Weekend Proper

It’s wonderful to have my evenings and weekends back. Nice to have the increase in free time coincide with the arrival of spring. We had 70 degree weather on Friday and the city turned into a beach. And then a full moon that night. Woke up this morning and decided to ride my bike 35 miles east to the Chesapeake Bay. Normally I don’t like out and back rides, but the turnaround point was worth making an exception. I walked in the water and climbed on the rocks and was feeling quite Elisabethan and snapped a few photos.

Except for the 10 miles leading up to and away from the water, the ride was pretty gross. Model homes, town homes, idiot drivers, strip malls most of the way. Central Avenue/MD 214 looked like a nice country road on the map, but I had failed to acknowledge that those aren’t nice country roads that bring hundreds of thousands of people into DC from surrounding areas for work every day.

About ten miles outside of the city on my way home, I was at a stop light, waiting on the left side of the right turn only lane so that cars could get by. A car pulled up on my right and the driver said, “Why would you do that? Why do you ride on the road? Why do you put your life in the hands of others? Don’t you know people around here don’t know how to drive? I don’t want to hear about you on the news. Get on the sidewalk.”

I was so tired at this point in my ride, all I could think about in forming my response was how to get this man to stop yelling at me. I knew he was making a right turn and wouldn’t be following me, so I just said, “Okay.” Then of course I spent the next ten miles thinking of better ways that I could have responded to him.

I could have told him that I had to ride on that highway because I wanted to see the water. Even though DC is full of bike trails, those trails are also full of strollers and dogs and those trails don’t go to the water. I could have told him this ride is the nicest thing I’ve done all week. I could have told him that I had mapped out this ride months ago and have been waiting to have the time to do it. I could have explained how riding a bike on a sidewalk is stupid and more dangerous. I could have explained how it is important for bikes to be out on the road and visible so that drivers get used to sharing the road. I could have told him to get out of his car and onto a bike. I could have said a lot of things, but I just said, “Okay.” I was tired, the light was about to change, and he was an old crotch who wouldn’t have listened to anything I might have said.

All in all, it was nice to get some miles in. Probably won’t do this ride again. Sadly, the idea of having a car to get out of the city to ride my bike is seeming less ridiculous and actually sort of appealing. I won’t do it. Luckily, bikes are allowed on the metro so my strategy for future rides may be to take a train to the end of a line and start there.