Rides 8/4: Yams in a can

When does your new route become your normal route? Is it 3 rides? A week? A month? Does a habit become a habit retroactively from the time you started it and not much later on, when you finally realize that it's what you've been consistently doing for the recent, but not just immediate, past? These are the kinds of things you can think about when you ride down the National Mall and up the Rock Creek Trail. I guess the mind can wander when you're not overly consumed by needing to avoid cars and their drivers. Lots of runners though. And cyclists today too. More than yesterday and Friday, and I guess that makes sense since summer weekends in DC have a way of stretching out longer than streetcar estimated delivery schedules. (zing) 

Washington Harbour, as seen from next to the Kennedy Center, looks like what someone from the 80s thought 2014 would look like. I always think "what a fancy spaceport!" It is not a fancy spaceport. It's barely a fancy seaport. 

I didn't get off the trail by Calvert and crossed the Parkway and then rode past the zoo on a part of the trail I'm not sure I've ever taken. In one of the zoo parking lots, a Coca Cola delivery van was being unloaded. Don't the pandas know it's bad for their teeth? I can't tell you the last time I went to the National Zoo, but I can tell you that I saw a sign that indicated you can't bike through there. Personally, I think that's a huge missed opportunity because if it's anything the zoo needs more of, it's MAMILS. 

There's a street called Porter and it's one of the few that leaves the park up and to the west. The hill discourages. I made it to Connecticut Avenue and was granted a rest to catch my breath at a red light. Like many of the other state avenues, CT through and around Cleveland Park could be turned into a less hostile street. But cars. 

I followed Porter up the next batch of hills to Wisconsin and then over to work via Nebraska. There was one superbiker I saw and one guy in street clothes on a Surly LHT who was tall and thin and might have said "yee haw" and he passed me. 

Ride home was nothing jazzy. Lots of cyclists on L. A bunch more on 15th, including a little kid with a baseball bat in his backpack. Regarding bike-borne athletic equipment, yoga mats are nearly ubiquitous, then tennis rackets, and I've seen at least two guys biking with golf bags full of clubs, a woman yesterday with a badminton racket and two shuttlecocks, and now, one kid with a baseball bat. Never seen anyone with a hockey stick or a jai alai cesta. Not yet at least. 

A bit screwy down by the White House and along Pennsylvania Avenue on account of the African Leaders Summit. The attitude of the state and local security apparatus towards cyclists can be described as " not overtly hostile" when times are good, but whenever there's a pretense- and an gathering of 50 world leaders is a pretty good one- the situation mostly breaks down and what were bike lanes return once more to their natural role as auxiliary SUV parking lanes. It's not like there's anywhere else, other than 6 other lanes, they can park.