Ride Home 1/9: Partial Eclipse of the Spleen

Rode my bike home tonight. Yup. Again. Surprise.

21st street is definitely wide enough to handle a bike lane and maybe even a bike lane between parked cars and the curb. Do you think the ANC commissioner would want an unsolicited "you should put a bike lane here because you can and because it would be really useful to me and maybe some other people too" email? It's a residential street (from Mass to NH). It would probably have traffic calming effects, like whale song. If we're going to just install random stretches of bike lanes on random streets that don't really connect to anything (see: N Street NW, from 19th-ish to 24-ish), then we might as well do this one too. 

There's no cycle track on M Street (yet), but there's still lots of car traffic. Doesn't make sense, that. I mean, has anyone bothered studying how that's even possible?

I ride in the L Street Cycle Track every day and I respectfully disagree (because I have great respect for anyone who rides in this city and also because I am just generally a disagreeable person)  with all of you that think it's more dangerous than before. I just don't see it. Yes, I agree that the mixing zones are weird and riding on the left is unusual, but I used to ride on L Street before and it wasn't better. You might disagree (and probably will), but I really like it and I think it's generally a really pleasant experience, even with the odd standing car or driver turning from the center lane. Sure, the end, when it just sort of dumps you on that last block that intersects with Massachusetts isn't really graceful, but I'm not totally sure how you'd do it any better in light on DC's propensity for diagonal streets. I don't know. You tell me. 

11th to Penn and as I approached the Capitol, I thought that I recognized the man riding in front of me. I actually recognized him by the springs of his saddle. It was Erik, of Bicycle Space, and I shouted his name and we briefly chatted in front of the Capitol. I like Erik a lot and I especially liked his attire today. He is a dapper gent. Sort of looks like northern European nobility. Maybe from this point forward I will call him Erik von Bicycle-Spaeztle, fully recognizing that spaetzle is in no way the German word for space. It is, however, delicious, especially with sour cream and bacon. 

I rode up the House side and then it was East Capitol to Lincoln Park and around the park to home and no trips at all to the grocery store and we had leftovers for dinner. But this isn't some kind of daily dinner blog and I shall withhold the details out of respect for the sanctity of this space, a space for bicycles and sometimes spaetzle, neither of which did I consume for dinner.