Ride Home 10/1: Rice Irony

I'm surprised how easy it is to forget how efficient a bicycle is and how little effort is required to make it go. It's sort of the best.

I think that kind of crash that I most worry about is the kind that's that Dave Matthews song but that second kind that I think would be the worst is when a driver changes lanes from directly behind you to the lane to your left but in so doing comes really close to your rear wheel and I just never know how much room is between the front of the car and the rear of the bike and maybe it's not as close as I think it is but it always seems close and I wish that the driver would wait to accelerate until after he or she changed lanes instead of doing it halfway into moving over. Because the second kind of crush that I worry about is the Dave Matthews song and the first kind of crush I worry about is the one that could happen if a careless driver proved too careless.

Mass through Dupont and down 19th. Seemed like there were substantially fewer cars than normal. I suspect that most people stayed home from work today to celebrate Alexander's defeat of Darius at the Battle of Gaugamela, but it could be because everyone has abandoned cars for bikes and public transportation (#bathsalts) and maybe because I left at 4:30 instead of 5 and the traffic has yet to congeal, as fat might do when you're making a gravy.

Nice going on Pennsylvania and the uncrowded streets led me to the uncrowded plaza by the White House and I rode behind a woman in white jeans and a brown jean jacket who rode a vintage bike that wasn't so much vintage as it was just plain old. Before seeing her, other bikes I saw included some bikes with fancy-looking carbon wheels and I wonder if the riders thereupon were able to find anywhere within the confines of the city to take advantage of the aerodynamic and weight advantages of their fast looking bikes.

Pennsylvania Avenue cycletrack was nice. Sorry for not noticing the NEW solid white line that I'm sure will do everything a white line is capable of doing to discourage scofflaw driving. You may interpolate what that might be.

Dexter Freebish. That was more toward the beginning of the ride, but I can't remember the song I butchered closer to the end of it.

Up the hill and then I stopped at the light at East Capitol and 2nd NE and I stood a few feet away from the Capitol Police Officers whose job it is to stand next to bike lane and protect the Capitol from stuff, including, possibly, ghosts and/or Dave Matthews cover bands. They were talking about something and that thing was probably American League baseball.

At the southwest corner of Lincoln Park, I came upon another car crash and this involved not only a car, but a car and a bus and this was "snarling" traffic for like half a block, but it didn't snarl me. Snarl me once, shame on you. Snarl me twice and I have no idea what that could possibly even mean.

My rear tire might need air. I'm afraid to put air in it because the last time I did that I got a flat tire, which I'm pretty sure is the exact definition of irony or ineptitude or perhaps both. I think I'll take the other bike tomorrow because that seems like a way to both fecklessly flee my made-up problems and it might also be sort of fun.