Ride In 11/12: Illegal Beagle

Maybe you're not working today and maybe I am. Maybe that means that I got to bike to work whereas you got to sleep late and now you're reading this in your pajamas on the couch whereas I'm writing it in my pajamas at my desk. Maybe that means you missed a great morning for bicycle riding or maybe it means that you're out on a really long fun bicycle ride right now (right now as I write, not right now as you read because that would be unsafe, regardless of how empty the roads might be or how good you are at balance and/or literacy). No matter what may be (maybe), it's another episode of the ongoing drama that is the continuing saga of the never-ending story of the diurnally repeating report of the quotidian that is this blog.

I tried to turn this picture into a joke about an obscure comic book character, but the pieces didn't fall into place, so I gave up. I thought the sign said "Left Turn Green Arrow Only," but the "on" in place of "turn" robbed the punchline about superheroes getting special treatment in traffic of much of its groan inducing zing.

Green Arrow

Nevertheless, if  stop lights are ever replaced by either lanterns or hornets, I'm going to successfully make this joke, goddammit, and who will be laughing then? Nobody? Oh.

I decided to ride Massachusetts around Stanton Park and then past Union Station through the new bike lanes in Columbus Circle. Or I would've ridden through the new bike lanes, had parts of them not be covered in shattered glass. The Columbus Circle renovation project is still in progress and I'm not totally sure how the bike lanes are going to connect to Massachusetts Avenue at the intersection with the part of Columbus Circle Drive that extends to the parking garages and F Street. It is my fervent hope that 1) this happens (that the bike lanes are extended to reach Mass Avenue) and that 2) this isn't done in a dumb way.

My primary impetus for riding this way is to seek out my alternative route for when the Pennsylvania Avenue bike lanes are taken out of commission. I'm very partial to First Street NE as a bicycle route because it is a fairly direct north-south route wholly uncrowded of other bicyclists. Even without the planned cycle track, the project about which I think I'm the most excited of all of DC's bike projects, it's pretty great. The bike lane itself stops at M Street, but from M to the New York Avenue/Florida Avenue/Random Wendy's intersection of doom, there's ample room for bikes and very little car traffic. Here's my strategy for navigating Dave Thomas Circle: cross New York Avenue in the crosswalk and then cross First NE at whichever crosswalk has the WALK signal. Don't bother trying to ride on the road since your destination, if you're me, is Eckington Place, which has a bike lane and connects to R Street NE, which has sharrows, can't be accessed from New York Avenue since left turns are there prohibited and also you wouldn't want to make a left turn across all that traffic anyway. You can choose to ride across the Wendy's parking lot if you want and you can also choose to buy a Frosty if the Wendy's is open. Either move is completely apposite. In any case, while this route isn't any shorter for me, I think it's faster.

So many speed bumps on R Street. It's a shame that people can't but speed without them. I think that they're quite ugly. They also make my fenders clang when I ride over them. That might speak more to my fender installation than anything else.

I rode in the back of a pack of six bicyclists on R from about 14th to Dupont Circle. One of the guys had on a grey winter coat, unbuttoned, and the tails of the coat blew wide in the wind. It looked like a superhero's cape. I don't know if he's given any special treatment vis-a-vis traffic laws, but he took the same liberties as pretty much everyone else does with regard to them.

I've been in many packs of bicyclists on R Street and they almost all dissipate before reaching Massachusetts Avenue. A few of the riders headed down New Hampshire and then another veered before Connecticut, the penultimate turned at Florida and then the last turned away at Sheriden Circle. Don't bike commute if you have abandonment issues! Unlike car commuting, in which you're likely to be surrounded by your compatriots in degrees that you might even find stultifying, when you're on your bike, you watch packs form and disband and fellow riders come and go. It kind of evokes the arc of friendship itself- people come into your life at times and you share a bond and a route for a while and then they go one way and you go another and maybe you pick up someone else along the road and it's for just a block but it's a good block and you remember it fondly and perhaps there's another time when you follow someone for miles and you're traveling at the same pace and going to the same place and when you pay attention you notice that you're pedaling is synchronized and it's just a fortuitous and temporary accident.

