No Rides 8/23 and Rides 8/24

Didn't ride a bike yesterday. Took the bus. Oh, and I rode a bike from the bus stop. But that doesn't really count. For some reason. 96 in and the N2 home, if you're the kind of person who wants to know what bus routes I ride. Oh, and come to think of it, I rode a bike when I got off the bus to get from one bikeshare station to a different one that's a few blocks closer to my place. But yeah, I've already written "No Rides" in the title, so as far as your concerned, and as far as I'm concerned, yeah, no rides. Even though there were rides. But they were short.

Took the Brompton today. Both ways. Didn't even bring it on a bus. Also, I wrote "Rides 8/24" so again, using the title rule, the one that I just made up, even if I took the bike on the bus, it'd still count as rides. But really, I did ride the bike and both ways and uphill and downhill and the whole way in and the whole way home.

One thing I think about on these rides is the extent to which some people who bike internalize the idea that they're slowing down drivers and how this is bad. One, who cares? Everybody who travels slows down everyone else. That's why you get home faster at 2AM when no one else is on the road and it's slow on the Beltway at 6 not because the road has changed, but because there's just a lot of people on it. And really, if you thought about it, and I do, I'm fairly confident that I'm as slowed down on my bike by drivers than I slow them. But again, this isn't really the point that I'm trying to make. I think the point I'm trying to make is that even if you, person on a bike, was slowing down a driver and you slowed that person down for 5 whole seconds, that's, um, 1/6th as long as the time they'd be stopped at a 30 second red light. If you stopped right in the middle of the street and paused for 10 seconds, which, I assure you, would feel like an eternity and make everyone feel really uncomfortable... that's still 20 fewer seconds than a 30 second red light. So, really, I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that in objective terms, even if you wanted to cop to the fact that you, a bicyclist, slow down drivers, you're rather terrible at it compared to any old red light.