Tuesday Morning Ride

Another beautiful morning, I intended to get up a little earlier, but there was some sort of communications issue between my brain, my hand, and the alarm clock. But I still managed to get up in time to get out for a while. I rode down through Little Italy, and across President Street towards the Inner Harbor where I spotted this statue in a small park.
After that I got on the bike path around the Inner Harbor and ended up by the Maryland Science Center and caught the carousel there before it started up for the day.
I decided to ride around the promenade back towards home and spotted this pair of Korean Navy ships (I think that is where they were from based on the writing on the stern) taking on provisions.
Kind of odd to see them in this far into the Inner Harbor, we have had visiting navy ships at the Fells Point Pier, but I haven't seen any in this area before. I continued around and the juxtaposition of the USS Constellation and the the two modern warships caught my eye.
Then I continued on around the promenade and headed back to the house to get ready for work.

Monday Morning Around the Neighborhood

Today turned out to be a nice morning, a little cooler and less humid so out around the neighborhood I went. I went north along Collington Avenue and spotted this mural on the side of a rowhouse about 10 blocks up.
Then around Fells Point and back to the house to get ready for work. Today ended up being a much nicer day, so hopefully tomorrow will be more of the same.

Riding the Irongirl Triathalon Bike Course

Today we packed up the bikes and headed down to Columbia to ride the Irongirl Triathalon Bike Course. What a butt-kicker, 1100Feet of climbing in 17.5 miles. But it was a nice (if screaming hot) day out in the countryside.


This, besides beeing a terrible picture, is some sort of kids farm thing, they had a white castle down there, but by the time I got the camera out, held it above my head and snapped a shot, it was mostly out of sight.
And as promised, a picture of the new ass hatchet. It's a Specialized Phenom SL saddle, and todays ride was very promising for it's future on my bike (thankfully, as it cost a fortune).
Now it is an afternoon of catching up on the Tour De France, and if the weather doesn't turn into a massive thuderstorm, grilling pork chops on the deck, fresh from this morning's farmers market.

Saturday on the Surface of the Sun

Today was hot, Africa hot, Tarzan couldn't take this kind of heat. So true to my word (and against my instincts) I got up at 7:00AM to go for a ride. It was already 85 when I left, and we were on our way to 100 (a record) and a heat index of about 110 degrees for the day. I rode around the Inner Harbor to get a feel for how it was going to be, and then rode up Charles Street towards Hopkins. This is the Washington Monument in the middle of Charles Street.
The smaller statue in the foreground is La Fayette. Then I continued up towards Johns Hopkins, and spotted this statue right in front of the campus. I have no idea what it is for, but it makes for a nice little park on the side of a pretty major street.
Then I cut across town to Lake Montebello and did a partial lap there, lots of people jogging (slowly) and walking (slowly) around the lake, but it was a beautiful day there.
After that it was back to the homestead for a shower, breakfast, a nap, then a run to the bike shop for a new saddle for the bike, the current one is just not cutting it. Not really suprising, as it is the stock one, so not the highest quality and design. We are supposed to go tomorrow and ride the bike course for the Irongirl Triathalon in Columbia, a full report on the new saddle should follow.

Friday!!!

Just a quick ride this morning around the 'hood, already hot at 7:00AM. I rode the figure 8 in the park this morning, it was very quiet. Here is the view from the Pagoda, the stage is for the concerts on the weekends that are put on by PNC and the Friends of Patterson Park.
Then I rode down through Harbor East and back through Fells Point, and back to the house for a shower, breakfast then off to work. Tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter, I may violate my normal weekend routine (when I have a normal weekend) and get up early to ride, we shall see.

Another Commute

Today was another good day to ride my bike to work. It still is hot as hell, but no rainy forecast. I took a new route to work, it knocked about a mile and 15 minutes off my normal route. I think the time difference is because of the climbs, today seemed more of a bunch of short sharp climbs, whereas the usual route is more a long continuous uphill slog. At any rate, I went through the west side of Baltimore, and ended up at the far end of Wetheredsville Road.
According to the guys at the shop, this used to be the fast way downtown, but the road has been closed for some time.
Then a full day of work, followed by a scoot on out to the homestead. I doubled back the way I had come this morning to where the Gwynns Falls Trail crosses Franklintown Road, then rejoined the trail towards downtown. When I got to where I was picking up the trail I spotted this.

It appeared to be the starting of football practice, lots of sprints and whistles going on here. But then I continued down the trail to Washington Blvd, and then followed that towards the stadiums and downtown. Today must be another game day, the bars all had beer gardens out in front down by the stadium, lots of orange O's shirts there. I continued on to Pratt Street, where the right lane is for busses and bikes only, I passed about a billion (okay a little exaggeration there) cars who were all stuck in traffic.

After the jaunt through the Inner Harbor, I continued on through Fells Point and back to the homestead for a shower and some dinner, another nice ride for today :).

A nice enough morning today only about 82 or so when I headed out, so I went out for a ride. I did decided to ride out to Fort McHenry today, it's kind of funny, when I first started riding again last August, I thought this was a far-ish ride, now it's one of my morning runs, assuming I get up early enough. I got rained on a little bit, but all in all a great morning very scenic.
Once I got to Fort McHenry, the no bikes sign was still up, and since it was before 8:00AM the rangers were making sure nobody got in (except the porta-potty guy, he arrived just as I got there, the ranger let him in).
This is Silo Point, it used to be a grain elevator, long since abandoned, and they gutted it and turned into high end condos, the views from the top are spectacular (they sent out a mailer to us when they finished it). As I recall the top floors start at about 1.75M per unit.
On the way back I took a different route through Federal Hill and spotted this.
I had never seen it before, I can only assume that there is a church right near by. Then it was home, shower, eat, work.

