Happy bike-day

Sometimes you have a good bike-day.

My Electra was in the shop, so this morning I CaBi'd from Petworth to Bloomingdale for a quick photo shoot. Stopped off at Big Bear Cafe for a coffee (man, the place was packed on a Saturday morning). Then CaBi'd from there to The Bike Rack at 14th and Q (100 percent on the R Street bike lane) to pick up my bike. Ran into one of my neighbors who was thinking about a new bike. I, true to recent form, gave her the upright/slow/normal clothes spiel. I know, I'm probably getting annoying.

Moseyed over to Dupont Circle to look for citizen-cycling pics. Didn't find much going on photo-wise, but did put a few of my Moo calling cards on any parked bikes that looked like candidates for the Chainguard Revolution. In a nice little moment of karma, my friend Eric sent me this cool video that was sort of apropos to the bike-day I was having. Watched it on my phone before heading up to Adams Morgan (first real hill of the day) did a few errands, warmed my hands up in a few places.

Grabbed lunch from one of the Latino vendors who set up on weekends in the little plaza outside City Bikes. Really great Puerto Rican pork and a garlicky plantain dish I can't remember the name of. The nice guy who sold it to me sat down while I was eating it and explained all the inside tricks he uses to make it.

There I met Eryn and Patrick, around the time I was taking this picture of the plaza scene:

They asked me about my bike because she was shopping for an upright bike and had been eyeing the Electras online. She actually had heard of District Citizen Cycling! ("wow, that's you?!") Very cool, first time that's happened. Further up the street, here's Eryn and Patrick taking out the last available CaBis at the 16th and Columbia station:

Riding home, dropped in for the tail end of the bike clinic behind Qualia Coffee on Georgia Avenue, where I finally made some decent photos that helped redeem the day a bit in that regard (see previous post):

Kind of cold out there, and the wind had some bite, but plenty sunny. Nice DC early winter day. Just the kind of bike-day that puts you in touch with the city in a way that driving and walking don't. Walking's great, but biking you're flowing like water through the streets, covering ground quickly while absorbing your changing surroundings, finding a kind of rhythm, feeling DC's great neighborhoods and how they connect. City zen!