7/29/11

Ride Home 7/29

I don't know. Yes, it's feasible and yeah, it's convenient, but I'm not totally sure it was wise to ride home today. It was dangerously hot and I'm a little upset at myself for not stepping back and at least considering an alternative way to get home or maybe a way to split up the trip with multiple modes. I made it home ok and I took it easy enough, but I think in the future I'm going to try to be a bit more introspective about biking in the extreme heat. Seriously, I've got nothing to prove and, as a rule of thumb, it's probably better to not be dumb than to be dumb.
Riding down New Mexico was like riding into a hair dryer. A hair dryer inside of a sauna inside of a volcano. There was nothing enjoyable about it.
It was the kind of hot that keeps people inside. It was quiet, the way that the extreme cold makes things quiet. The silence was noticeable. I guess there's a bell curve of urban noise and extreme temperatures sit at each end. People weren't even out with their dogs. A few people walking, only a handful of cars, all windows up, drivers cocooned in their climate-controlled moving armchairs. No one was even blasting music. Too hot for that, I guess.
The past few days were blonder and white tank top-ier than usual. Not so much today, but I feel remiss in not mentioning it previously.
This isn't related to anything and not topical in any specific way, but I've been thinking about this lately. So, bike lanes are supposed to be this sign of white gentrification. Why then do (many of) the rich (mostly) white people of (parts of) Washington oppose them? NIMBYism is colorblind, I guess. Do bike lanes mean something else? Young people of the "creative class"? Because if it's that's the case, I'd really like to dissociate bike lanes from that subset of the population.
Heard some dudes on the Key Bridge talking about "heading down to Atlanta and fucking some shit up." Don't say you weren't warned, Atlanta. I'm always amazed what people will talk about in public. I can only assume that they're Civil War re-enactors excited about the March to the Sea sesquicentennial. A few years more fellows.
Hope you didn't have any tapes out from the Hollywood Video on Wilson. It's razed now. I think the redevelopment will be quite beneficial. Any reduction in dead space on the R-B corridor is welcome in my book.
Rode behind a thin guy on some sort of Salsa with exciting mudflaps. Here's a picture:
Per usual, not clear. 
The flaps had 3 stars on them. I don't know if that means anything, but I liked his set up. It seemed very randonee or maybe just very Portland.
It stayed hot for the rest of the way home. I think I'm ready for fall. Too bad about August and September. 

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