I didn’t ride my bike that much in 2025. I spent much of the first part of the year slowly but surely recovering from three surgeries in the second half of 2024. I could bike commute that spring, but a single ride would take me two days of recovery. I spent a lot more time on buses and in carpools than usual. And then it was summer–too hot–and fall–work was so busy. Lots of late nights, I don’t like to ride at night, my boo works ten minutes from me–we’ll carpool.

And that was fine. The multimodal commute isn’t a requirement for life, and it’s fine to take a break. Things change!

But I miss my bike. I miss how it helps me be in the world, what it reminds me to look at, to watch out for, to notice. I like the pace of attention I follow when riding my bike. I rode all last year, but not like that. So now it’s the new year, and I am going to ride my bike regularly again. I rode to my podiatrist in December, even though it was 22 degrees with steady winds, to remind myself I can do that. I rode in the cold on January 1, even though I wasn’t going anywhere, to remind myself I can do that, too. I rode home in the dark on January 3, to remind myself I can ride in the dark. I can fall in and out of habits, and I know I don’t want to fall out of the habit of riding my bike. That didn’t happen in 2025, but it could have. And it will when I’m ready to fall out of this habit, but I’m not ready for that, not even close, not at all.

I snapped this picture at the end of my ride around Guilford. I have spent so many hours running and biking around that neighborhood. The wealth there is incredible, and the work to keep the wealth there, on the west side of Greenmount, doesn’t stop. They don’t want you driving through this neighborhood to get to Waverly, or driving through it from Waverly to go west. So many signs on this street reminding drivers that they’re going to hit a dead end, turn around, this isn’t going to work. You can head north a bit and cross at 39th, or you can zig zag your way through on Southway or Underwood, but only to go out of the neighborhood, not in. I know this–I have lived in Baltimore for almost 15 years, and I have biked all over these neighborhoods for a zillion hours, and it is amazing how quickly I can fall out of the habit of remembering these geographies. And for me, I never want to forget how inequalities materialize and reify, because forgetting that risks forgetting that things can be otherwise.

And that’s my hope for 2026, things can be otherwise, and they will be, and I hope all of us can figure out a way to move to the otherwise we think we want, always ready to change course as needed, because on a bike, we can’t stop looking where we want to go (and not where we don’t want to go).