Spring has sprung, and onto Monday it found me taking the Surly down to the bike shoppe for a new front rack and kickstand to herald in what I hope to be my first season of bike camping. It took a good 45 minutes to install everything–those Surly racks are a bit of a breast, apparently–and then I was on my way down the hill, around, and back up the hill to meet up with A. and her sweet baby girl for a walk to the park to play on the swings. Continue reading
It has been a brutal February, not just cold, which I can deal with, but snowy and icy–pretty much my least favorite riding conditions. Riding on ice is the worst because eventually you have to stop or turn, and doing either of those things means risking a fall. I ride with such trepidation in those conditions, body all seized up, gripping everything too tightly to function, and it just isn’t fun to ride a bike that way. Spring can’t come soon enough, but it’s taking it’s own sweet time, and that’s the thing about weather–you just have to do what it’s going to do, and sometimes that means taking the bus. Continue reading
It was a balmy 50+ degree day, and as much as I wanted to stay in my pajamas all day long, I knew I’d regret this sprinkle of springtime in the midst of a seriously chilly February. I got in quite a few rides last week, but they were all needles-in-the-eyeballs cold, and they were all a way to get from here to wherever I was going. Continue reading
Last week’s ride found me back on the bike part of my commute, and oh boy was that nice. I zipped over and over and over and down and over and down and up and over and up and down and over to the bike racks nearest the shuttle stop. I was plenty early, as is my usual, so I had about 15 minutes to walk around the neighborhood. This is bustling downtown, plenty of workaday wallets heading to offices to do that paper pushing many of us do since we became bureaucracies back in the day. But still, in downtown Baltimore, there are vacant lots like this one. No Trespassing, the sign reads, and I wondered about the privateness of this property and the part where it seems so normal to us to heed the demands not to use land that isn’t being used. I’m sure the fear is people using this as a place to set up shop, or to live here, to sleep, to tent, something like that. The part where some people have nowhere to sleep, though, it’s intimately related to the part where others have private property that is protected like this. And then my shuttle came, I spent the day at work, and then I was back on the bike to home. Days are getting longer, people.
I haven’t been riding my bike much lately, chosing the bus and a reliable ride home–thanks, Barrows sisters!–to avoid ice and sub-freezing temps. Sure, I could ride my bike, but I could also flex my multimodal muscles for greater ease. But then it’s Monday, I’m just heading to Mount Vernon, and oh boy, I miss my bike. So I took it, breaking my rule against riding in the rain, and felt at home again. Except for the new taste of salt that kicks up in my mouth when I ride in the city in the winter. I forgot about all about it, but there it was, the visceral reminder that the stuff they spread on the roads is stuff, and it has to go somewhere; it doesn’t just evaporate with the ice. A little might end up on my tongue, but much more ends up in the bay, and it’s not benign. And then I rode home, tucked the bike away, and felt grateful for choices.
Yesterday’s ride took me down the hill, around the harbor, and back up through Federal Hill for a cheap haircut and a morning with my favorite fresh baby and her mom. It was a windy ride there and back, gusts that blew me of my course and went straight through my windproof gloves. I had the wind at my back when I was riding down the hill, a fact I realised only on my way back up. I didn’t head back out again until the evening, when I layered up and strapped on all the lights to zip over to the Humanim building on the east side. I’ve passed that building by accident a bunch of times and always wondered why a castle rises over the blighted blocks of this neighborhood. Turns out it’s because Humanim decided to find the 25 million bucks to renovate it and turn out into a workforce development and community organizing force for the area. This night it was for a meeting of Baltimore Corps, and I was there to task about why local history matters. The Humanim rep said it mattered because it matters. I said it mattered because politics and justice and how are for here and how we could be elsewhere and all sorts of reasons. And then I was done and left to roam the building. I headed straight to the second floor to see how they’d repurposed the giant pressure cooker of this old brewery–it’s another workstation, a magical one. Sometimes history matters because look at this place. And then I got back on my bike for a windy ride home, happy to be back in action after a long winter’s nap.
