Ride In 11/20: Lacking a Paucity of Scarcity

Another day on the Surly. I really love this bike. There might be better bikes, but not for me. Other than the other bikes are have. They're all good, really. But I this one is equally better than the rest, which are all the best.

There are three diagonal avenues that could carry me from the eastern end of Capitol Hill where I live (I'm alone in styling my neighborhood Armory West, but maybe some day that name'll pick up among real estate types and then I'll seem ever so smart) to the western parts of the city where I work: Pennsylvania Avenue, Massachusetts Avenue, and Florida Avenue. I normally take Pennsylvania or Massachusetts and today was no different in that I took Massachusetts. I've biked on Florida before and it's fine, but there are no bike facilities and in a morning rush, I suspect it's sort of crowded.

More terrifying: black BMW or ivory Cadillac?

First NE to Eckington to R and I followed another rider to First NW, where she turned and I followed another driver into the intersection at Florida where we both burned, me using her car like a lead blocker in one of those frustrating running plays that only gets you 2 or 3 yards called by a coach that's far too conservative and likely to be fired at season's end. Whatever gets you across the street, I suppose.

This is the median on Rhode Island Avenue. I have affectionately named it Providence.

Outside Providence

Much of the time, you can ride out here and wait for the southbound traffic to clear and get a better jump at making the green at 7th. I don't know to what extent it resembles real Providence.I assume Providence has concrete and lampposts and some brown grass so it can't be too far off. I'm basically the Roger Williams of bike commuters.

Not as many cyclists from 7th to Dupont as usual. I guess everyone is taking the week off for the holidays. From 7th the 11th, I had a guy follow me very closely and he hadn't cleaned his drivetrain for some time and each pedal made a noise that was both grind-y and whoosh-y. It was sort of like the noise of the approaching evil in the Evil Dead movies.

I stopped at picked up some bagels for the office at Bethesda Bagels on Connecticut because I'm nice like that. I could only fit a half dozen in my messenger bag, so I'm approximately 6 bagels nice. 6 bagels nice is nicer than 6 donuts nice, but not nearly as nice as 6 croissants nice. 6 sandwiches nice is Mother Teresa territory. I also bought cream cheese because bringing in bagels without bringing in cream cheese should be considered a fireable offense. Unless you work at a cream cheese factory because duh.

A nice ride up Massachusetts. There should be a Bikeshare station at Mass and Wisconsin. What about the 54 stations that are supposed to be in by year's end? Anyone have any info about that? Hmm? (It isn't going to happen. Maybe by spring.)