It was Bike to Work Day, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu was into it. "I miss riding a bicycle," he told a crowd of hundreds of bike commuters today, moments after dismounting his $5,500 Italian road bike. "My security detail doesn't really let me do it."
It was only the second time Chu had pedaled the roughly eight miles from his Chevy Chase home to downtown Washington, our colleague Derek Sands reports. Not what Chu is used to; he rode to work every day in California.
"Clearly I am preaching to the converted," he told the bagel- and orange-munching cyclists. "It not only saves gasoline, it gets you in great shape."
Sand reports that the energy secretary rolled into a Bike-to-Work-Day breakfast near the White House looking the part, in tight Lycra cycling shorts and a navy Department of Energy tee-shirt. And, to protect his Nobel Prize-winning brain, a helmet.
In the hills of northern California, where he was director of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Chu cycled to work every day and gained a reputation for encouraging others to ride. Here in Washington, he does not only that but takes it to the high policy level, urging us to wean ourselves off fossil fuels and fight climate change.
He loved riding the "wonderful hills" in California, and finds real challenges riding in DC, too, although they're different. The mean streets of the DC suburbs can hold their own troubles, rude drivers among them.
"Especially teenagers," he told reporters. "They'll follow you, and they'll honk to see if you'll jump." He suggested that cities, including Washington, could be made safer with more bicycle lanes.
Still, there's a difference between Chu and your average biker. Most cyclists do not have a security detail. When asked how many guards accompany him on rides, Chu looked over his shoulder at the only man at the rally in a suit, a wire running into his ear and dark wraparound sunglasses. The man gave Chu a slight shake of the head, and Chu turned back with a smile. "We can say, but then we'd have to kill you."
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