Tuesday’s bike ride took me to Locust Point, but I took a different route than I usually do. Usually I take Guilford down and up to the Inner Harbor bike/ped path around and up through Federal Hill, but on Tuesday, the very last thing I wanted to do was dodge pedestrians. I took Maryland Avenue down instead, dodging the cars turning on Franklin/40 and merging into one lane on that steep hill at Saratoga. I love taking all the lanes in this part of just-west downtown because there aren’t quite so many cars and besides, it’s just the safest way to travel. Continue reading
Emptying Parking Lot at the Giant at 33rd & Old York Road
It was a fall-chilled sunny and breezy day in Baltimore, a perfect day for a bike ride, but I had so much work to catch up on I had to stay inside and work. Bah. Fortunately my latest project required an evening trip over to Waverly to help R. assemble our carnival-style popcorn machine (don’t ask– come out to the corner of 31st and Greenmount tomorrow to find out), and the last thing I’m going to do for a quick trip under 2 miles is drive a car. I flipped on my front life, strapped on my reflective triangle, and pedaled my way over there. The chill was mild, but I had visceral memories of last winter’s bicycling, and the winter before’s, too, and oh, I love the open streets of winter riding when everybody else seems to be hibernating. We put our machine together, I pet all the cats, and then it was time to head home. I stopped at the grocery store for a thing or two, and snapped this picture of the almost-empty lot, the moon in the far background, the street light lighting up the tree they’ve put here to make it look like something other than a parking lot; it kind of is more than a parking lot–most of us are using it as a through-way from that side of Waverly to this one. I left behind these last couple of cars and zipped home, looking forward to more empty streets and chilly breezes in my immediate future.
Tree Stump on Rutland Between Chase & Eager
Today started with a zippy ride down the hill and to the right to the GLCCB in Mount Vernon to meet up with my fellow tour guides and goers for Baltimore Heritage‘s LGBT history walking tour of the neighborhood. We did our slow walk around the neighborhood, learning about the first gay bars and nightclubs, the first screenings of John Waters’s very queer films, the Friday night lesbian supper clubs of the super-rich in the late 19th century, and Gertrude Stein’s Baltimore homes where she learned to smoke, box, and not wear corsets. It was a perfect way to start a Saturday, made better by the brunch follow up and the post-brunch solo bike ride. Continue reading
Folks Heading to the New Target at Canton Crossing at the East End of Boston Street
It was a beautiful and empty (for me) Thursday, so I took advantage and enjoyed a ride all over town. I started with a pedal down the hill to meet K. for lunch, sitting outside on Charles Street, swapping stories about how dumb we were as undergraduates and why Baltimore is a siren song. She headed back to work and I headed over to my regular route down the hill, a stop at the museum to inquire as to the membership card that hasn’t come in the mail yet (it should be here any day now, they say) and then snaked my way east, just enjoying the free feeling of the wind up my skirt and easy roll of newly-inflated tires. Continue reading
View Up the Block From the Northeast Corner of Charles & Chase
The last thing I felt like doing after a long day of work was riding a bicycle, to be honest, but I had a meeting in Mount Vernon, and it is against my religion to drive a car to that neighborhood–it’s less than two miles away and parking a car there has made me cry more than once, the price I pay for being a sensitive bird when it comes to driving. I swapped out my teaching skirt for my biking skirt, changed my shoes, and felt better the second my wheels started turning. A quick glide down the hill and up again for a quick meeting and I was quickly back on the bike, riding home in the gloaming. I know, dramatic word for 6:30 on a Monday in Baltimore, but the hints of sundown are so pretty, and they feel better from the seat of a bicycle. I snapped this picture as I made my left on Charles because look at that urban layering, the old and new buildings marking time and reminding us that people have been here before, building stuff and hoping people would come. I took a long way home, grateful for the reminder that taking the bike out, even if for just a minute, is always a good idea.
Casino Under Construction From the First Bridge on the Gwynns Falls Trail Behind Ravens Stadium
Last week’s heavy workload and heavier rains conspired to keep me off the bike for far too many days, so I was happy to have an open afternoon and cloudy but dry skies today for a longer ride. I headed up the hill for lunch and some football before heading down the hill to see what the football fans were doing at the stadium–hint: leaving early–and then I dodged traffic cones and wide-turners on my way to the Gwynns Falls Trail. It finally really feels like fall, but the greens are still mostly green and the overgrowth is still overgrown. Continue reading
Scrapyard at O’Donnell & S. Kresson
First, I know it’s unseemly to complain about such beautiful weather, but I am so over this heat. It was almost 90 today! And lest you think that’s a normal temperature and I just forgot last year, it’s almost 20 degrees above the average for this time of year, so shut it. I want it to cool down so I can wear leggings and snuggle under blankets with hot tea and complain about how it’s cold when I start my ride but hot about two minutes later and don’t tell me to layer i just want to complain. Enough. Continue reading
Looking Back Toward Oliver Street From Brentwood Ave.
The great thing about living so close to my very favorite bike shop is that it was just a quick twenty minute walk down the hill to collect my tuned-up bicycle to take it for a ride on this unseasonably hot autumn day. I headed back up the hill, taking Falls Road to a right on Chestnut–I should have gotten into a much easier gear before taking that turn. I pumped my way slowly up to Hampden for lunch and a much-needed session of acupuncture. Continue reading
Close Call at Lanvale & Calvert
I’ve been off the bike for quite a few days, spending them wandering around beautiful (and I do mean beautiful) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with N., checking out museums and historic sites and restaurants and views–a lovely vacation. It isn’t a vacation without at least thinking about bicycles, so here’s my report: I want to ride my bike all over Pittsburgh and its many bike lanes, but I’ll need to be in my granny gear most of the time–that place is seriously hilly. Today, though, I was back on the bike in Baltimore, zipping down the hill and around the harbor and up the other side to meet A. for an early glass of wine before turning around and going back the other way to drop off the Surly for her end-of-summer check up. Continue reading
Smoothie Bicycle at the Baltimore Convention Center
I finished up a week of big projects on Thursday afternoon, leaving me the rest of the day to ride my bike around. I packed everything I figured I’d need through the evening and headed down the hill to the convention center to check out Natural Products Expo East, the largest showcase of natural products on the east coast (Expo West, in Anaheim, is even bigger). I locked up the bike to the bike rack shaped like a bike and headed to the press room where I squatted until they gave me a press pass. And then the expo. When they say “the largest” they mean really flipping huge. It was a giant smorgasboard of samples of things I didn’t know I wanted–potato chips made out of white beans, noodles made out of water and plant cellulose (“Zero points on Weight Watchers!), organic non-GMO gluten-free lube (ok, I made that up), and the list goes on and on and on. Oh, and there was this bicycle that can make smoothies while you pedal–no thanks, I’d rather go somewhere on my wheels. I was there for three hours and maybe saw a tenth of the place. I left with a bike bag filled with all kinds of natural goodies and headed back up the hill, a stop at MICA. For Ignite Baltimore, and then home, glad for a day of peeking behind a curtain I didn’t know existed.
What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today 