Today's crazy, car-free commute in through the looking glass.

Every day is a car-free day in my household, but today is Car-Free Day around the world, so I thought I’d share what today’s commute was like. It’s a good representation of the sometimes lovely, sometimes infuriating aspects of this crazy, multimodal ride I’ve been doing for nearly a year and a half now.

My bike ride starts before the sun rises now. There’s something about it that makes the city seem more still, more silent. I love it. I avoid the Metro elevator (where I keep running into a mentally unstable man who clearly does not like me) and take the escalator instead. I know you’re not supposed to do that with a bike, but it’s a short ride early in the morning and I make sure to stay on the right. An 8-car train is on the board, so I know I’ll probably get a seat. I do, but not until L’Enfant. I board my bus at Rosslyn. The driver is new and I’m anxious he’ll forget that I have the bike on the front rack when I get off the bus. (He doesn’t.) It think about how lucky I am that the bus route goes along the river on a National Park Service road, especially with how the light moves though the trees now that the days are getting shorter. My last-mile bike ride is quiet, and I can feel the first hints of fall in the air. The security guard at the gate asks me, “What kind of bike is that?” “It’s a folding bike,” I reply, “So I can bring it on the Metro.” 6:30am - 7:35am.

On the way home, my chain falls off when I hit a poorly patched pothole. No matter what I do, this seems to happen every couple of weeks (The problem is a mix of bad road, small tires, and a worn-out chainring). It’s a bad spot, around a curve where the brush runs right up to the road, higher than my head. I let momentum take me as far as I can, and finally pull off where the brush isn’t quite as dense. The chain is stuck between the chainguard and the chainring, and I pull at it with my hand to put it back into place. Meanwhile, cars fly by at 40 mph, about a foot or so away from my head. This usually gets my adrenaline running, but I guess I’ve done it enough now that I’m almost used to it. I wipe my greasy hand onto some leaves and suddenly notice that my arm is feeling itchy. I hope the brush doesn’t turn out to be poison ivy. I manage to merge back onto the road and to my bus stop. Traffic is backed up all the way from the Parkway onto the arterial where I pick up the bus. The bus is late and it’s a slow ride back to Rosslyn. At Rosslyn, I fold my bike and roll it onto a Metro elevator. The wide fare gate isn’t working, so I put my bike through the emergency gate and walk around to tap my card at one of the regular gates. The station manager comes over to me, asks if I know the rules about bikes, and says, charitably, that he’ll let me through but he doesn’t know what Transit will do. I tell him it’s a folding bike, so it’s allowed during rush hour. “Oh, yeah, you’re right,” he says, “I just wanted to make sure you knew the rules.” Why else would I fold a bike in half in the Metro system??? I get a seat on the train and the rest of the trip back is uneventful. 4:55pm - 6:20pm.