Biking in the rain, DC style
July 11th, 2011 at 10:41 pm ET
I spent most of the day at the conference, in what might as well have been an underground bunker two miles underneath the Washington Hilton. So after the last event of the evening, I was itching to get out for a bike ride. I ran back to the apartment and changed out of my grownup clothes, then picked up a bike in front of the Soviet Safeway a little before 8pm.
The air (as DC air often is at this time of year) was thick and wet and hot, like the exhaust from the climate control system of a shopping center — not foul or dirty, just damp. As I headed east and south into the city, I got damp, too, but there wasn’t much traffic in the fading light of day. I headed past my old apartment at 15th and P (the second-floor bay window at upper left), past the Whole Foods (!), around Logan Circle and down into downtown.
I made a stop at the City Sports at Gallery Place, because I needed a new pair of running shoes and I was hoping that my favorite salesperson, Naja, could hook me up. She did — in fact, she recognized my face and remembered exactly what shoes she’d sold me eight months ago without my having to say anything.
As I was paying for the shoes, though, the sky opened up and the rain poured down. I sat out the worst of it in the store, and when it dropped down from “God is angry” level to “moderate shower” level, I went out and got my bike again. And here’s where the real fun started.
You know those moments right after a heavy summer shower, when it’s warm but not hot, and everything just a little too wet (including you) but the air isn’t quite oppressive, and there’s the faintest hint of a cool breeze? Those are my very favorite times to be out doing something active, running or biking or just walking around, and the heavy Capital Bikeshare bikes are perfect: with their heavy frames and thick tires, they’re not going to skid or slip, they ride just fine.
From 8th and H I rode west onto New York Avenue and then Pennsylvania, biking past the front of the White House on the long steaming nearly empty promenade, then banking up quiet upper Pennsylvania Avenue, around Washington Circle, over Rock Creek and into Georgetown. Then zigzagging north and west, I found myself in front of Thomas Sweet at Wisconsin and P (was it my plan to head there all along? I’ll never tell). I had a vanilla fudge ice cream cone on the terrace in a light rain, then biked back across the P Street bridge, riding past my very first DC apartment, in a basement near 21st and P. When I got back to the Soviet Safeway, all the bike docks were filled, but I didn’t mind; that just meant I got to ride on a little further, back to 15th and P where there was one open dock.
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Rich Mintz blogs on online fundraising and social media, American history and culture, bicycling and urbanism, food, technology, and other topics. Professionally, he's an expert in fundraising, constituency development, and social media for nonprofits, cultural organizations, cause-related marketers, and corporations. He is based in New York, where he serves as Vice President, Strategy, for 
