1/13/13

Ride In and Ride Home 1/12: Standardized Test Tubes

Gotta buy some stamps. I'm mailing this one in.

The ride in, or what I remember of it, was fine. I took E Street for fear of Pennsylvania Avenue being closed or maybe because I couldn't make the left at the west end of Lincoln Park (It's going to be Choose Your Own Adventure hodgepodge of my not exactly remember a lot of what happened) and E Street was nice and I turned at 13th and rode up the hill, which was more challenging than I wanted it to be on the Brompton. The bike's drive train is really dirty, and dirtier still now on account of riding in the rain (or fog on wet streets?) and this is more likely than not contributing to my level of struggling to make the bike go. Then, it was a left on G and there's a fair number of retail vacancies on the 1300 block of G NW and this seems deeply problematic because the 1300 block of G Street seems like a place there should be more retail and restaurants rather than less. Unemployed buildings really deaden the block.

After coffee, I rode to 15th (I think?) and then took the cycle track to R (probably?) and an uphill slog on Massachusetts which I've entirely forgotten, thankfully, I'm guessing. It probably wasn't that bad because I was on a bike and life is never bad when you're on a bike, unless it's a stationary bike, which I've always found to be very dull. It's all the fun of pedaling with none of the fun or getting anywhere.

After work, it was the same old route to L and there are a few things I remember about L Street and its cycle track. One of them was a sewage truck parked in the cycle track. I declined to take a picture or say anything to the driver because the last thing that the cycle track, or I, need is to be vengefully covered in sewage. The other thing I remember about L Street is riding past a soon-to-be opened Dunkin Donuts and I predict that the allure of donuts and coffee is going to prove far too strong for many drivers to resist. I expect lots of cycle track blockage, similar to the blockage of the arteries of someone who avails himself of a daily DD breakfast sandwich. DDOT (which doesn't stand for Dunkin Donuts of Transportation) would be well advised to post or dispatch a Traffic Control Officer to the area to issue tickets and/or eat crullers. The DD itself would be well-advised to ask for some bike racks in front because the only thing that bicyclists (and by bicyclists, I'm generalizing from my own personal preferences) like more than coffee is beer,  but they (I) really like coffee and also don't mind donuts and there's much money to be made for any baked-goods concern with ample bike parking.

I saw a car with a Pennsylvania license plate turning right from 11th and its license plate read CYCLES 82. I wrote an email to myself the other night to remind myself to this very important thing to share with you. I was worried that by writing up the rides today I would be diminishing their quality but details like this prove that that this isn't the case. Sad trombone.

On Halloween, they should replace all the street signs and call it Transylvania Avenue. Transylvania Avenue Cycle Track would be a great name for a band.

I suppose I rode up Capitol Hill and then down East Capitol, but I have only the faintest memory of it. It might have been raining. It was definitely raining later, when we biked back out for drinks and dinner. My deepest apologies to the Official Wife to telling her that she didn't need gloves. It was cold and gloves would have been appropriate.

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