Sic Semper Tyrannis

More mysterious CCT signage

It always starts slowly like this. Before you know it they'll be coming for our handlebar-mounted Kindles -

Who is this for?

I mean, it seems to me than anyone driving a car on the CCT is unlikely to be deterred by a sign. Even if it is in an unusual and arresting shade of yellow.

Dark

I love riding in the dark, the way it opens up in front of you and closes up behind you, and all the rest of the time you’re as good as invisible. I suspect that one of the things I like deep down about bike commuting is that for half an hour every morning and evening I move through a busy and crowded world without altogether being a part of it. Biking to work is the next best thing, I think, to being able to fly 15 feet off the ground.

Anyhow, dark enhances this illusion. Remarkably, my fore and aft lights don’t diminish it much, perhaps because even with them I’m only a bright dot at a hundred yards or more.

Unsettling seductiveness

It’s February 28 and today I rode to work in shorts and a summer jersey. At mid-morning, it’s 71 degrees. Ten days ago temperatures reached the high 70s here, a record, and I was overdressed riding home in wool.

I really enjoy shedding my heavy and cumbersome winter riding clothes, and feeling for the first time in weeks the wind and sun on my arms and legs. Still this weather gives me the creeps; it’s frightening to contemplate what it may foretell. When it’s said and done I’d really prefer another month of crummy, gray, dreary – but seasonable – weather.

I love the bike

Downtown Washington DC. Morning rush hour. Connecticut Avenue closed from the Washington Hilton all the way down to E Street in anticipation of a motorcade - but who still gets to ride down the middle of the road?

From the Archives - CCT under construction

In 1995, the Capital Crescent Trail above the Arizona Avenue bridge was still under construction. I took a ride one day to document the progress. At the time the trail was a bit of a secret, and it was a great adventure to be out on it. Nowadays riding along the trail is pretty ordinary, and the adventure is seeing how it looked in its early stages. Here are three photos from the uphill segment of the trail between the bridge and the Dalecarlia Reservoir buildings. We start with an impassable Arizona Avenue bridge:



A few hundred feet up the road in a hollow beneath Potomac Road, N.W., was a Volkswagen carcass, apparently shoved over the down the hill from above. Or perhaps it fell by accident. In any case there would have been no easy way to get it back up. There wasn't much left of it by the time I came across it. (The hollow remains but the VW was removed right about the time the trail was paved.) Click for full-size, and a better view.



Finally, we have the unpaved trail itself. It looks so tranquil.