Rides 7/11

So marks the official beginning of the new commute route. The roads themselves aren't new and I've known them for some time now in a bicycling context and though they haven't really been my preferred way to get to work, I've taken them plenty enough to know their strengths and weaknesses. I look forward to really knowing them- the way you really come to know your route through countless repetition. I'll write about them more later, but first I want to dwell a little on the roads I'll no longer ride. I moved north and west and in the direction of my office, which didn't move. As a result, I'll no longer ride past the Capitol or down Pennsylvania Avenue or in front of the White House. I'll no longer traverse the Mall or go up Rock Creek or up through Georgetown. My commute is about 5 miles shorter and it's a pretty Washington-y (you know, the place you see on tv and the place where you visited in middle school) section that I'm lopping off. It'll all still be there- I'll visit on weekends!- but I'll miss seeing it every day. You get used to the scenery- hell, you even get bored of it- but it's some damn good scenery and I'm glad that I got to spend 5 years of bike commutes riding through it.

Now I go to and from work up 18th Street through Adams Morgan, which is the morning is rather sedate and almost pleasant. Before 18th, I ride Swann Street, which might be the nicest street in DC. Stately. Dignified. All that crap. After 18th, I ride over the Ellington Bridge on Calvert and there past Connecticut (hey, this is my new least favorite intersection) and then it's more climbing up Cleveland, Garfield and Mass. Then it's work. Door to door took 20 minutes- I was in no special rush or even an unspecial rush. The Ogre felt heavy. I didn't sweat, or at least not very much. My legs felt all right, but they miss the flat warmup that the now missing 5 miles used to provide. It's pretty much all uphill to the office and I don't mind it.

I took the same way home. I stopped in Bicycle Space to buy a pink water bottle cage for the pink bike (they didn't have it) and I managed to avoid buying anything else. I managed to lock my bike to nothing (whoops. don't do this) and was happy to find it still there when I came back out. Then it was down 18th and then across T and then I was pretty much home. The downhill parts were rather nice and I could see myself coming to enjoy this new kind of bike commuting.

And yet, it's still a different thing and I still feel like I miss most of the city and the things and people and sites and buildings and nonsense that might have helped make whatever this blog was whatever this blog was. I'm just going to need the universe to cram in more nonsense along the new route. I have confidence in it.