2014 was a great year for bicycling. I rode in new places, got a new commute, and did a whole lot of exploring. I blogged less this year than the last few, but that’s because I’ve been writing more in other places, writing gigs I’ve picked up only because I’ve blogged regularly for the past five or six years. Turns out writing gets easier by writing more and regularly. Same goes for biking–it became my primary form of transportation back in 2008, and I am just so terrifically grateful that the bike and I found each other, and that now it is just common sense that if we’re going there, we’re going by bike. What a gift, to see the world from two wheels like that. Continue reading
Thursday’s bike ride took me down the hill and up the other side to visit A. and her sweet baby girl for the afternoon. It was such a nice ride on a cool, windless day–and that second part makes a big difference. I was mostly just happy to stretch my legs on a ride that wasn’t taking me to work. And then we had a ridiculously nice day, the kind you can only have when one of your companions reliably giggles and coos every time you fake-sneeze or stick your tongue out at her. For all the ugly in the world, it was good to remember that there’s this other kind of divine goodness, the still-fresh baby; she’s also part of this world. Continue reading
I left my bike at home this past weekend when I went to New York City to watch E. run the marathon. Last time she ran a big race, I took Brompty and leapfrogged her for the entire course of the Brooklyn Half Marathon, and I got to ride the race route all by myself, without cars, and it was magical. I mean, how often do you get to ride on the streets–much less the streets of a major city–and never even have to think about cars? The NYC Marathon is a different beast, though, and I was expecting huge crowds–a million people line the route–and I didn’t want to get boxed out because I was carrying a bicycle with me. If you know me, you know how hard it is for me to travel without a bicycle, but alas, the priority was really to watch my sister complete this truly epic event, and I got to do that. It was all about the subway on Sunday, and the tears, because everyone who runs the marathon has a story of deciding to do this thing that really shouldn’t be done, and they’ve got their training plans and their injuries, and their best laid plans and their cheer sections, and it all happens, 50,000 times over. It was so cool to watch, and when she ran up to me around mile 21.5, hands in fists raised in the air, almost weeping as she said, “I’m doing it! I’m doing it!” well, I was pretty much cooked. Best ever. And then it was time for a few more subway rides back to the train back home, up first thing in the morning to head to work. I got to take my bike, and as soon as I was on there and pedaling, I remembered that how good it is to be home. That was four days off the bike, way, way too long. Next year I’m definitely taking my bike to the marathon, crowds be damned. I met my meetings, taught my classes, and then it was time to head home. It’s dark now, and that’s a whole different experience of riding, one that makes me feel like I’m alone on the roads. When cooler, darker weather sets in, lots of cyclists pack in their bikes for the seasons, and everything just feels quieter and lonelier, in a way I really like. Just me, the bike, and this dark sky with the pale blot of clouds. Thanks for the subway rides, NYC, but I’ll take my bike in Baltimore any day.
Ever since they started running the shuttle from downtown Baltimore out to UMBC I’ve just been taking that commute rather than taking the Brompton on the MARC train like I did last year–the shuttle’s free and easy, and I get to stretch my legs on the Surly, still my very favorite ride. It’s strange–I used to take that bike out almost every day, but now she sits quietly in the dining room collecting dust in between rides. But then it’s a Friday during October baseball, and the last thing I want to do is get caught in downtown traffic–the shuttle may feel like magic, but it’s just as prone to get caught in the cars as any other vehicle. Solution? Take Brompty on MARC like the good old days, so that’s what I did–easy peasy, the bike getting her own seat at the front of the train. Multimodal commute options FTW! And coming back into Penn Station in the afternoon made it easy for N. to pick us all up and take us home. I really never ever miss having a car–there are so many options out there that make owning my own car unnecessary. Lucky me. Could that be you too?
What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today 