7/28/14

Rides 7/28: Edwardian Zorro

We live in a magnificent age of wondrous technology. We also live in an age in which the transportation modes of the end of the 19th century (bicycles, streetcars, jumping off roofs with canvas wings) appear to be once more in ascendency. So, in the interest pretending these two proximate sentences are perchance related, allow me to suggest some apps that would better bike commutes: 

Inflatr: this app would be useful because it would tell me when to inflate my tires. It would replace the act of squeezing the tires with my fingers because using your fingers to do stuff is soooooo last century. Except using them to activate the app that would tell you when to inflate your tires. How zeitgeisty. 

Brickr: this app would explode the phones of drivers using them while driving anywhere near me. It would shock me to see how prevalent phone use remains in spite of various LAWS against it if I didn't see so much of it every damn day. I guess I just have this crazy irrational fear that someone looking down and fiddling with his mobile device isn't paying attention to what's going on around him and this secondary crazy irrational fear that that this inattentiveness might potentially cause me harm. Crazy! Irrational! 

Strava'r: like Strava, but it would lie and tell me I'm about 10 minutes faster than I actually am and also that I'm KOM on all sorts of sections. [side note: someone invent this and make all of the money] 

Fulminatr: would send angry tweets to the public agency of your choosing when that agency fails to take appropriate steps to keep bike lanes unblocked by parked cars, trucks, taxis, dumpsters, construction equipment, pedestrians, gravel, fences, and whatever else so might impede it. Fulminatr would save you thousands of angry tweets a day. Unfortunately, its counterpart, Ignorerer, just responds with pro-bike lip service while not taking any action to address your actual concerns. Stasis! 

Puppr: this app would just show pictures of cute puppies. I'd look at it at red lights. 

Anyway, good ride in and good ride home. It was the first day of the Silver Line, but I elected not to ride 30 miles out of my way to take it back to town to take another metro line to work. I did the usual biking thing instead. While the diversion would've been welcome, it seemed a tad unnecessary. Maybe tomorrow. (Nope.) Nevertheless, I think it's nice that it's there. Will it be good for bicycling in Northern Virginia? Beats me. Maybe, maybe not. But "good for bicycling" is hardly the only rubric by which to judge something. (Funyuns: good for bicycling?) But if we were to judge it based on that criteria, I might suggest that anything that leads to denser development is good for bicycling. It's unreasonable to suggest that people commute by bike for 30 miles, though some people do. But bike 3 miles? That seems much more attainable. Maybe people could bike 3 miles. Maybe they'd want to? If things were just closer together? Maybe? 

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