It appears that I didn't write up Friday's rides. I was like 83% sure that I had, but now I'm only about 37% sure, which is about 37% too much since I'm now quite sure that it's not there and it's not in draft. Whoops. I'm just going to skip it. Just like Beethoven skipped Symphony 2.5. He went right from 2 to 3, because in the 19th century they didn't even have decimals, probably. They just didn't have any need for them back then. It was a simpler time.
Over the weekend I bought a new cycling cap (thanks for the assist, Ryan!) and its merino and has snug earflaps. I quite like it. Always important to cover your ears. That way you don't hear random strangers mocking your dorky earflapped cycling cap. But, function over form! And form-wise, it's not even that blad. It's a solid, slimming black, which is great when you have copious hair girth.
Picked up a commute buddy at 4th street on the Mall and rode behind him until Rock Creek. We didn't really talk or anything, but I rode along behind him for a couple of miles, sometimes a few feet behind other times up to a dozen yards and then I lost him at a red light and then caught back up again. About him, I remember little. A green winter hat? An older bike with downtube shifters? It's best not to grow too strached. Commute buddies are like beta fish, except normally you don't flush them when their time comes up.
Normally I feel pretty springy on a Monday morning, but my legs just didn't seem to want to participate in this morning's ride. At least, not with any vim. They participated, but you could tell that they didn't really want to be there, which complicates a bike commute somewhat. Professional cyclists tell their legs to shit up. The best a bike commuter can do is implore his legs to stop pressing snooze.
"Hey, bud"
"Hey, Fingers. What's up?"
"Why didn't you put your gloves on before you left work?"
"Well, you see, I didn't think it was going to be that cold."
"Well, you see, we've been riding now for 10 minutes and you can see now that you're quite wrong."
"Sorry, Fingers."
"So, you can stop and put them on?"
"..."
"Come on!"
"Sorry"
The Trader Joes on 24th has about 8 u-racks in front and they're pretty good and accessible, though they fill up on more popular times but not tonight. Bike racks in underground parking garages are great (especially for store employees!), but the real bread-and-butter of grocery store (where you can buy both bread and butter) bike parking is when the racks are
1. Plentiful
2. Of proper quality and type.
3. As close to the entrance as possible.
You can compromise on any of these three, but if you get all three right, you can really build a loyal cadre of bicyclist shoppers, some of whom will make impulse dessert decisions and pick up a chocolate ganache Danish while waiting in line even though there might have already been cake at home.
Protestors at Connecticut and L. They marched up Connecticut into the intersection, then held a "die-in" blocking car traffic in both directions. Pedestrians and cyclists found their way through. There was some honking, but not nearly as much as I thought there'd be. A block down L, the bicyclist behind me asked me what the protest was about. I said, struggling for a graspable one-word answer to a surprisingly complicated simple question, "Ferguson" and while I'm not sure I was totally accurate, she seemed to get it, even though I was surprised she asked in the first place.
I don't know if I saw Michelle Bachman in an evening gown outside of the White House entrance by E Street, but I definitely saw people in evening gowns and I'm fairly certain I heard a guy in a tuxedo say "Michelle Bachman." But really, she wouldn't be invited to something at the White House, right?
Two NPS Park Rangers standing in the middle of the bike lane and one complained to the other that bicyclists who rode past them weren't singing their bells. Sounds about right.
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