I rode to the top of the hill. Not so bad today. It was a beautiful morning.

Ride Home 11/9: Sardines and Saltines

I left work when it was fully dark, which I prefer to leaving during the transition from lightness to darkness. I think the call this dusk and when it's windy, it's dusk in the wind. This is not to be confused ducks in the wind, thought ducks in the wind over Kansas are liable to run into the blades of windmills. Or maybe that's the Dutch in the wind. If a Dutchman got stuck in the windmill, he'd be likely to clog the works. The Dutch suffered tulip mania and there are two lips on a duck's bill, whether or not that duck is in the wind or near a windmill, no matter how he wound up there. And no matter how we ended up here, whether you're Dutch or duck, in Kansas or in the wind, please use lights on your bike at night.

No problems on Massachusetts and only a little slow on 23rd, but the real show only starts on L Street when the curtain is raised to reveal within the proscenium plastic bollards and sometimes trucks parked between them and the curb. This was my first ride with the new bollards at the beginning of each block of the cycle track. I think that two bollards at each block might be too many, but it's easy enough to ride through if you're paying a little attention and have some degree of balance and/or depth perception. I suspect that they are meant to be temporary- to help drivers through the learning phase (don't drive here, it's a bike lane) and they'll remove once drivers learn not to do that. So they'll be gone in 5 years.

Here's this from the back:

And from the front:

This is by the CVS. When I got there, there were already police present and they were talking to some people and one of the officer's had his notepad out. I stopped and watched what was happening, though my in medias res arrival didn't help my overall clarity of the situation. I asked one of the officers, in my most gee willikers voice, "Are you going to give him a ticket?" and he responded "Sir, we are taking care of the matter." So, maybe? I didn't stick around to find out. In any case, I'm sure that it was the CONFUSION that caused the truck driver to pull into the bike lane, not the WILLFULL IGNORANCE of the fact that the lane is a bike lane now. Here are some thoughts about CONFUSION: if sometimes situations change and you are unable to handle them because of CONFUSION, then perchance you shouldn't be in charge of controlling a two ton machine that can go a mile a minute. And here's something about bike lanes: DC paid money for them. Sure, not a lot compared to other projects, but still, that's some taxpayer funds that went into the project.  Make the bike lanes work- keep people from driving and parking in them- or you're ripping us off.

John Wayne Bollard. 

11th and Penn and up the hill and down East Capitol, where I ran into friend of the blog Kyle, on his way back home astride his Brompton. We stopped and talked for a while and he pointed out how this isn't the kind of thing that happens when you commute by car. Sure, you might see someone and wave or honk, but you probably won't stop in the middle of the road and carry on a 10 minute conversation. Or least, hopefully you won't. That'd probably piss off other drivers. 

I didn't take any notes last night to remind myself of any other things to write about, so I'm going declare this post completed and if I remember anything else that happened, I'll just pretend that it will happen in a subsequent ride that I've yet to blog. Also, for the sake of clarity, many events have been omitted and most recurring characters in this blog are composites. Just kidding. Have a great weekend. 

