Rides 12/8: this again

Graphomania must have been a harder disease in old testament times because who wants to spend that much time chiseling stone tablets and if in old testament times there were bike bloggers (and there weren't since the flood rusted all the chains of the once replete fleet of Eden's bikeshare system [which only had 1 bike and even then with only two people was gender imbalanced]) then those bike bloggers, after they biked about through old testament-y places, would've been considerably slowed in their efforts to record the commutes due to the overall unwieldiness of chisels, to say nothing of the difficulty of sharing the words with others because how many people would even be able to see your stone tablets anyway? So, it's much better now for graphomaniacs and bike bloggers and presumably those that enjoy reading the words of bike bloggers, as pointless as they may be. Hiatus over.

I didn't bike to work this morning. At least not the whole way. I took The Bikeshare (gonna start calling it The Bikeshare from now on, like The Ohio State University #cbuscool #lifeincbus) from Lincoln Park to Union Station, which at one point was and maybe still is the most popular The Bikeshare route. I only took that route because the two closer stations were empty and I didn't want to walk east to get a bike to go west even though the station by RFK might have been closer, but I shuffled the few extra blocks to the park and picked up a The Bikeshare bike to ride up Massachusetts and around Stanton Park and down Massachusetts to the the The Bikeshare dock on the side of the train station. Last night I was at the train station attending a meeting about the train station renovation (because this is how I spend my free time) and when I got out and went to the The Bikeshare station, I was foiled by the long slow blink orange blink when the The Bikeshare docks judges your worthiness, Willy Wonka-style, as assesses whether you deserve to undock a The Bikeshare bike. And when that light went from blinking orange to angry red, I felt like Veruca Salt, but not like the awesome rock band of the same name, though I was hardly the seether, since these things happen. And I wasn't the only one that these things happened to at the The Bikeshare station and a woman also got a blinky orange-angry red message on the next bike up the line and so we both worked our way down the station to the next few bikes and I tried again and another red and then she tried a different one and it didn't work for her either and we commiserated over out situation as we worked out way down to the last three available bikes before one worked for me and I left and wished her good luck and I think it all turned out ok for her because when I looked over my shoulder a bike was gone and so was she but MAYBE she was a ghost and this is soooo spooky. Or maybe she just rode up the other way once the The Bikeshare bike finally chose to smile upon her and deem her worthy.

This morning there was no such trouble as the The Bikeshare bike chose me without incident and I docked without incident and was able to wrest another The Bikeshare bike on the other side of my metro trip, which I rode uneventfully to my final destination.

At the end of the day, it was another The Bikeshare ride down Massachusetts Avenue to Garfield and over into AdMo. Drivers sure don't seem to mind idling in bike lanes. Or if they mind it, they are quite good at suppressing their botherment. I'm not sure I've ever idled in a bike lane and I can't say that I see much allure in it. I have some peculiarities related that manifest themselves in curious ways, like finding it difficult to wear a watch while sitting down (it's a balance thing) and I think I would find it difficult to keep a car astride white lines that are too narrow to border it. It would seem very 'off.' Also, I wouldn't idle in a bike lane BECAUSE I'M NOT A HUGE FUCKING ASSHOLE. I mean, but the other thing too.

 I went into BicycleSpace and perused a bit and bought some spare tubes and then I was on my way to Columbia Heights, again taking The Bikeshare from the The Bikeshare Station to a different The Bikeshare station, which I unwittingly rode past before turning around and walking back. There is no assigned outfit for a The Bikeshare rider and the choices of attire vary from the 'what I wear for work' to a modified 'mostly what I wear for work, except maybe a reflective jacket or sneakers' to a separate bicycling ensemble, which seems to fly in the face of the whole espirit-de-The Bikeshare, but people should wear whatever clothes they want when they bicycle, whether using their own bikes or The Bikeshare. I feel that having a commuting uniform- which I do have and normally don, though not today and not normally when riding The Bikeshare- is not only totally acceptable, but kind of fun, irrespective of distance. fun fact: in the original comics, Bruce Wayne just wanted to wear a weird ass commuting outfit when driving to work in his tricked out car and then he got pulled over and was like 'uh, yeah, um, I, uh, fight crime? I'm not just some weird guy who wears a cape to drive to work.' Sartorial guilt doesn't make for the most epic superhero origin story, so they changed it to the whole 'parents getting murdered' thing, which I find to be much more bleak honestly.

Car2Go is great except when the driver of the Car2Go is having too much fun taking a selfie and too little not fun paying attention to the me that she passed too close. Nice duckface though. I also had duckface, but it was more of a duck-and-cover face. I was on The Bikeshare too, so I guess there's no mutually agreed upon covenant on sharers looking out for eachother. Idea: the Geneva Convention, but for Millennials.

14th Street and again with the bike lane idling and Thomas Circle and through McPherson Square (is biking allowed? I don't know) to 15th and then 15th and Pennsylvania and the usual way home. It was a good night for a good night ride. Good night.