Beautiful Morning

This morning was beautiful. The break in the heat and humidity ever so welcome. I've said it before and continue the practice...my commute is not a race, it is not a training ride, it's just a ride. I respect the 17 stop signs through Alexandria. I am patient with slower riders, walkers or runners, waiting until it makes sense to pass. I take pause, exercise caution, in areas where I know other riders have a tendency to be a bit irresponsible.

Today had some very good examples. When I ride in, I cross the Woodrow Wilson Bridge (the I-95 crossing of the Potomac River). To connect to Royal Street to cross Alexandria, I go down alongside the bridge and under it. I don't bomb that descent for two reasons. One is the very tight left hander at the bottom into a path with jersey wall separating directions of travel and chainlink fence on the other side. Not enough room to take it with a lot of speed The other is that I regularly watch others come out from there too fast, swinging their right hander wide as if there was absolutely no way a rider could be coming the other way. Sure enough this morning, one such rider came blasting out of the right hander. I watched it from halfway down the descent.

As I cleared the narrow trail - construction is on going and the slapdash pavement they threw down is lumpier than packed dirt/gravel was - two commuters who can only be described as Freds rolled past me. They aren't aggressively blowing through the stop signs, they aren't riding fast enough for that, but they aren't slowing at all either. I am amused, as their pace doesn't distance them from me much while I respect the stop signs - no I don't full stop, but I do slow significantly. I look ahead and shake my head. He's wearing brown corduroys (or so they appeared to be) without having rolled up the right leg. No it's not getting caught in the drive train, but it's getting very greasy. Doh! She's got her capris on, her helmet at something of a jaunty angle.

Beyond them, I see that they're working on the road, narrowing it to one lane, with a solo flagger working the traffic control. The Freds are a few bike lengths beyond the intersection, waiting for the flagger. I chuckle as I clear the stop sign and move into the service road proceeding unhindered by the construction and the flagger. Strange, they never caught back up to me.

At the far end of Alexandria, I opt to stay on the road rather than ride a small section of trail that is narrow, the foliage isn't cut back and it has a fair number of root heaves. I stop at the red light where I'll make my right turn to hook up with the Mt Vernon Trail a block down and parallel the GW Parkway along the river for a while. It's a no turn on red intersection because you can't see what's coming - angle of the bend in the road and landscaping give you no sightlines at all. No problem. I grab my bottle. A Porsche Carrera pulls up next to me, windows down, sun roof open. "Swap you for a day," I offer. The driver chuckles. "I don't doubt you could handle this car, but I don't think I could handle your bike." We chat about the weather, how many miles my commute is, that sort of thing. Both of us are simply enjoying the fabulous morning. While we're chatting, one cyclist, then another, opt to go around us, ignore the no turn on red sign and ride away. Well, they sure showed me! After all, I was having a great time, enjoying my ride and the day and a chat with a random stranger...surely they're decision to ignore the red light, no turn on red and the risks to themselves and others was the right way to go. After all, the second one made it all the way to the next red light before I caught up to him.

Apparently

I'm an anomaly as a bike commuter. I see it in the looks I get from motorists, cyclists, runners, joggers and walkers. They simply don't know what to do when they encounter me and my patience.

Unlike too many of my fellow bike commuters, I actually wait for a reasonable place to pass slower traffic. This morning I rolled at a nominal 12mph for a quarter mile behind a woman on a townie who was clearly doing the best she could until we cleared a particularly windy part of the trail then passed her when I had good sight lines for oncoming traffic. I could tell she was nervous, probably a combination of fearing that I would pass her at an inopportune moment and just that I was behind her.

Runners and walkers often respond to my "on your left" with "thank you." Is that announcement really so uncommon?

Perhaps more amazingly, I respect the 17 stop signs on my route through Alexandria. Yes, many of them are Idaho stops, but some are track stands. Most motorists look at me with confusion when I urge them to take their turn at the 4-way-stop, their expressions seeming to say "what? you're not going to damn near give me a heart attack by blowing through the stop sign assuming that I'll yield to you? Inconceivable."

I don't care when other commuters blow past me, just shake my head at them when I see them blow a stop sign then swerve to avoid getting hit by the car that has the right of way proceeding through the intersection. No doubt they think I'm a wuss for exercising care around cars. That's ok, I know they're morons. ;-)

I know that when I'm exercising patience waiting for a reasonable place to pass on the all too narrow MVT, and they're behind me and I'm slowing them down, they think unkind thoughts about me. That's ok too, as the feeling is mutual.

We simply don't understand each other. Many seem to be out to set a new personal best on their commute and display many of the same aggressive behaviors that auto drivers do. This annoys me because I'm cycling to work to get away from that behavior pattern. So I just don't get why others ride like that.

I'm sure they are equally stumped and unable to understand why I'm simply enjoying my commute. Then again, I don't know that they identify me as a commuter as I don't look like one - I ride a race bike, wear team kit and carry nothing beyond the stuff in my jersey pockets...no backpack, certainly no panniers (I don't own a bike with eyelets to support such things), so maybe they're really thinking, "stupid racer type doing warm up or cool down on my commute route...go somewhere else, get the f out of my way." Oh wait, there's that auto driver behavior again...

I'm happy to stay an anomaly, thank you very much. Perhaps there are some others out there like me, but I haven't noticed them as yet.

Flashback

This blog has been sitting idle for about a year....it's simply been a matter of time more than anything else. Too much to do and not enough time, so the blog gets left behind. But riding to work yesterday made me think about it as I had a flashback....

So there I am cruising along the Potomac on the Mount Vernon Trail, North of the airport and closing in on the ramp to the 14th Street Bridge, passing various riders, runners, joggers and walkers and just enjoying the morning. A rider headed the other way sports "Bikes USA" jersey and my brain takes a big leap backward in time.

The late 90s. I'd just started graduate school to get my MBA, adding to my load of working two jobs. After a few months, I realized I needed something to break things up and my thoughts went back to one of the greatest joys of my youth - riding a bike.

One weekend I drove over to Bikes USA and looked around. I wasn't sure how serious I was about returning to riding, so I didn't want to spend a lot. I decided on a Gary Fischer Hybrid that they were touting as a "sport utility bike." The cost was, well, let's just say I probably spent more on text books for some of those grad school classes. By the time I added in the necessary accessories - helmet, pump etc, it probably exceeded a textbook bill, but not by a lot.

Out I went, onto the neighborhood trail. It isn't long 6 miles maybe, with one hill (ok, I thought it was a hill at the time). After that got a bit dull, I went across the river to the Mount Vernon Trail. Every time I went out, I admired the riders on the road bikes. I envied their smooth, seemingly effortless pedal strokes and vowed that one day I would be like that too. I knew by then that cycling would stay in my life, the passion of my youth rekindled.

My brother gave me toe clips for Christmas that year. And shortly there after I learned exactly how fast I could come out of them to save myself from a fall when I hit a patch of ice over by the powerplant. I wasn't put off by the near disaster. Instead, I started thinking about SPDs. I got those a couple months later and only fell once on the first ride due to having trouble unclipping.

I rode a supported metric century and started thinking about a road bike. 9 months after getting the hybrid, I spent time visiting half a dozen bike shops, test riding until I found the bike that spoke to me. Part of me argued it was idiotic - I was spending the cost of a class on a bicycle! But the rest of me knew it was money well spent, at least as well spent as my education. I own several road bikes these days.

I realized on that commute yesterday morning, as I cruised along the river (now on my way to the office) that I was doing it with that smooth, effortless beauty I had envied back at the beginning.