Lunch and Coffeeneuring Utilitaire at Lot 38
I decided to finally do a meal Utilitaire this week. I usually only eat out on Saturdays so I decided to use this trip instead since it was a Monday and felt different enough to rank a challenge category. I took the day off because my birthday was on Sunday and I do not work on my birthday. But since I did not have to work on my birthday I floated the day off a day. I had planned on a long ride north and east into Maryland but got a slow start to the day and decided to do nothing instead. Well, except go to the closest place I could for lunch and coffee while meeting the minimum requirements of this challenge. Lot 38 did not exist during the Coffeeneuring challenge and it has been a nice addition to the neighborhood. They have good coffee, light food, a nice space, and Wi-Fi. It is just a mile from my house so I rode up the street a little bit just to be safe on the distance!
Ride Details
Week 3 of 6
Ride 1 of 2 (5 of 12 total)
Control Card Category: Breakfast of lunch (includes Coffeeneuring)
Date: 2/13/2012
Destination: Lot 38
Miles Completed: 2.02
Night Ride?: no
On Saturday I did my usual rambling ride, starting out with Weight Watchers and breakfast with my friend Beth. Then I took off on roughly the same route I did two weeks ago.
Sherman Circle is still Sherman statue free!
This ride was more of an activity ride. The only errand I needed to run was a stop at Big Bad Woof (also on my route 2 weeks ago). I had to drop some stuff off at a friend’s house on the way which left me with a decision to make as I headed north east- head for the bike lanes on 11th St or tackle Bastard Hill since I was right at the base of it. I had never tried this particular challenge before and have done a pretty good job of psyching myself out on hills. I recognize this is as much a mental obstacle at this point as a physical one so I have been practicing riding straight up hill on the stationary bikes in the gym. Here is how it went. Riding up the hill without stopping could probably be a control card category on its own. Do you know the worst part of riding up Bastard Hill? The lack of equivalent down hill on the other side.
Since I was headed toward Takoma, I decided to head to stop in at Rooting DC which was being held at the neighborhood high school.
The best bike parking I could find.
Rooting DC is an annual gardening forum to build community among urban gardeners (hello, community meeting!) I am a board member for the DC State Fair and thanks to the initiative of our outgoing President and one of our founders, Ken, we have a DC State Fair table in the Info Fair part of Rooting DC. I went by to help staff the table for a couple of hours and tell people about the fair! (Have you heard of us? You should come out and compete! This will be our third year. Date and location TBD. Last year we had a bike accessory contest so start thinking of ideas!)
I snuck up on Rhea and Ken and got this great candid shot!
I spent about two hours at Rooting DC and talked to a lot of people about the DC State Fair. There was a lot of enthusiasm for what we are doing. I really hope the really exuberant woman figures out how to keep alpacas in DC because alpacas at the fair would be awesome!
When I left Rooting DC, I found a nice little Middle Eastern restaurant to grab a bite to eat (tabbouleh and falafel!) before grabbing grub for the cats at Big Bad Woof. I also went to the Takoma Library since I discovered last week that it had been so long since I had used my library card I had been purged from the system. I browsed a bit and got a new card. There were a lot of people at the library which was nice to see.
My bike at the library.
It was around 3:30 or so at this point, but still really nice out so I did not want to head home just yet. I decided to head back down Georgia Ave (via Piney Branch) for a stop at Qualia Coffee since I never made it there during Coffeeneuring. It is a nice place and it was a beautiful day to sit on their back patio and hang out with the local ally cats that came by. I can definitely recommend Qualia more than I would recommend riding your bike on Georgia Avenue. That was fairly nerve racking and drivers have no regard for the 3 foot passing law there.
When I started this challenge, I figured I would accumulate my 12 rides by doing some of the categories twice. But after last week I began to realize it would not be too difficult for me to do one ride in each category. There are a couple of things I rarely do like go to the Movies or out to Dinner so one of those two categories will definitely be swapped out with my one permitted category change. When I started this ride I thought I was going to make it a library trip. I have a community meeting scheduled in March before this challenge ends, but since that is a harder category to fill I am going to use my Rooting DC stop as community meeting since I can easily go to the library again but a community meeting may be harder to find if my schedule gets changed.
Ride Details
Week 3 of 6
Ride 2 of 2 (6 of 12 total)
Control Card Category: Community Meeting
Date: 2/18/2012
Destination: Rooting DC
Miles Completed: 17.99
Night Ride?: no
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View my progress on my Utilitaire Control Card
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Sounds like that was a really nice ride yesterday! And it was awesome to see you at Rooting DC.
BTW–the 3-foot-passing law thing? I had *no* idea that cars were supposed to be so far away from me as they sped around me until David got hit by the car two weeks ago and I started looking the law up when the cop said it was his fault for passing cars on the right when there was no bike lane. So that van who hit my elbow with its side-view mirror totally WAS doing so illegally!
I am beginning to support the idea of making drivers retake a written test every 5 or so years since everyone forget the laws. I am sure that there are ones that I have forgotten since I took my driving test 20+ years ago. Both the 3 foot law and bicycles being permitted to pass on the right are on the books in DC. You are also legally required to have a bell or horn on your bike and explicitly forbidden from having an air horn. I really consider breaking that last law a lot.
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