i always knew that i liked those soma new xpress tires, but i didn’t realize just how awesome they were until i got to a place that has incredibly poor pavement and cobblestones.

also, i’m realizing now that there are many downsides to cobblestones:
- slow going
- once there’s broken glass between cobblestones, it stays there forever
- jarring
- whenever you do road work, you have to pick ‘em up and put ‘em back, which seems much harder than digging and repaving

bikes here are like any other vehicles, though they have these pretty awesome marked places for you to wait when you’re at a light that are in front of cars. good job, uk.

the downside to being any other vehicle is that you’re pretty much not treated like bad things could happen if you got hit. for instance, i was coming off the bike path this afternoon and crossing a street when someone turned in front of me. instead of getting furious, i realized that it’s just what’s done here. it’s kind of an elaborate (if seemingly sketchy) dance between bikes and cars and i kind of love it. in the states, i would have confronted. here, i just sort of shrugged it off and realized that riding on the sidewalk and then crossing the street onto the road in front of his car was maybe not the smartest thing to do. though really, he should have signaled (he signals, i don’t go). so yeah, 50/50. we smiled and moved on.

i ride past this place every day. tony blair went to school here. it’s fancy.

mia is here now. going. bye.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 9:28 am and is filed under kiltish. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.