by

A Farm About 88 miles from Ocean City, Maryland

image

Today I rode my first century, and here are some things I saw: fields and fields and fields of golden flowers; rows of just-sprouted somethings; horses playing chase with each other; chicken houses; two miniature ponies in a field that wasn’t miniature at all; swamps and marshes; purple flowers; patches of irises that I wanted to gather for my mom for mother’s day; piles of food and happy faces every 20 miles or so; a dead snake and a dead possum with his mouth open, blood still staining the road; and so, so so, many fields and farms like this one and others with waving greens. Oh, and a whole bunch of bicyclists. I saw a zillion other things too, but mostly I saw all of us kick out our miles, and even in those last 7 miles of driving rain, I was pretty much a happy clam. I could spin all day every day, so beautiful it is. We shall see how I feel tomorrow, but tonight I feel warm all over, tired and a bit addled, and altogether satisfied. Huzzah!

by

Pratt Branch Library at 20th & N. Wolfe

image

I woke up early this morning, packed my bags, and hopped on the Surly for the short ride to the Moveable Feast headquarters over on North Milton in East Baltimore to load up for our ride to Ocean City for our ride back home. I followed my googleymap directions for the fastest route, left on 25th, continue onto N. Wolfe, a left on Ashland, another left Milton. My ride took me through neighborhoods that today all looked the same–boarded up rowhouses between others with open doors and filled stoops, few trees, plenty of cars, folks selling snacks and water and car washes, and this Clifton branch of the Pratt Library that looked closed without the side decorations of trees and flowers, and then Johns Hopkins and their East Baltimore developments. I dropped my bike and walked the mile and a half to the bus pick up stop–those who know me will be unsurprised to hear I was over an hour early. It will be a different ride tomorrow, but this is the home I’ll come home to, and I like it.

by

Chase House at Chase & Cathedral

Apartment Building at Chase & CathedralToday was spent mostly just getting my bike ready for the weekend. I put on my skirt that’s already covered in paint and grease, my painting tank top, and my heels just for the heck of it, and brought all my cleaning and lubing and tube changing supplies to the porch. I spent the next hour or so in the sunshine, slowly and methodically wiping down top tube/down tube/stays/stem and brushing the chain and changing both tires and dropping new lube between each chain and then rubbing all of it off. When I’m working on the bike I’m only thinking about the bike, and it is just terrifically relaxing. Continue reading →

by

Trash, Geese, and Goslings on a Pier on the Gwynns Falls Trail Near Broening Park

Trash, Geese, and Goslings on a Pier on the Gwynns Falls Trail Near Broening ParkThe weather report promised rain all week, including all day today, threatening to wash out R.’s birthday bike ride. But then it was just kind of gray in the morning, and then the sun came out, so what the hell, we said, let’s through caution to the wind and ride our bikes, predictions be damned! We are risk takers, what. After loading up on carbs at the local coffee shoppe, we headed down the hill and around the stadiums to the start of the Gwynns Falls Trail behind BARCS for another ride around the harbor. Continue reading →

by

View From a Pier Along the Gwynns Falls Trail Near Harbor Hospital

View From a Pier Along the Gwynns Falls Trail Near Harbor HospitalToday’s ride started early early, up with the sun in anticipation for the short ride to Waverly to meet J., C., and our new beehive! I spent a goodly portion of my childhood wanting to be a beekeeper, so when they asked if I wanted to go in on a hive together, well, that was a no brainer. We spent an hour and a half moving the combs from the home hive to our new one and then staring at the hive, wondering if the bees were ok, if the bees that were in the box would find their way home to the new hive, if there was a queen in there even though we didn’t see her, and just generally being excited about the appearance of bees on the scene. Continue reading →

