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Sunset at N. Schroeder and Mulberry

A leafless tree sillhouetted against a cloudy sky, gold across the bottom as the sun sinks in the sky. And there is a major intersection with a car and streetlights.

I spent the weekend in Atlanta with the ladyfriend on a much-needed weekend getaway. We saw the Deana Lawson exhibit at the High Museum, took the bus and the metro, went to a show, took The Nephew out for lunch, got tattoos, tried sodas from all over the world, and saw a whole lot of girls in spangles and paint, in town for the Cheersport National Championships. My god, it looks so expensive to have a kid on a traveling competitive cheerleading team, and the moms look like they are simultaneously having the best and worst time of their lives. It was such a great weekend away, and we just walked and walked and walked. That city is geographically enormous.

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Tunnel to Nowhere at Herring Run Park

Looking down a tunnel under a bridge that dead ends into nothing.

The last time I trained for a century ride I was ten years younger and hadn’t been through cancer treatment. I had a different body back then. I do, though, have a very similar body to the one that trained and ran a half marathon during the COVID lockdown, though, so I know if I give us some space and time, we’ll get to peak adult onset endurance athletic form together. But that means I have to be patient, which people who know me well know is most assuredly not by strong suit. I am also a compulsive person, so if I have a plan, it is very hard for me to deviate from it. This week, though, I heard my father’s wisdom: listen to your body, not your training plan. My body requested a drop down week in mileage for my long ride instead of upping it by five miles, so on Wednesday I rode 20 miles instead of 35, and my body is thanking me for the rest, I think.

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Swytch E-Bike Conversion Kit Review

Me in a red t-shirt and capri jeans balanced on my green Surly Long Haul Trucker while talking animatedly on the phone.

This week marks my 14th anniversary with my Surly Long Haul Trucker. This is a picture of us on our first ride together (yes, New Orleans in February is sometimes warm enough to dress like that!). A friend met me for a photo shoot, and this is me, on my bike, talking on the phone to someone about how amazing my new bike is. I imagine I was talking to my dad, who was even more excited about the bike than I was. His motto was always “shop often, buy once,” and he had done a lot of shopping on my behalf. It was between this bike and the Trek 520–I don’t even remember why a touring bike was deemed necessary–and the LHT was a few hundred bucks cheaper, and dad’s good friend Tom rode it, so voila, my new bike! I ordered it from Bicycle Michael’s on Frenchman Street, paid half in cash from the six hundred dollar bills my dad sent me in the mail–always cash in the mail because as a former postal officer, he trusted the U.S. Mail like no one I have ever known.

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Military Vehicle Parked Along Dundalk Avenue

The thing about training for a century is that every week your long ride gets longer, and if you don’t want to haul your bike out to the airport to do circles around BWI or go to and from Annapolis, you have to figure out how to get all those miles on city streets with their hills, stoplights, drivers, and pedestrians zipping in and out of the street without warning. It’s like that Paperboy game we used to play at the Brass Lamp back in Boise. I looked at the 25 miles on my calendar for Wednesday and decided that yes, I was going to do this in the city because I don’t want to get in the car to ride my bike. Dundalk, I thought. If I zig and zag enough, that’ll get me to 25.

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Power Lines Near Orchard Ridge

Power lines against a cloudy sky with bare trees in the background.

I don’t do new year’s resolutions, but I do like to set a few intentions. They are never about how much I eat or weigh, though the internet sure thinks that’s what I care about. I did set a resolution in 2014 to floss every day, and I have only missed one day since then–on a trip to Jackpot, Nevada with my mom. I am so used to partners packing the toiletries (thanks, PK, E., and N. over the years) that it didn’t even occur to me to pack my own. I remember walking the casino floors as panic set in (there’s nowhere to buy floss in Jackpot, NV after 10pm) interrupting slot players to beg for floss. The looks I got let me know I was going to have to wait until morning, when I ran across the street to the general store and then stood outside their door flossing with relief.

So yeah, I can be a bit compulsive. It means I need to be very careful with my intentions. For 2023 I want to continue my meditation practice, because nothing comes close to meditation for training my anxious self to tolerate anxiety. I want to keep my gratitude journal–corny, I know, but I love it. And I want to ride my bike and cultivate my bike friendships, so I signed up to the century ride for Moveable Feast. The ride is in May, and I’m already training. I could probably ride 100 miles today if my life depended on it, but I want to ride that 100 miles and still want to ride again. That means I have to train. It has been a long time since I had a plan or a goal related to my bike, and I’m excited to be back to that. And I get to be on a team with R. and R., neighbors who are just so freaking cool. If you want to donate to support our fundraiser to bring nutritious meals to people with chronic illnesses experiencing food insecurity, please do so here!