Ride Home 11/8 & Ride In 11/9: Garden Gnomes

The first large intersection I encounter after leaving work is that of Massachusetts Avenue and Wisconsin Avenue, where approximately 12 lanes of traffic meet (3 each way on each street). At these intersections, there is a limited number of movements, so to speak, a driver can make. Left turns are restricted, so drivers can either go straight or turn right. Furthermore, there are some right-turn only lanes, meaning that those drivers movements are even that much be restricted and predictable. It all sounds pretty straightforward and it all works pretty well. That is, until the traffic light goes out. If you cross pandemonium with chaos, slap on the suffix -pocalyspe and then set the whole thing on fire, then you begin to approach what it seemed like last night when I arrived there by bike. In situations like this, the traffic LAWS (the ones you must OBEY)- or maybe just traffic NORMS- indicate that the intersection should be treated like a four way stop, wherein motorists take turns based on order of arrival. Since there's no left turns involved, this should really just be two sequences- traffic from Mass goes, traffic from Wisconsin goes and repeat. In practice, however, this just doesn't happen, making the situation stressful, angsty and more than a shade dangerous for, let's say, me on my bike. When the car traffic control system breaks down, the first thing I do is try to extricate myself from it. I left the roadway and got on the sidewalk. Then, I beelined straight for the crosswalk. Then  at the first gap between cars on Wisconsin, I pulled right out into the middle of the street, waited for eye contact from the driver heading northbound on Wisconsin, pulled in front of him, waited for the next guy to see me and then the next guy and then I was off, down the hill on Mass, free from the intersection of doom and making my merry way. Basically, my advice (unsolicited) in situations like this, where the world of cars begins to resemble the world of Mad Max, is to be pretty bold and not let yourself get stranded. When traffic is moving that slowly, it's not really that risky or at least not in this one situation. This one traffic light caused a traffic jam on Massachusetts that, eastbound, lasted until Sheriden Circle. The world of cars breaks down so easily.

There was more traffic on 23rd street and I found it more convenient to ride on the sidewalk, at least for a little while. When I rode up behind some people, I decided to instead riding up a slight hill and on the grass for 30 feet. I have mad cyclocross skillz. FUN FACT: I have no cyclocross skillz. I can just manage to ride on grass without falling over.

I can't quite figure out what video game the L Street cycle track most resembles. It's kind of like PACMAN, except in PACMAN, you're normally under duress and then you eat a big pellet and then you become the agressor, whereas riding on L Street, you're normally just chilling and riding along fine and then you get to an intersection or mixing zone or come upon a mail truck and that's when things get crazy. Basically, for the most part, it's totally fine- like 85% of the time. But the other 15% is wild cards. Is 85% good enough? I don't know.

Apparently, to #stoputurnsonPenn, we need to first #clarifythelawvisavisthelegalityofuturnsonpenn. Please help.

Sometimes I think about what it will be like on 11th street when City Center DC opens. Will there be more cars? Will there be more people on foot? Bicyclists? Pogo-ists? Will 10th street reopen and will it have a bike lane, as it does south of H? Is there any reason to ask these questions rhetorically when 2 minutes of googling will give me most of the answers? If there's a good southbound bike lane on 10th, I'd never ride 11th again. It's kind of a clusterfuck.

There's a difference between city dark and country dark and I much prefer city dark.

This morning was another morning when I wasn't feeling so hot, but that didn't deter me from a hot coffee and some good old fashioned milling around a table with the #firdaycoffeeclub regulars. The ride there was fairly uneventful, though that might just be the residual effects of the Nyquil talking.

Afterwards, I took G to 20th. On 20th, I stopped at the light at L:

Whoops

DDOT has since installed bollards at the start of each block. Let's see if that does anything to curtail this kind of stuff. You know, or DC could just start ticketing. UNLESS THAT'S NOT ILLEGAL EITHER?!?!?!?!? What else isn't illegal in bike lanes? Marijuna? Cockfighting? Maybe just medicinal cockfighting? Who knows? It's all up to some guy at the DMV, which I'll remind you is an acronym for the Department of Motor Vehicles.

20th to Massachusetts and then some miles that seemed longer than regular miles (maybe I should measure these miles in kilometers for a greater sense of accomplishment) and I pedaled in a low gear and my legs felt fine, though the head and chest weren't too pleased about the whole idea. Bike commuting, generally speaking, is salubrious, but doing it while sort of sick probably isn't. Oh well. One more ride to go.

