D.C. Cycling

D.C. cycling was pretty intimidating on arrival. I went from two months of small towns and small roads to traveling in a huge city with crazy heavy traffic. I felt like I was getting blasted by too many sights, sounds, and signals to ride safely. Over the past week though, I've really come to enjoy getting around the city on a bicycle. There are bikes everywhere. Half the street signs in the city have a bike locked to them, and if not locked to a sign then to a rack, fence, tree, or whatever is handy. There are huge bike lanes on the busy streets, lanes that go in the very center of the road between all the traffic, some with special bike signals. The best part though, is that the sidewalks are typically huge, and it's legal in some areas (and unregulated in all others) to ride on them in any direction. I asked a cop for directions when I first got into the city and he told me to just ride on the sidewalk to the street I needed. I was of course puzzled, and asked if I could actually do that. He looked at me like I was crazy and just said yes. Having the option of the road, a bike lane, and a sidewalk means that if you are skilled and aggressive enough, you can just fly around the city like a madman. Not that I condone that sort of thing, but I've been having a blast with it.

Over the course of the trip I've really fallen in love with cycling.

In the spirit of cycling here are a couple photos of Peggy Rennolds (a host I stayed with in La Plata, MD) and her best bud Poo riding the Bikecentennial Transamerica route in 1976. Stylin'!