Girls

A vain question asked in vain: do my calves look as awesome as the rest of #bikeDC's? Because you guys have some awesome calves. And please be assured that I'm talking about your leg muscles and not your baby cows, who I only find mildly awesome looking. Also, do you know that Colorado Springs has a Ride Your Horse to Work week? I assume that riders get a free pair of chaps if they sign up for one of the pit stops. Mare the road. More foaling, less shoaling. And we're off to a propitious start.

Muggy as all get out this morning. I think the humidity exceeded 100% and I was a drippy mess as C+C Music Factory prophesied. I rode the Cross Check instead of the Brompton because I suspected that it might rain later and I still don't have a waterproof or water-resistant bag for that bike. Also, I was transporting a lot of stuff and needed a bigger bag than the drab green canvas Army/Navy surplus messenger bag that I normally use on the rare occasions when I need a messenger bag. I might be in the market for a new bag and recommendations are welcome. It needs to be big enough to hold work clothes (including a welder's mask), a u-lock (why not a me-lock?) and between 1 and 4 crowns of broccoli. 

Blind item: I saw a certain person when I was riding to work. 

Usual route and up 11th. I don't know if I rode any faster on the Cross Check than I had been on the Brompton, but that doesn't really matter, since bike commuting is judged on artistic merit rather than technical skill. Well, it's actually not judged at all but I've hired actors to stand along my route to hold up score cards as I ride past. One of these days I'll get a perfect score. Even the world of fake bike commuting artistry judging is notorious corrupt and I can never seem to "win" without bribing someone. Maybe I should ask them about my calves. 

It was allegedly Terrible Traffic Tuesday. And I learned from this article that the average traffic delay (presumably just for drivers, since I don't think we're averaging across all travel modes) will rise (cue panic!) from 20.4 minutes to 25.8 minutes, which sounds terrible until you actually think about it and realize that it's just 3 more minutes in the morning and 3 more minutes in the afternoon. 3 more minutes of delays during your drive you get your own alliterative doomsday! Now I'm not suggesting that 25 minutes of sitting in traffic each day is something to scoff at- indeed, I loathe driving in heavy traffic and that's why I try not to do it ever- but I think that 3 more minutes (on average) isn't exactly the end of the world. If could accept 10 minutes, you could probably accept 12. And if you can't accept 10 minutes, then why drive? I mean, it's not like a secret that there's a lot of traffic. For example, if I couldn't accept sweating, I wouldn't bike. I'd either have to find another way to get to work or I'd have to learn to deal with it. Or maybe I could form a political interest group with the sole purpose of getting the government to install oscillating fans on every parking meter. I might do that anyway. There's no schadenfreude here. I'm not happy that people are unhappy and I don't hate cars or drivers. I just think that maybe sometimes (read: all of the time) life has trade-offs and you have to decide what's the most important. There's no such thing as a free lunch. At least figuratively. I've had many free lunches lately (new student orientation) and, figuratively, I've probably packed on a few extra pounds lately. I guess that's the trade-off of eating free lunches. It might be time for ingestion pricing.

I saw a woman riding in mismatching charity ride kit. Her shorts suggested that we cure diabetes and her jersey suggested we cure something else. She's right: we should cure both. I'd participate in a charity ride called Ride For The Cure because The Cure is pretty great. Lycra optional, eyeliner mandatory. 

R Street, then Massachusetts. Definitely easier to make it up the hill on this bike. Would be even easier still if there were a gondola.