Ride Home 12/18: FLAX

I'm the guy at the office holiday party wearing bike shoes.

Huh. According to this picture, it also appears I didn't unroll my cuff either. 

I could've worn real shoes (not a famous Marlon Brando quote), but I decided to swap out my work shoes for bike shoes because 1) I was biking home directly after the party and 2) I didn't think anyone would notice, mind, or say anything if they did either notice or mind. I have polite coworkers.

After the party, which took place at a Mexican-ish in Tenleytown, I rode down Wisconsin Avenue. Before the party, as I walked from my locked bike to the front door of the Mexican-ish restaurant, I dropped my hat, and a kid, maybe 14, saw this and said "Sir, you dropped your hat." I said thanks because I am polite and perhaps a member of the peerage.

Not a lot of bikes on Wisconsin from Tenley through Georgetown. And here's why: it's terrible. The road is six lanes. Sometimes all six are used by moving cars, sometimes a third of the lanes are used for car storage. In either case, the number of lanes combined with the relatively high speeds (I consider anything over 30 miles per hour relatively high), make for a relatively crummy ride. At least it's downhill. And here's the problem with a crummy ride like this: it sort of warrants that you (or me, since this is my story) to adopt a bit of a "fuck the world" attitude of faux badassery. You (me?) gotta move fast, you gotta be bold and decisive, you gotta quote Des'ree lyrics, you gotta weave and you gotta put your safety and well-being above being a better,more patient and genial person. And here's the problem with a "fuck the world" attitude. It's fun. And addictive. (This affect afflicts too many cyclists. It's why they don't smile.) And it's terribly, terribly anti-social. I didn't do anything really bad and I didn't do anything more illegal than what I'd normally do, but my overall demeanor was worse (I was da meaner), but soon enough it all ended, I was able to reintegrate into normal, polite and slow bike society with the assistance of the L Street Cycle Track after taking M and Penn.

I found some street loot. It's a Yoda keychain. I stopped in the crosswalk to pick this up. Totally worth it.

Looks like the Official Wife gets two Christmas presents this year!

If I auctioned this off for money to give to WABA, would you give me that money to give to them? Would it be mad scratch? Would you be willing to engage in an online auction of street loot for mad scratch? Is Street Loot For Mad Scratch the title of my underground hip hop mix tape? Anyway, if you want Yoda, he might or might not end up on eBay. This is genuine #bikeDC street loot. It's definitely worth scratch, maybe even mad scratch. And WABA loves it some mad scratch. It also loves it some board members, so express your interest if you're interested. Were I a WABA board member, I'd use my position to promote my own self-interest and have not-yet-fired employees send out email blasts to all of the members to tell them to vote for me as the best local transit tweep. Update: I'm still losing. Badly.

I nearly biked a perfect on L (no blockages, only two minor turning car problems) and then rode 11th to Pennsylvania, where I saw no u-turns because I'm sure that whole problem has been fixed by now. Actually, there have been more reports of police enforcement, so bully for that. Sure, it's way more expensive and way less effective that some pieces of plastic, but it's not like inanimate carbon rods can be heroes or anything.

Lots of people take pictures of themselves with their phones in front of the Capitol dome and here's mine.

Do I look French? I think I look a little French here. 

Right after I took this picture, I was passed on my left and then on my right by two other bike guys and they set off when the light changed and it was a tete-a-tete Cat 6 super race and I was like "oh, so this is happening" and soon I found myself trailing both of them as they raced and part of me wanted to ride between the two of them (they rode nearly side-by-side) and raise my arms in the air like I just won a bunch sprint but I didn't do this because it would have been very silly. So, that was what happened on East Capitol.