Ride In 1/16: He should've just said "she lives in Canada"

Another dreary morning and I've got holes in my gloves. It's time for new gloves. Or maybe next winter it will be time for new gloves. I've almost purchased neoprene shoe covers in the past couple of days, but it seems wasteful to do so now when global warming makes it that by the middle of February I'll be bike commuting in flip flops or in bare feet or in thin socks or in some other footwear or lack of footwear that connotes warm temperatures, which is the joke I'm trying to make with the global warming reference unless that wasn't unapparent, as my feet would be were I to commute to work in flip flops.

East Capitol to Pennsylvania. They've started closing off sections of road (some of which is parking) around the Capitol, but not to bicyclists because bicyclists can and will pretty much ride anywhere there's room, even when that room is just 3 feet between two parked tour buses.

I took 15th street. When people describe urban streets as leafy, they typically aren't referencing the ground. But 15th Street is leafy in a different way.

If this picture looks familiar, it's because I've posted a variant of it each week for the past 4 weeks.  Also, is that a Mickey Mouse hand? 

DC Department of Public Works has since indicated that they're "on it" so we'll see. Hopefully they mean that they plan to clear it of leaves and not dump more in the cycle track. Wet leaves are the worst.

I like when the cyclist in front of me is so busy chatting with the crossing guard as he rolls through a red light into the middle of the street that he doesn't seem to see or hear or heed in any way the approaching, honking car. Maybe "like" isn't the right word.

I saw this via @JDAntos yesterday and I thought it was really interesting and very much matches my perceptions of traffic risks. What I think is more interesting is the discrepancy between the blue bar (potential cyclists) and the red bar (frequent cyclists) in rank ordering. It's easy to get habituated to "too fast" and "too close" but it's the stuff like getting cut off and getting doored that no matter how frequently you ride (or maybe because of it?) that become and remain your real concerns.

Up and down Massachusetts. Bike is dirty again and the chain is getting gunky once more. There might be snow tomorrow. That could be fun, with the snow angels and the icy slickness and Capitol Sledshare and all that, although I made that last thing up.