I got to take the Surly out on Friday, first up and over to Hampden for a morning appointment and then down and over the other way to Federal Hill to meet A. for a ride to campus and an afternoon of meetings. I took the long way downtown so I could zig zag the Jones Falls Trail and ride the path past the salt garage on Falls Road. Rumor has it we’re running out, but we do have at least the three mountains of the off-pink stuff there. Continue reading
bikes
Kids Collecting Autographs at Orioles FanFest at the Baltimore Convention Center
It was downright warm out on Saturday, and after wasting half of it in bed with books and cats there was a flurry of activity as I got myself together to jump on the bike and head down the hill to see what was happening in our fair city. Oh, it was good to be on the Surly again! I am so much more myself when I get to pedal about town, and this ride was just what I needed. I took Maryland down and up and down and up and down again to the Convention Center, which was bustling with activity for middle class folks of various stripes: baseball fans, people into planning expensive weddings, and dance/cheer team enthusiasts. I had a ticket to precisely zero of these events, but hey, I’m part of The Public, and I’ve got the skin of somebody our society’s decided to trust, so I just walked in and around to see what folks were doing. Continue reading
Road Work at 25th & Charles
Thursday’s ride was a repeat of Wednesday’s, but with an earlier start for a stop at the mechanic’s to move my car from the lot to the street to wait for its final ride over the Rainbow Bridge. It was freezing, and the guy said I must be “Ravens Strong” to ride my bike this morning. Well, sir, you just might be right. Now, if you were actually me, standing there wearing twelve layers of everything and knowing the sweat was going to start about 5 minutes into this little project, you might not be impressed, but hey, I’ll take it. The rest of the commute went smoothly, and the bike got me some good conversation with some MARC workers on the way home. The pedal up the hill from the station was a slow one, especially as I navigated the thick sand-like piles of salt at Charles and North. (Go on, go bike through sand. It’s a slow and wobbly go!) A water main burst the previous night, and that is not the first one, not by a long shot. We travel these streets without thinking about what’s underneath, but what’s underneath is clearly in a whole lot of trouble. But hey, they’d fixed it by mid-afternoon and covered it over with a big black rectangle of asphalt, so I guess we are good to go. I kept riding and stopped to take this picture at Charles and 25th, another patch job over another broken something. This project’s been going on for awhile, and I’m not sure what’s going on, but it is another of the many signs around here that what we don’t see beneath our feet is in serious trouble. The complaints are always about traffic, not about our crumbling infrastrucre, for which traffic is barely even canary yellow, much less the canary coal mine. And then I was home, stowing Brompty in the basement, kicking off my shoes and filling my water bottle from the tap and settling in to forget it all with some low quality television. Nothing to see here, folks, nothing to see here.
Waiting for the MARC Train at the Halethorpe Station
Tuesday opened to frozen roads and school delays due to an overnight snow shower, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have to head into work for meetings and lunches and meetings and such. And there’s no car anymore. I bundled up in two of everything–socks, pants, baselayers, gloves–and headed down the hill on the Brompton. It wasn’t the cold that got me as much as the ice in the bike lane, so I took the lane next to it, bought a stack of tickets, folded up the bike, answered work emails for 15 minutes, unfolded the bike, and climbed the hill to campus. There was no road rage, no parking, and I was reminded again of how that driving habit had gotten to be a habit, and now this will be a new habit. I made my meetings, did some work, and then reversed course, snapping this picture while I waited for the train. The sky just never looks this blue in a car. Thanks for dying, sweet old Hyundai Accent. You’re making the bike feel brand new.
