Rides 10/29: A Low Dishonest Decade

I spend a lot of time on my bike commute. It's not just the 45 minutes each way, but then it's the writing about it and all of the hours I spend trying to avoid writing about it and then coming up with lies that I plan to tell about it and then convincing myself just to tell an embellished version of the truth instead and then erasing that and then just deciding to go with the boring truth, but it's a lot of time nonetheless. I don't regret it. But what I've learned from writing about my commute, even more than just riding it, is that sometimes it gets boring. Only so many different things happen each day at around the same time on around the same route and even in a vibrant and ridiculous city like the District of Columbia, even someone deeply committed to the idea that there is something interesting in the repetitive and banal can find himself facing a lack of inspiration. So, you gotta spice things up. And I wrote some suggestions on Urbanful about enlivening your daily ride.

Got talked to this morning. He was a pleasant enough man and he wasn't a native English speaker ('how do you say it? stroller? that you push the baby?') and he had questions about my bike coffee cup holder, namely where to get it and how much it cost. People who love coffee and bicycle to work and who don't have a bike coffee cup holder tend to have these exact questions. We rode along together and I thought I was pleasant enough about it but I eventually ran out of things to say and he didn't have any more questions and I lacked the social grace to move the conversation in another direction and then we rode along for maybe another 3 minutes in total silence and I'm not sure we made eye contact and maybe it was awkward. Maybe it wasn't? It was. But here's my bike coffee cup holder if you'd like to bike coffee cup holder twins. 

Rock Creek Parkway to K Street to Wisconsin and up the hill, just like everyday. I played everyone's favorite game 'don't get hit by that bus!' and everyone's second favorite game 'don't get hit by that SUV!' and realized that everyone has terrible taste in games. 

There are lines every morning outside the Apple Store in Georgetown. Just like the bread lines in the Great Depression except not like that at all. iQueue for the Genius Bar. 

Gloomy on the ride home and I shared New Mexico Avenue with another bike commuter and this is rare. I wore shorts and short sleeves and he was wearing tights, a winter coat and gloves. One or both of us was completely misdressed. 

37th, Tunlaw, R to 34th and through residential West Georgetown which is 17% less charming than residential East Georgetown. The street I took does have a bike lane, though narrow, but unmistakeable. I don't fully understand what compels people to drive their cars in this bike lane as its very avoidable, but people do and I huff a little as I slow to squeeze between their cars and the ones parked. If I was more sensitive to indignity (and I highly encourage anyone who commutes by bike to avoid being so), I'd feel insulted. 

Followed some foreigners (were they Scandinavian?) on Bikeshare bikes on M Street and they handled the somewhat tough and trafficky road quite well, mostly by going slowly and taking the lane and generally not giving a shit that they were SLOWING DOWN SOME TAXIS, which, to the best of my recollection, remains not a felony. Generally speaking, you ride slow enough and ride blissfully unaware enough, and most drivers are just gonna give up waiting for you to get out of the way and move into another lane. There's a middle speed, not fast enough to stay apace with traffic and not so slow that drivers will give up and change lanes, that can get you in trouble. 

L Street to 15th to Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. Up the hill. Home soon after. 

Have you read this week's Gear Prudence yet? Because that's also not a felony. Not yet at least. Anyway, if you do go on Halloween as a 'sexy bike advice columnist,' 1) yikes! and 2) let me know. I haven't the slightest idea what that costume would look like. You also deserve some kind of prize and maybe some kind of therapy, vouchers to which might be your prize!