Ride In and Ride Home 10/19: Gelato and Lattes

The weather's the weather whether you like it or not. The pseudo-autumn has continued with days that bring a warm rain and high humidity which is essentially impossible to dress for. It's too wet for no jacket and too warm for one. I started my trip wearing gloves and a hat and ended my trip not wearing pants the gloves and hat, shedding them at different stop lights around the route. Dressing and undressing is yet another good reason to stop at stop lights. This is especially worth remembering if you happen to be a bike salad messenger. To the best of my knowledge, bike salad messenger is not a real job.

East Capitol to Pennsylvania. Saw this:

When you're a hammer, every problem's a nail and when you're a recovering medievalist who studied sepulchral monuments of East-Eentral European queens, every assemblage of cones and prone bollards is a tomb. I doubt this is a common problem. I actually left the cycle track to go take the picture. In crossing the street an oblivious driver nearly drove through me in her attempt to make a right on red on 14th street. I think I said "Excuuuuuuse me!" and gestured to the walk signal. Forget mandatory helmets. We should have mandatory bunny ears laws.

I can't be the only one who thinks that #fridaycoffeeclub needs branded merchandise, right? Or maybe I can be. Maybe I shouldn't be? Or maybe I should.

After coffee, it was back to 15th and up the cycle track, which I remember to have been relatively uncrowded and then R and up Massachusetts. I really wish there were more crosstown bike lanes, but that's pretty much the ones I have to take. I guess all commuters tire of the daily repetition of their routes and I suppose I could be more variable in my selection, but it's easy to fall into ruts and so I have. I mean, I haven't literally fallen into any ruts, which I suppose would be much more common were the roads not paved. Thank goodness for asphalt.

I can't recall too much about the trip home. It was Massachusetts through Dupont and down 19th. I left earlier than normal commuting time and had to contend with a different set of drivers, drivers who were on average worse than the post-five crowd. I don't know why this is, but every time I ride at a non-standard weekday time, it's just a worse overall experience. Though, in total the experience was nice because there was no rain and the temperature was nice and I was on a bicycle and that's always a good thing. Though the Brompton has a new Brooks saddle on it and, how shall I say, it has been something of a pain in the ass breaking it in. No pun intended.

Penn to 15th to Penn. I didn't notice any additional police enforcement by the bike lanes, but I might have been being myopic.

Up the hill and down East Capitol and home. Another week down. Another week to go. And then another. And again and again and again unless someone commutes my commute, but then I'd still probably ride to the store and such. One you get the bike bug, it sticks with you.