A couple lovely days in the Delta and it was time to head back to New Orleans, so I strapped the bike to the back of the car (and yes, I spent the entire ride staring at it in the rear view mirror, pretty sure it was about to fly off–can anyone explain how that flimsy thing can hold anything on my car while I drive 75 down the interstate?), loaded in S. and the dog and the new snazzy Christmas record player, and we were off. Continue reading
streets
For Your Protection Please Close Gate at Freret & Audubon Place
I have simply been swamped with work this week. It’s finals time, and the students are cramming and pulling all-nighters while their teachers are turning into grading machines. I’ve been snowed under by the flurry of it all, which means I haven’t been getting the bicycle rides in that I’m used to. The great thing about commuting by bike, though, is that I’m guaranteed to get a quick five or six miles in, no matter what. Continue reading
Fenced Street Drain at Nashville & Garfield
Today’s bike ride was limited to the commute to school and back because I am positively slammed with grading, and today was Final Exam day for section two, which meant four good hours in the classroom, watching them all scribble away with their heads down as I read through their end-of-term reading journals. I try to spot read–I have too many students to physically respond in detail to that many journal entries–but I always seem to fail. Continue reading
Adventurous Asphalt at Robert & Camp
It has been too long since a good old fashioned blog about how hard it is to ride a bicycle in New Orleans. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love riding a bicycle here. I do it almost every day, sixty, seventy, eighty miles a week. I ride for exercise and transportation, for fun and for pleasure. Becoming a daily bike rider has been a life-changing experience, and it all happened here in New Orleans. I wouldn’t want it any other way. But these streets suck. Continue reading
Empty Lot at Claiborne and Cadiz
I rode home from work along Claiborne Avenue after grabbing a quick lunch and a few minutes of the Copa Mundial at the local burrito place. It’s a wide street–three lanes in each direction–and there’s even a shoulder. The asphalt is smooth. But it so flipping scary to ride there. The cars zip by so fast. Take the foot off the pedal, folks! Give a girl some space! Continue reading
Streetcar at Jefferson and St. Charles
I was heading Uptown to meet my old college friend S. and her pal J.M. for drinks and for some reason the ride just felt perfect. I had a bouncy song in my head and the sun was behind just enough cloud to bring the temperatures down to plain old hot. I didn’t ride yesterday, so I think I was also just happy to be on the bike and pedaling. Whatever it was, tonight’s ride felt like some much-needed play. Continue reading
Terrible Asphalt at Magazine and Julia
You know I love riding my bike around New Orleans. It’s flat as a pancake here and the weather is always perfect for a ride, assuming you don’t mind thunderstorms and 100+ heat indices, which I don’t. But our streets are, in many places, spectacularly awful. We have some repaving projects, some even including facilities for bikes–Chartres, St. Claude, Gentilly, upper St. Charles, La Salle/Simon Bolivar, Loyola–but most streets are a mess of exposed streetcar tracks, potholes, loose gravel, ridges, and all various and sundry temporary patches. Continue reading
Exposed Pipe at Octavia and St. Charles
I have never lived in a town that wears as much of its skeleton on the outside as this place. There are the literal skeletons in their above-ground tombs scattered all over the city, but there is also the skeleton of infrastructure–outfrastructure?–that’s always poking through the surface. Continue reading
Loose Gravel at Baronne and Polymnia
I’m having a bit of a front derailleur issue that I haven’t had time to deal with, so the Specialized is getting extra riding time. The bike is quick and nimble and those skinny tires offer such a low rolling resistance it can feel like flying. It most definitely did when I hit the brand spankin’ new asphalt on Loyola. So, so nice! I’ve been cursing the resurfacing there for awhile. Continue reading
View From 1440 Canal, 23rd Floor
After zipping up to Tulane for the first day of summer school I took the Surly downtown for a meeting of the KidsWalk coalition. There were representatives from a whole bunch of interested parties–Metro Bicycle Coalition, Regional Planning Commission, Neighborhoods Partnership Network, Safe Routes to School, the AARP, the Department of Public Works, and several other groups. Turns out, there are lots of stakeholders in making our streets and sidewalks navigable for everyone. Continue reading
What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today 