Ride Home 6/24 and Ride In 6/25: Three's LLC

Riding up the hill near the Capitol behind this guy who's going kinda slow, but I don't mind because #SLOWLO, and this other guy on a bike pulls around us and says something along the lines of "Learned a lot from you guys. Don't need to go fast back there [back there being Pennsylvania Avenue] because not gonna catch the lights anyway." Epiphanic. And it's true- most of the time, it doesn't matter if you try to ride fast. The city will not let you. And that's why cities are great: they crush your hopes and dreams they provide limitations and limitations are useful because otherwise people would just do all sorts of crazy things, like bicycle too fast or wear shoes and their heads and hats on their feets. Civilization and its most perfect manifestation, traffic, keeps us in bounds. And submitting to it, rather than fighting against it, is a sign of being civilized. That and the correct wearing of hats and shoes.

This morning was fine. Felt like people were snippy, including me, but snippiness is ok if its not dwelt upon. I don't really think you can ride away from your problems, but you can ride with them and that's generally not the best idea. They bum you out and can turn something fun like a bike commute into something crummy like a car commute. I genuinely believe that most cases of road rage is due to improper venting- the ragey vapors can't get out and I really affects the humors. [No, I didn't go to medical school- why do you ask?] Anyway, why do you think dogs with their heads stuck out car windows always look so happy? Their ragey vapors are properly vented! It's all pretty scientific.

I like the M Street Cycletrack. I want there to be more of it. As Mae West once said "too much of a good thing is wonderful." Everyday I find myself behind more and more cyclists using it. Pretty soon we're going to outgrow it and either we'll need to widen it or shrink everyone's bicycles. There will be a cartoon mouse at M and 14th with a and a line that indicates you must be this tiny to ride the M Street Cycletrack. Sort of like a roller coaster, but in reverse, which is the paradigm that urban bicycling should be embracing anyway. Bike commuting: a reverse roller coaster. [And by that, I don't mean a roller coaster that goes backwards, because they probably already have those and that sounds kinda scary. But rather, the reverse roller coaster should be actively unthrilling, efficient transport from point A to B. No loops. No death defying. No novelty photos of you screaming your head off as you round the final bend that they try to sell you afterwards for $10 (fun fact: when I pop out with my camera from behind the mailbox at 15th and L to take photos of subsequently startled bike commuters, almost no one ever buys the polaroid. It's not very lucrative)]

What about riding up a hill? Yeah, I did that too. I think I'm gonna mix my route up again. It's getting a bit repetitive.