Looking East Past a Blighted Factory at West Lafayette & Spedden
Finally, a dry day without ice on the roads, plenty of sunshine, nowhere to be, and no cold or flu dogging me! Oh, it was good to be back on the bike. It took about two minutes flying down the hill on Maryland Avenue to get that smile on my face I get when I feel at home and most myself–when I’m on my bike headed nowhere in particular. After a brief stop to pick up this week’s coffee I decided to go left instead of right and was quickly tracing new streets in West Baltimore. Continue reading
The Sun Setting Over Federal Hill From the Harbor Connector Between Locust Point & Fells Point
Oh, it is good to be back home in Baltimore, especially after a 14 hour drive from St. Louis–that’s a lot of sitting, which leaves me even more sore than pumping my not-quite-enough-gears Brompty up and down the hills of suburbia. After a lazy morning of recovery and answering work emails I’d left for after the holiday I hopped on the Surly to enjoy this balmy 50 degree day. Continue reading
The Budweiser Clyesdales Along Grant’s Trail in St. Louis County
I’m spending my holiday in St. Louis with N. and her family, but that doesn’t mean I can’t sneak in a bike ride with Brompty, who got her own spot in the trunk for the long drive here from Baltimore. Monday started at Family House #2 and on our way to Family House #3, N. pointed out Grant’s Trail, a rail-trail that went from right there to I-didn’t-know-where, and after bundling up and unfolding the bike, I traced the drive backward and then happily pedaled my way along the trail, stopping to learn about one of the first African American public cemeteries in St. Louis (Father Dickson’s), admire a gen-u-ine St. Louis cardinal, and to ogle these clyesdales, who all looked up at my click-click and came over to say hi. And then there was a National Park–Grant’s Farm–and I folded up the bike, stashed her behind the ranger’s desk, and got a private tour about the private life of Ulysses Grant and his wife, Julia Dent, and the Dent family farm where Grant hoped to retire before he got suckered into that whole presidency thing. Oh, and he was totally against slavery on moral terms, except that most he thought it was economically inefficient–why not just hire temporary seasonal labor and cut them loose the rest of the year? The interpretive film, though, argued that Grant *had* to use enslaved laborers, even though he kind of thought slavery was wrong. In the house tour, we saw a video reenactment of a dinner where Julia tried to change the subject from the dinnertime arguments between Grant and Daddy Dent as an enslaved woman served the meal. Yep, it’s hard to tell a heroic narrative in the midst of such ugly history, but we’re going to keep trying, it seems. And then I headed back before it got too dark, and oh, it was cold, and then there was a light snow and I got lost and it got dark and I didn’t have lights on my bike and I had to call N. for the rescue. Good thing the bike slides right into the trunk, and good thing I brought her–I really needed the ride.
Bare Trees on the Jones Falls Trail in Druid Hill Park
Sometimes I’m in the mood for an exploratory ride, one where I get lost, or found in one of those neighborhoods I don’t go to unless I’m getting lost on a bicycle–the rides where I end up in Middle East, usually. I never seem to make it west…something to think about in the new year. But some days I just want to ride without negotiating cars or newness, the simple pleasures of well-trod paths that are off limits to cars. Today was that latter day, so I took the bike up and around to Druid Hill Park for a lap or two and to check out the Jones Falls Trail behind the zoo.
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LED Lights on a Reflective Vest, Zipping Around Hampden
I took the bike out for a couple of rides today, first to Waverly to meet R. and O. for some scheming and then home again, a quick stop for lunch and a pep talk with N. I didn’t have plans to go out again, necessarily, but I wanted to do a little night riding to test out my brand new light-up reflective LED safety vest. I waited for the sun to go down–just a little after 5pm, a pox on you, wintertime!–and got myself all suited up for cold temps and strapped on the vest. And then I turned the lights on. I was all lit up like a Christmas tree, and I felt like the Safety Monitor as I pedaled west and north. Cars gave me a wide berth, dogwalkers looked on admiringly, and the folks waiting at the bus stops waved and clapped. Continue reading
Rough Road Sign at Remington & Wyman Park Drive
I’ve been down with an annoying cold for the past week or so, and I was also out of town for work, so I hadn’t been on my bike in practically a week. And I was cranky. Fortunately, I had some time in the afternoon before heading to work for meetings; unfortunately, today was cold and windy–the windchill below freezing, even. Turns out, though, with the right kind of ridiculously layered combination of fleece and wool, it was just another toasty day for a ride in the sun. As my pops would say, There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. Continue reading
What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today 