Thursday’s ride took me to Charles Village to meet N. for a surprise lunch before heading down to the Horseshoe Casino to invest some spare dollars and then enjoy happy hour while watching college basketball. None of that aligns with any of my political priorities, but fuck it, I’m on vacation and am basically a huge hypocrite. I left, one “cosmopolitan” and two lite beers plus some of Guy Fieri’s “vegas fries” on board, but in spite of all that, since I broke even at the slots and UCLA won a nailbiter, I considered myself a winner. Continue reading
Archival Stacks in the Basement of the UB Learning Commons at Maryland & Mt. Royal
Wednesday’s ride took me down the hill to Mount Vernon for a late lunch and a whole lot of water to fight the headache that doing taxes causes. Don’t get me wrong–I love paying taxes because I love subsidized public goods like roads, transportation, safety nets (even if the stuff I want doesn’t get the money I’d give it), but It doesn’t take much time with those forms to realize that the rich don’t pay taxes at anywhere near the rates middle class people do (think home ownership, car ownership, the money to pay someone to find all the loopholes), and that’s the sort of thing that makes my whole head and neck ache. And that meant every pothole or wrinkle in the road made me feel like someone was stabbing me in the neck with an ice pick. Ouch. Continue reading
Blue Skies and Twiggy Trees at Patterson Park
I’m on spring break, and oh, it is a beautiful thing. Winter was a rough go this year, and it just feels so good to feel sunshine past 7pm, even if as I write this we are under a winter weather advisory for tomorrow. Whatever, Tuesday was beautiful, even with the howling winds. My ride started heading east, because I’m usually heading west. I took the whole lane because fuck, it’s a holiday (but really because that’s the safest way to ride on 33rd Street), and headed toward Clifton Park. Continue reading
Inside a Wall at Ostend & Light
Friday was one of those perfect bike riding days, first up to Roland Park for a therapy appointment and then back down the hill to treat myself to a grilled cheese sandwich and fries before riding up to Federal Hill to meet O. and her mom at her art studio where they were working on a project that is taking a precision and patience that I could never show. I stopped early on Light Street to lock up at a real rack and take a leisurely stroll up the hill. Federal Hill is all bars and restaurants and specialty dog stores and frozen yogurt and vape shoppes, what what is left after gentrification–or urban change, as I’m starting to call it in my head so I don’t jump to conclusions just based on a word–pushes on through. Continue reading
Looking Into the Sun at Maryland & North Avenue
Commuting this week was approximately three zillion times better since I got to ride my bike instead of sit on the bus. The bus is great on those days its snowing or training, but otherwise, wow, I’d rather get places under my own power. Wednesday and Thursdays my way was the old route down to the shuttle, but because I was getting rides home, I took Brompty out. That bike is a whole different feel, sort of like Mary Poppins pedaling song, skirt waving, saying my hellos and good mornings, la dee dah. I snapped this photo on Thursday, looking toward the sun at my red light, so grateful that it comes up like that and that I’m out there to see it. Ding, Ding, Ding, down the hill, around the corner, up, down, and around again, a quick fold and onto the shuttle, such a pleasant way to start the day. Soon I’ll write about something other than how good out feels to be riding, but for now this is all I’ve got, and thank goodness for that.
Snow Plow Attachment Behind the Maryland Science Center at the Inner Harbor
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
View Up the Gwynns Falls Trail From Falls Road
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
Late Afternoon Light at Lake Montebello
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
Mural and Blighted Building at Monument & Howard
Tuesday’s ride downtown to meet the shuttle to work was a chilly one. It was that kind of cold that makes your eyes water and freeze over, the kind that makes the cold of the helmet buckle almost painful against red skin. The good thing about biking, though, is after about ten minutes, you’re all warmed up, and that takes the edge off. It took more like fifteen minutes on this early morning, but it just felt good to be back on the bike and part of the world in that way that is so very specific to being on a bike. Continue reading
Brown Volvo at 23rd & Guilford
It was just too windy to stop riding, get off my bike, and snap a picture on my ride home yesterday. It was that kind of wind where you drop down your gears and still find yourself pedaling–downhill. Whatever the conditions, though, just keep pedaling and you’ll get there–best not be in a hurry. So that’s what I did on my way home yesterday from a Friday in meetings followed by a beer and catching up with N, the first week of another new semester in the books. What did I see? Lots of stuff, but what I really saw was the mix of gaudy architecture with plain stacked concrete on the Westside, and on the way home, that brown Volvo parked about four cars down from 23rd Street on Guilford. Continue reading
What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today 