Last thursday I went into DC for an impromptu shooting of the Cherry Blossoms. To my elation my good friend Tim Tolentino (http://www.timtolentino.com/) was free to come with me and show me the ropes of city riding! We metro’d in with our bikes and rode from the Smithsonian stop to the tidal basin. Of course my peugeot decided to pop its chain and after some playing around with it I got it stay on its inner chain ring, thus restricting me to ride single speed through the streets of DC. They cherry blossoms were as beautiful as I remembered, it had been several years since I had the time to come and see them. We walked our bikes around the basin starting at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. What was supposed to be a cherry blossom shoot quickly became a Tim & Scarlett (his beautiful road bike) photoshoot. Scarlett was a beauty Tim had built from the frame up. It’s rear wheel was single speed/ fixie convertible. The tidal basin waters where coated with the cherry blossoms giving it an illusion of a pink and white sea. It was almost surreal. However, taken at a different angle the purity of the petals gave way to a more realistic view of the basin. This would be reinforced a couple of days later when we received news that a body was found in the basin. As we completed our round about the basin I managed to snag a nice close up of some mallards enjoying the cool shade. As we were about to make our way off the basin into the city to find the famous, Shake Shack, a military helicopter came thundering past us. I managed to zoom in and get a quick shot of it - United States Army emblazoned on its tail. We wondered where it was going and why, and a part of me wondered how a different place and different shoes would have made this view mean some different things…In any case, it was an amazing thursday with an amazing friend. I gained a lot of confidence in city riding/ traffic dodging and will certainly apply it more to my weekend rides around my area. As for everything else, I’m still waiting on more news from SMSC and am going through my training at REI. 

Things are very very good right now, and I am so grateful…

Trek On,

Chris

"As we were about to make our way off the basin into the city to find the famous, Shake Shack, a military helicopter came thundering past us." 

"We walked our bikes around the basin starting at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial."

"Scarlett was a beauty Tim had built from the frame up."

"The tidal basin waters were coated with the cherry blossoms giving it an illusion of a pink and white sea."

"As we completed our round about the basin I managed to snag a nice close up of some mallards enjoying the cool shade."

"However, taken at a different angle the purity of the petals give way to a more realistic view of the basin."

"What was supposed to be a cherry blossom shoot quickly became a Tim & Scarlett (his beautiful road bike) photoshoot."