This week’s long ride was 20 miles, and I was apprehensive about being able to do it, especially since it has been so windy. The only way to know if you can do it is to do it, so I headed out on Tuesday afternoon with those miles on my mind, no real plan how to get them in. I headed east toward Lake Montebello, where emergency construction has closed the loop. The loop has been closed at Druid Hill Park for so long I barely remember it, so now there’s nowhere to go to bike mindlessly in a circle. It’s such a drag.

But I did my half circle before heading down the new path to the Herring Run Trail, my favorite place in Baltimore these days. Sure, you have to cross some busy streets, but if you keep your eyeballs straight ahead, you can feel like you are in a bit of wilderness. The loop from my place to the trail and back again is ten miles, but I didn’t want to do it twice, so I decided to bike north and south of the trail near the end, to see what I could see.

And then I crossed Sinclair Lane and ended up zooming around the Orchard Ridge community. The houses are the candy colors and styles I associate with Habitat for Humanity, or the mixed income public housing developments that replaced–displaced?–neighborhoods in New Orleans and Baltimore. Orchard Ridge appears to be neither. And I was so glad to be in a neighborhood I don’t know and had to find out about.

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Red-Gold Tree Near the UMMC Commercial Ambulance Bay

A street with a car and ambulance parked to the right, a walled-off sidewalk to the left. There's a big orange tree at the end of the block on the left. In the background is UMMC Commercial Ambulance parking.

This week was mostly the same ride down and up the hill to my favorite bike racks–the ones just left of the University of Maryland Medical Center Shock Trauma/ER entry doors. I have been parking here for years, and I have my preferred U–one of the two closest to the building, the right side so I can swing my bike around to face out and still have access to my bag on my rear rack. I pull up, grab my spot, lock my bike, take off anything that can be taken off, toss those things in my bag, unzip the back flap of my bag, make it into a backpack, hoist it on, and head east on Lombard to my bus stop at Greene Street.

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Waiting on the Train at St. Claude and Homer Plessy Way

A train stalled on the tracks in the dark.

Ok, so this isn’t what I saw riding my bike around today, but I’ve been in a writing funk that I’m climbing out of, so I’m going to write about some past bike rides as I get back in the habit of biking and writing about it. This picture is from a ride I took back in early November. I was in New Orleans for the American Studies Association annual conference, the first in person since my last trip in November 2019. It was so, so good to be there, to see so many old friends, to be all sweaty and hot in November. I was going for the intellectual community, the colleagues and friends, but if I’m being real, I was going there for the biking.

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Two Bikes Along the Western Maryland Rail Trail

Two bikes on grass against a backdrop of trees with leaves just turning to yellow. There are also remnants of an old stone structure in the background.

So, this is a bit of a late post, but I didn’t want to not write about the glory that is the Western Maryland Rail Trail. The ladyfriend told me to mark out an October weekend on my calendar, she was planning a little surprise getaway. She is so good at the surprise getaway. Like the time she took me to a reenactment of a Civil War era baseball game because I love baseball and Civil War history. Or the time she led me to believe we were going on a hot air balloon ride and then it turned out we were going behind the scenes at QVC. I may be the only soul on the planet who would rather go to QVC than up in a hot air balloon, but the part where she knows that is what makes her getaways so great. I am seen by her, and nothing feels better than recognition.

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Looking Down at My Wet Self After a Bike Ride in the Rain

Looking down at a a bike handlebar and my wet skirt and dirty leg from biking in the rain.

I watch the weather, but what I’m looking for changes with the season. It’s bike riding time, so now the only weather I pay attention to is rain and sometimes wind. I kept hoping the Thursday forecast would change because I had an 8am dentist appointment over in Hamilton, and I didn’t want to ride my bike in the rain during rush hour, especially on busy streets like Walther, Echodale, and Harford Road.

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Cloudy Sky with a Bit of Blue Peeking Through at Lombard & MLK

Lookin up at a cloudy sky with a bit of blue poking through. The left side is framed by trees, the right side by a large building.

My bike riding these days has been mostly commuting to and from work. And then the rain started, and I hate riding my bike in the rain. My brakes don’t work as well, my glasses get so wet I can’t see, and it is just generally unsafe. No such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing, my dad and many others would say, but I gotta be honest–sometimes it is bad weather for biking. And that is what we had for almost a week.

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