Taking the night off

I rode home. It was quite pleasant. I'll tell you about it tomorrow, but tonight I'm going to rest and recharge. Wouldn't want to put out an inferior product. Or inferior-er (Lake Inferior-er was the original name of Lake Huron). Same bike time, same bike channel.

Ride Home 11/7 & Ride In 11/8

Sorry for the double post, which will also be condensed, like a can of soup.

There are many intellectual reasons to enjoy bike commuting- it can save you time and money, it's good for your body and maybe Mother Earth- but it's the visceral feeling of it that keeps me coming back, especially in the cold weather. The kiss of the cold wind on my cheeks, the slight constriction of my lungs and chest (Elizabeth, I'm coming to join you...by bike!), the cold tear welling up at the corner of my eye and tingling toes clenching and releases the wool socks.

I saw a pizza delivery guy at the gates of the Naval Observatory, which is where Joe Biden lives. I'd really like to assume that "Uncle" Joe ordered some Papa Johns, but I doubt that he was home.

There's a reason why I sometimes jump red lights, especially if there's a long queue of cars behind me and that reason is because I don't want to get run over. Cars can accelerate must faster than I can and rather than risk the negative consequences of someone's impatience (and/or create a situation that I could just avoid through gentle and safe lawbreaking), if the road is clear, I'll start early. This allows me to get moving while worrying less about both slowing someone down or being passed too closely by someone trying to accelerate around me. I'm not saying that it's the morally right thing to do, but that's at least my justification: it seems safer than waiting.

L Street happenings:

• A driver cut me off by using the mixing zone as a place to pull over to pick up his wife or girlfriend, who was waiting on the sidewalk. He said "Oh SHIT" when he saw that he had done so. Luckily, I saw him well in advance and was quite prepared for it and wasn't hassled that much, but I appreciated his cursing because it shows me that he cares. 
• It's not cool when someone drives in the bike lane for a block and a half. 
• Still no bike boxes painted. I noticed their absence for the first time. Also, the bicycles painted in the lane stop maybe around 15th street. I assume more painting will be done in the coming weeks. We're still not looking at a finished product, so it's still a little to early to assess.
• Many drivers are still make left turn mistakes. This is a problem that, with time, will resolve itself to about 94% compliance (I'm the Nate Silver of guys who guess shit about bike lane compliance issues...?) but there's always going to be somebody who misses the mixing zone and decides to make the left turn anyway.
• Mail trucks in the bike lane every day. I snarked about it and I'm sure DDOT is working on the problem, but it's still annoying. 

Took L to 11th and then to Pennsylvania Avenue, where, although I wasn't confronted with any u-turning drivers, was confronted with the question: has anyone actually seen any enforcement of #stoputurnsonpenn? I've never seen a cop pull anyone over. Have you? Are there some statistics on this? Will we get a press release at some point saying 'MPD nabs 50 drivers for illegal u-turns"? Or did nothing actually happen? Maybe that's not the case and there has been enforcement, but I certainly never saw any. Did you?

This morning's ride was one in which I was in the fog of a head cold, which makes all of the visceral enjoyment of winter bike commuting into its exact opposite. I wasn't a happy camper. Biking with a cold is ok for a little while, but after about a half hour, I just wasn't into it any more. Unfortunately, my commute is longer than a half hour. 

I rode East Capitol to Pennsylvania to 15th and all of these streets were quiet and I listened to the quiet and I enjoyed the quiet. Quiet sounds better at night when it's dark, but it sounds pretty good early in the morning as well. 

I wish there was a bike commuter equivalent of hazard lights that I could flash, indicating that I was going to go slow and you should pass me. It would have been really useful this morning. At R and 16th, I pulled out of the bike lane and waited to the right of it at the red light, allowing two commuters on road bikes to get in front of me when the light turned green. They "raced" a little and that provided me some small bit of enjoyment. Every time I see a commuter bike race, I like to impute a large story line on it and pretend it's a high speed chase, like in the French Connection.