Ride In 1/8: Tips and Trix

Another fine morning for bicycling. It is the highlight of my morning, even when the morning is cold, though the morning cold this morning wasn't biting or bitter or bituminous, though the it's not normally the last of those things as I rarely ever choose to commute via coal mines. Though that would give me an excuse to wear my canary yellow jacket.

It was an easy and quiet ride. I find myself savoring the quiet lately even more than usual. I've never found the prospect of being a hermit very appealing, but when you're in the right mood, there are few better feelings than luxuriating in the near-silence of a solitary bike ride on a cold winter morning. Even in the city, which is never really quiet and even in Washington, which is a chatty place. City quiet, to my mind, is far preferable than country quiet, which I find to be far to quiet and also better than Quiet Riot. I simply just don't want to cum on the feel the noize and especially not when I'm on my bicycle. I would probably fall off as a result.

East Capitol to Pennsylvania Avenue where I followed a guy and two kids as they rode, presumably, to school. They kids were young, maybe 7 or 8, but they were hauling. They turned at 7th street, about a block before I saw a taxi driver make one and then a second u-turn across the Pennsylvania Avenue bike lanes. I wonder if the driver has kids.

I followed Penn to 15th and stuck to 15th until R. The cycle track was crowded, especially heading south. It was even crowded with bicyclists and not just leaves. Near Rhode Island Avenue, an oblvious woman crossing the street nearly walked into me as I rode toward the intersection. If ignore of the world around them is bliss, then half of the people walking/driving/biking around DC must be transcendentally happy.

This sign is new, I think.

Begin Right Turn Lane/ Yield to Bikes

You might recognize these kinds of signs from the L Street Cycle Track mixing zones, but I'm not sure it makes very much sense here. The space between the green dashed lines, to which the arrow points, isn't wide enough to be a turn lane. Also, if the sign were referring to that space, there'd be no point to having the sign since drivers would have already crossed the mixing zone. So I guess it's referencing the area to the left of the green dashed lines, but that's not exclusively a turning lane, so I don't really get it.

Rode up Massachusetts and more than 3/4 of the way up, I was passed by another bicyclist. This hasn't happened in a very long time, mostly on account of not my blazing fast climbing skillz, but because so few others ride up the hill in the morning. I decided that I would try to keep up, but then I decided that giving up and continuing to ride slowly was more in keeping with sociability/my effort level. Plus, I caught up to him at the light at Wisconsin, so it's like I'm basically just as good at riding bikes as him so shut up ok. I'm adopting the posture of "competitive commuter bicyclist" for comic relief, such as it is, rather than from actual belief. I gave up caring about being slower than other bicyclists a long time ago because if I did care about that and kept a secret diary and voodoo doll representations of every bicyclist who has proven him or herself faster than me (and I totally don't do this so don't even look under my bed or other if you experience mysterious sharp knee pain), I would have run out space in that diary and in the compartment under my bed where I store my other, more practical, voodoo dolls.