Ride to Work and run from the storm

I rode to work again today, took my usual route through town. It stormed pretty heavily last night, so I was thinking that it might have knocked the humidity down some. At 7:00AM when I got up it wasn't too bad, but by the time I left at 8:00 it was pretty sticky. But the sun was shining, and I even got some relatively traffic free roads during parts.
That is the last little downhill on Gwynns Falls Parkway before the bomb run down to the park where I hook up with the closed part of Wetheredsville Road here, now part of the Gwynns Falls Trail network.
Then it was another busy day at the office, and the day just flew by. About 5:30PM I noticed the severe weather alert had popped up on my cell phone, a line of strong thunderstorms was headed towards me. I had planned for this, and actually remembered to bring my raincoat, but it makes me hot and sweaty so I was strongly wanting to avoid using it. So at 6PM I was out of there, headed home on the Gwynns Falls Trail. This sign is about a mile into the trail, still on the gravel portion, I can't imagine why the sign is here, there is an intersection between two trails just past it, but I have never seen another cyclist out here.
It didn't get any less sticky during the day, so it was pretty sweaty, but I was much more concerned about this.


Those clouds are a thunderstorm and they were chasing me down the trail, at this point I had reached Carroll Park, and was facing the urban portion of the trail, and pretty much convinced I was going to get soaked. A little further along I passed the local fire station, the guys were out getting in a little preseason football, and the clouds were following me along.
Down the road I noticed that the clouds were also flanking me.
As I got into Federal Hill, the flanking move was complete, and things were looking grim.
But other than a few scattered drops, I made it to the homestead, here is the sky as I pedaled up Mt. Collington.
But I made it into the garage, and I was sure that as soon as I rode into it the rain was going to pour down behind me, the winds picked up and it was looking like a classic late afternoon thundershower.
In the end a very little bit of rain, and the whole thing blew by, so I jumped through the shower (it was really humid and sweaty) and we grilled steaks on the deck for dinner after all. The steaks were huge, and delicious, Kathleen had picked them up at the Farmer's Market this weekend from a local farmer. Sorry no pictures of the steaks though.

Chasing the Rockville Twilight Classic

Kathleen ran in the Rockville Twilight Classic tonight, so I took my bike (as I do) and rode around and took some pictures of her in action. We got there around 7PM so I took the opportunity to visit our old neighborhood, which is right on the other side of the Metro tracks from where the race start was.

It looks just like when we sold it, although the big oak that used to be at the corner of the lot has been removed :(.
But then it was on to the race, this is just after the start, tonights discovery is that the flash on the camera doesn't reach very far, Kathleen is in the picture somewhere.
Here she is a little further along, the field had stretched out at this point, so it was easier to pick her out.
Then to get to the next area to shoot a picture I cut through the park, and stumbled across this skate park, I am pretty sure this is new since we lived there. The skater dudes got all irate about having their picture taken, so I moved on.
This is a little further up the road, and Kathleen making the turn up towards Montgomery College.
Then I looped back around and caught her at the exit of the campus.
Then I motorpaced my way down the open lane on Rockville Pike next to the runners to get to the finish. Here is Kathleen finishing the race.
Then we packed up and headed back up to Baltimore for some eats and bedtime.

Ride to work

Today was a nice day, and as far as I knew I had no commitments outside the office, so I rode my bike to work today. It was hot today, even at 8:00AM when I left, but my ribs are finally feeling better and I did really enjoy my ride. On the way there, I rode through Artscape, the set up was continuing today, tonight is the start of the festival and of course it is hot as the surface of the sun out this weekend. I do find it somewhat annoying, it is put on by the City of Baltimore, yet we, as a company located in the city limits, are frozen out of the bidding for the audio due to politics. Oh well, at any rate here was the scene this morning at Artscape.
It was a bit of a traffic jam with everybody and their brother moving into the vendor tents.
Then it was on to the office, where today worked out to be one of those days, the owner and the accounting ladies were all out of the office, which meant I was wearing about 6 different hats for the day. But I survived the chaos, the broken down vans, and the general hubub to scoot on out the shop at 6:00PM and head for home. I took the Gwynns Falls trail again, it is nice and shady, and since the Weather Channel widget on my phone said it was 95 degrees and about a billion percent humidity out when I left, I figured that it would pay off. The trail was nice and shady and quiet, I find it really relaxing to ride home this way.

When I got down towards Carroll Park, I spotted these guys riding their BMX bikes through a giant puddle, it reminded me of the crap I used to do when I was their age.
I ended up talking with them a little bit, they wanted to know if I had ridden down the trail and why I was taking their picture, so I told them they reminded me of me at their age. After that I followed the trail towards home only to encounter this.
They are re-doing the railroad crossing here, so not really a good route for me, so I doubled back and went around the construction.
As I got down near the stadium, there must be an Orioles game tonight, so there were lots of people in orange and black tailgating before the game.
After this I passed through the Inner Harbor, which was hopping on a Friday night, and through Little Italy to the house. This is the scene at the fire station at the end of our street, I pass several stations on my way, and there are firefighters hanging out in front of all of them, watching the world go by.
Then I headed up Mount Collington to the house, where we finally are getting caught up on our Tour De France watching (Kathleen has been out of town for quite a few days the past two weeks), polished off three stages this evening courtesy of the Tivo and the fast forward, they were all flat stages so we just watched the prerace then fast forwarded to the final 10K or so to watch the bunch sprint finishes.