Thursday’s ride was a lazy one, up to Druid Hill Park for a few laps around the reservoir. Sometimes I just need a break from the constant car battle to just pedal and pedal, around and around, without all that thinking about how not to get hit by cars. I did a few laps and then headed up the trail toward the zoo and the rest of the trail. This park sits right between Hampden and Mondawmin, and those two neighborhoods are so, so different. Hampden is predominantly white, and has been since its mill days when the hiring rules were native-born whites only. Mondawmin, on the other hand, is predominantly African American, home to Douglass High School, which turned out graduates like Thurgood Marshall back when it was the segregated high school for Black students on the west side. Now it’s got its share of struggles, thanks in part to the way when white folks are asked to share, they just take all the balls and go home. Continue reading
View From the Bridge at the Northern End of the Grist Mill Trail in Patapsco Valley State Park
Last Wednesday’s ride was another longer one, up to campus for a mid-morning meeting, and then back to Patapsco Valley State Park, this time to find a trail inside the park, unlike Monday’s ride. A teensy bit of advanced planning can do wonders, but that’s not a lesson I seem able to learn. I also failed to learn the lesson that the GPS is not always right, so my ride out of campus led me, for a disturbingly long time, out on the shoulder of I195. It’s UMBC Boulevard for a hot minute, and then there’s allegedly a way to stay on that street and then take a ramp up to Selford. I’ve seen our cross country team coming back from this direction, so I’m sure that’s possible, but I couldn’t figure it out. Continue reading
View Up Trolley Line #9 Near Oella & Frederick
Monday’s ride started out early, meeting B. for the commute to work. Wow, the miles go faster with a friend–I’m making a note of that. B. has done several cross country bike rides, and I asked him my big question: how do you eat enough to sustain day after day of 60-100 miles on the bike? His answer: Waffle House. Continue reading
View From the Bond Street Wharf Off Thames & Bond in Fells Point
Sunday’s ride started with a quick pedal over to R.’s house for a walk around the neighborhood and much needed catch-up time and a discussion of our various mid-life crises. And then it was time to get back on the bike and fly down the hill to meet N. at the Inner Harbor for people watching and a sandwich. I flew down there in about 15 minutes, because that’s what it’s like to ride a bike on a Sunday through a city with a dead downtown. We grabbed sandwiches, watched tourists wander by–those selfie sticks are way more popular than I thought they were, and I’m totally making team t-shirts next time I travel with a group–and then rode over to Fells Point for overpriced gelato and a walk to a shady spot where we could look at the water. I snapped this picture as we lolled about with the rest of the city and was grateful for a day of rest. And then we pedaled back up the hill, sweaty messes when we finally got home, cold seltzers cutting right through it. A weekend out of the dictionary entry for “weekend,” I tell you.
Lake at Gwynn Oak Park at Gwynn Oak and Gwyndale Avenues
I’ve been back in Baltimore for a week, and it has been a lovely week riding my bike around town again. Monday’s ride took me up to school and back and had me wishing, again, that there was a bike lane on Wilkens Avenue. Googlemaps shows this as a regularly traveled bike route, and that’s true–it is–but only because it’s the only way to travel from the city to that part of the county, not because the infrastructure or road speeds make that a pleasant way to cycle. Continue reading
Brompty at Lake Pontchartrain
Thursday’s ride took me out Esplanade in the new-to-me bike lane that took the place of a second lane of car traffic. I’m sure there were some angry drivers, but for me it was magical. This used to be such a rocky ride, but on this day I just flew, and it was perfect.
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Old Road Signs on the Levee Near the Huey P. Long Bridge
I’m back in New Orleans for a short visit, and I brought Brompty along for the ride so we could ride together. On Wednesday, we started from Treme heading Uptown for lunch with L. I stopped in the CBD for coffee and to marvel at all the coffee shops in that neighborhood now. The CBD used to be a dead zone, all boarded-up bathhouses and promises, but now it’s got a fancy grocery store, fancy restaurants, and I can’t believe that happened in the last four years. I continued my ride up Baronne–I’ve made this particular ride hundreds times, and I couldn’t stop smiling from being back. The cow statue was gone but the fork was still in the intersection of MLK. The cab graveyard was gone, those roofs are still falling in on those houses where folks were still sitting outside and saying how you doin’? I took the twists and turns, used my outside voice to remind cars I was there, crossed through the construction on St. Charles. I passed those steps that are all that’s left of that house, the garden at that charter school, the mansions with their porches and outdoor ceiling fans, a different world from the Central City decay a mile or two earlier. I ate a seriously good sandwich and L. and I caught up the last 5 years– we’re both doing great–and then I headed up to the levee.
It’s perfectly flat here, except for a couple of rises that used to be the biggest hills in New Orleans. I just pedaled, smile so big, checking out the river traffic and construction and wondering what’s puffing out of that factory on the other side. I saw egrets and herons and dragonflies, got a face full of gnats, and snapped this picture of old street signs unceremoniously dumped here. So much trash hidden amidst this green out here. I made it to the Huey P. long bridge, wondered what they’ve done with the picnic table that used to be there, and then headed back to meet A. for iced tea.
The ride back downtown took me down Freret–whoa that is all new– and up to Claiborne and back down to LaSalle by way of what used to be the Magnolia hosting projects but now looks like what it looks like where Flag House Courts used to be in Baltimore. LaSalle turned into Simon Bolivar, Chicken Mart’s still there, Planter’s Peanut Park doesn’t say anything about Planter’s anymore, but it’s still shaped like a peanut. I crossed MLK, zipped under the freeway, and was back downtown in yet another bike lane that connected to another bike lane, and then I was on the hunt for the Lafitte Greenway. I turned around on the hard rumblings of thunder and called it a day, time to fold up Brompty and order a drink at that fancy bar across for Louis Armstrong Park. Greatest day in the history of the world.
Lee & Jackson Monument at Wyman Park Drive & Art Museum Drive
Thursday’s ride took me up the hill to place a large order at Popeye’s and then down the hill, over, and up again to Druid Hill Park to do a bunch of laps as I try to get used to clipping in again. I got out of the habit, and now I’m scared of it. I used to clip in every day, even just for a quick two mile ride to Tulane. I taught in my bike shoes and hopped back on the bike to ride around town afterward. They were normal–now they’re not. I’d like to make them normal again, at least in time to pull myself up and over and through the Adirondacks at the end of July. That’s what was on my mind as I did my laps, getting more and more and then less and then more comfortable with my spds. Continue reading
View From a Pedestrian Bridge on the Gwynns Falls Trail Just South of Wilkens Avenue
I got up early on Wednesday to ride my bike to campus so I could get there early enough for a thing that, if I’d read my email, I’d have known wasn’t actually happening. Oh well. It was a nice ride in the still-cool morning air–what counts as “cool” is different in the heat of summer, I’ll admit. I zipped down the same streets I take for my regular commute until I took a left on Washington and rode through Pigtown to Carroll Park to hop on the Gwynns Falls Trail. There’s a golf course here, one of several public ones in the city, reminding me that yes, there are people who play golf. Continue reading
Industrial Pool on S. Haven Street Between Boston & O’Donnell
Tuesday was my birthday, and I spent it as I’ve spent most of the last 8 birthdays or so–riding my bike around. In New Orleans, I would try to follow the same route from year to year, a chance to check on what, if anything, had changed in the year since I’d last notched one. One thing they all had in common was the sweat, so much sweat. Summer in New Orleans is oppressive, like trying to breathe in swamp water. Continue reading
What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today 