.:aaron.helton:.

When I moved to the Washington, DC, area a few months ago, I had a grand master plan on how I was going to get around: I would ride a bicycle as much as possible.  This was a good plan, though for reasons that will probably become obvious soon, not well executed.  I had a bike that I got while I was still in Texas, so that wasn’t the problem.

La Jolla Cruiser by NEXT

You see, my original plan called for leaving the bike pictured here locked up at the commuter train station in DC overnight and all weekend.  The train station has bike racks nearby, so that shouldn’t *necessarily* have posed a problem, except that someone eventually decided that they needed my bike more than I did.  I arrived one morning less than four weeks after starting my new job to find my bicycle gone.  Of course, being the meticulous planner I am, I set off on foot (in retrospect, I should have had a backup plan).  That left me scrambling to figure out what buses ran where (I already knew that I’d have a minimum 7-8 block walk if I took the Metro) and found a more-or-less suitable one.  It was going to cost me just enough extra per month in transit costs, however, that I soon developed Plan B.

Plan B

This is a Dahon Boardwalk folding bike.  It’s 27 pounds of maximum portability.  Now, instead of leaving a bike locked up overnight, I can take this one with me.  It folds up nicely for train transport, and it’s not TOO incredibly heavy (although there are lighter models around, they just cost more) to maneuver around the train platforms.

I’ve been riding this one for about six weeks now, and so far I am extremely pleased with it.