by

Property For Sale on Bank Street Near Caroline

image

Today’s ride started at the bike shop for a new helmet, and oh my, what a pleasure it is to have a local bike shop. I tried on some lids and had a completely lovely chat about helmet philosophies and training diets (she prefers the ice cream program over my pizza plan) before setting off for a roll down the hill. I meant to go to the Kinetic Sculpture Race, a most wondrous festival of giant floats on bicycles, racing, but in spite of the obvious pleasure of that sort of event for a person like me, I just wasn’t in the mood for crowds. Instead, I biked down through Little Italy and up Bank Street toward Patterson Park. I snapped this picture of an empty and overgrown lot for sale just before Caroline. The part where this spot can exist mere blocks from the hyperdeveloped areas of Harbor East and Fells Point blows my mind, as a newcomer to the city, anyway. I didn’t live here when they decided to build so much public housing downtown, when all the rich people were taking the new highways to the booming suburbs. I live in Baltimore now, when there’s a reversal, and downtown is being developed as live-work-tourism space. I wonder what the city will do with areas like this, Perkins Homes, as the real estate becomes more valuable. For now, this spot is offered by Fells Point Realty, perhaps a sign that that neighborhood’s creeping north. The way things look now, I will be here to watch those developments. The rest of my ride was all a marvel at wispy clouds, ridiculous blue skies, brilliant greens, and a traffic jam of bikes on the Fallswat heading home. Yep, spring is here. Lucky, lucky us.

by

Tree Growing Out of a Building on Tyson Near Mulberry

Tree Growing Out of a Building on Tyson Near MulberryThe unthinkable has happened: I’ve misplaced my bike helmet. Now, I know there’s controversy about whether or not bike helmets really help, and I also know that in some of the most common accidents, a bike helmet will do little to keep me safe, but I also know that I feel naked without one. I am somewhat skeptical of the helmet’s ability to keep my egg uncracked in the case of a serious crash, but I also know that I always wear one, I don’t think they make things worse, and if, god forbid, I should ever be seriously hurt or killed when riding a bike, the last think I want E. to have to do is shake her head when asked the inevitable question, “Was she wearing a helmet?” Continue reading →

by

View From a Footbridge Near Ashbourne & June in Arbutus

View From a Footbridge Near Ashbourne & June in ArbutusI had to come into campus for a full day of meetings and things today–a total bummer given that the sun was going to come out after several days of rain and I was feeling a bicycle ride. Solution: multimodal commute with the Brompty, and that’s what I did, flying down the hill to catch the 9:25 train to the Halethorpe station, not even 3 miles from campus. Continue reading →

by

Train Tracks Along Some Part of the NCR Trail

Scene From Somewhere on the NCR TrailI got up super early today, choked down some coffee and oatmeal, and went outside to meet A. for a drive out to the beginning of the NCR Trail in Hunt Valley and the mission to ride the whole thing, up to York, PA. That’s 80 miles, and I was kind of terrified that I wouldn’t be able to do it. Long story short, I did, and along the way I saw a river, flowering trees against green backdrops, a zillion other cyclists, far fewer dogs than expected, and I crossed the Mason-Dixon Line and rode into Pennsylvania where I saw the green turn into the industrial wasteland that is every city everywhere, it seems. Continue reading →

by

Share the Path Blaze on the Inner Harbor Path In Front of the Aquarium

image

Today was positively beautiful and just right for a long bike ride, but I spent most of the day inside, helping judge for Maryland History Day before falling asleep for a once-in-a-blue-moon afternoon nap, which clearly I needed. Fortunately, the days just keep on getting longer, so there was still plenty of time to sneak in a ride, which I did, down the hill to Harbor East to pick up a pair of padded bike shorts. Yep, it is time, methinks, to acknowledge that tomorrow’s 80 mile training ride just might be better made in gear rather than the ol’ skirt and a tank top get up I’m used to. And then I was riding around the Inner Harbor toward Federal Hill to A.’s house for a party. Good weather means a whole lot more people using the shared path, and pedestrians seem largely oblivious to the idea that bikes might be there too. I used my super-outside voice to gently encourage groups to make way for ducklings, but to no avail. The same problem plagued my ride back, even as the crowd had largely dispersed. I stopped to snap this picture of one attempt at a solution–a reminder painted on the road to encourage sharing. These were put there by Bike Blaze Guy who takes matters into his own hands when it comes to marking our trails for ease and safety. I have seen him at work–he doesn’t appear to ask for permission, but instead just dresses the part with his safety vests, brings his safety cones, and goes to work. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Here’s hoping some pedestrians look alive, or it is going to be an awfully long summer.