I took Bikeshare. I also took umbrage, for reasons I can't really understand. Maybe I'm paranoid or maybe they (they being "they") are really out to get me. Were I to change the name of this blog or maybe sell it to Washington City Paper (make me an offer!) I'd rename it Persecution Complex. This is how ingrained car culture is- that even doing the same I do every day, a perfectly reasonable and safe and healthy and fun and acceptable thing, I still feel like I'm some weirdo whose "lifestyle choice" does nothing but impose burdens on others and then I internalize that and just assume that most every driver and pedestrian and other bicyclist is upset at me or something. It's weird and essentially untrue.
I switched to the sidewalk on Massachusetts after Wisconsin and I spent a lot of time ducking to avoid tree limbs.
I turned right on 20th street and decided that I would ride through downtown, turning right at New Hampshire and then left on 19th and then left again at Pennsylvania. There were far fewer than "peak" cars on the road and yet some drivers still couldn't manage to make it through their trips without being antagonized and honking at other drivers. Maybe they should guest post for Persecution Complex. I'm convinced that there could be two cars on the road and the drivers would still find reason to honk at each other. Before turning on Pennsylvania, I stopped at docked and undocked at 19th and L, maybe. The L Street cycle track is still a chimera. In the sense of vain fancy and not the sense of fire-breathing monster. Bike infrastructure in DC isn't great, but at least it doesn't spit flames. That's not NACTO approved.
Pennsylvania and then across the White House plaza. I'm thinking that I can save everyone some effort and instead of me having to ride through the background of their pictures, I can just make a cardboard cutout and lean it up against the fence or something.
15th to Pennsylvania and down Pennsylvania and across Independence and behind the House office buildings. There's a highway exit over there and a lot of surface parking lots, so I've taken to calling this area "Real America." I rode up D Street through a nice neighborhood of row houses and I docked at 3rd, the first time I've ever docked at this station. I should keep a list of all the Bikeshare stations I've used and all the ones I haven't and then maybe give myself a prize if I use all of them because no one else is going to give me a prize and frankly, I'm not totally sure this is even prizeworthy.
After dinner, my wife and I biked home, her on her bike (a Linus) and me on Bikeshare and we took North Carolina up to Lincoln Park and then rode around and she rode home and I rode to the Bikeshare station a couple blocks away. Post-prandial bike rides are the best.
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