Charm City Cross Day 2

Kathleen had homework to do today, but after a quick work thing and some errands, I got out for a ride this afternoon. I headed up to Druid Lake Park again to watch some more Cyclocross racing, and shot some pictures, as well as using my new camera's video function for the first time.  This is right as I rolled up, about 30 minutes into the race, these guys were rounding the hairpin down by Safety City.

This is the leaders coming through.

And the Chasers.

I headed over to the barriers, and caught the leaders rolling through.



Here is the chase



I rolled around to the middle of the track at the U-turn tree, yesterday's pictures don't really convey what goes on here.


I shot that on the last lap, then rode back over to catch the finish, and the winner for the Elite Men's race, Nicolas Bazin of France.

And the top 3 after the finish. Nicolas Bazin, Ian Field of Great Britian (he is the national Cyclocross champion of Great Britian, hence the white jersey with the red and blue stripes), and Flavien Dassonville of France.   The race is a UCI sanctioned race, so it gets a pretty international field for the elite men's and women's races.  The two frenchmen race for Big Mat, which is the Home Depot of France.

After that I headed for home, spotted this nice group of rowhouses in Resevoir Hill.

Got back to the house, through the shower, then watched the Men's UCI Road Race World Championships, which turned out to be a great race, bravo to Phillipe Gilbert for winning it emphatically.

Charm City Cross

Finally a weekend off this weekend, so after sleeping in Kathleen and I set off to Druid Lake Park for the first day of Charm City Cross. On our way up we passed the Baltimore Street Car Museum, these folks are enjoying a ride on their little loop.

We pressed on up the switchbacks to Druid Lake Park, arriving just in time for the Men's Elite race.   This is the first lap and the group is going around the U-turn tree, the ride up dismount and carry around the tree, then back on the bike.

This is a little further around the course, the sand pits will probably get used tomorrow, it's two days long, with different courses each day.

This is still fairly early on in the race, here is the bunch going over the barriers.

We rode over to the other side of the course, this is the stairs section, the come down the hill, u-turn at the bottom then run up the stairs before remounting.

This is a little past that, they come down a hill and through this little ravine.

Over the rise and down to here, you can see the stair section in the background of this.

We watched a little more before heading off for the homestead, here's Kathleen following me home after the stop to pick up a victory coke.

We jumped through the shower, then rode down to Fork and Wrench on Boston Street on the city bikes to get some dinner, before watching the Women's Road Race World Championships.

Another Errands Day

The original plan was to go ride the Twenty 20 coffee shop ride this morning, but there was a (not entirely unexpected) work snafu, so I ended up driving to the shop, then to Timonium, then home.  Once I got home, I showered, then headed out on the townie for some errands.  First stop was The Red Star in Fells Point for Breakfast and the Sunday Baltimore Sun.

Then around the Inner Harbor on the Bike Path, headed for Federal Hill.

A quick stop at Race Pace on Key Highway, then onto the pet store for a case of cat food, and a sparkly toy for Sophie.

Loaded that up in the bag, then headed back around the Inner Harbor, and past the Volleyball courts, which were hopping in the beautiful weather.

On the way back I stopped off at the Whole Foods in Harbor East for some groceries, which filled the other bag, then back to the house. I moved the plants back out onto the back deck from Kathleen's office, the last remnant of the watersealing the deck project from yesterday, then took a nap.

 I woke up hungry, so the Townie came to the rescue again, and I hopped on it to run down to Five Guys for a burger and fries, with a quick stop on the way for the Sunday Washington Post. On the way there I went down Madiera Street which is the half street behind our house. Once upon a time these were the houses that the servants for the large houses in Butchers Hill lived in. Some of them are only 10' wide.

Burger was delicious then it was time to head for home and put away some laundry, and discover that the cat is still sleeping. Oh, and a note on last nights new music experiment, the Arctic Monkeys are awesome, the were our headliners on the first night of the Orion Music and More Festival we did in June, and I have been meaning to buy some of their stuff ever since. This was our stage at Orion, we debuted the new JBL VTX rig there.

Here are the Arctic Monkeys in action that day, the Drummer had an awesome Evel Kenevel suit to go with his Union Jack drum kit.

Errands

Busy day of running around today, Kathleen is in Santa Fe visiting her dad, and so I am attacking projects that I have needed to do but have been flaking on.   First it was off to Timonium to visit a jobsite for the stage install for tomorrows event.   Then back to the house to waterseal the deck.   I was thinking 3 hours, 4 and 1/2 hours and a trip to Home Depot for more waterseal in the middle it was done.   I rewarded myself with a shower then a trip on the townie bike down to Fells Point for dinner.   I headed to the Brick Oven Pizza right on the Broadway square.   Here is the townie waiting outside while I am eating.
 

And here's dinner, a 10" Peperoni pizza, soda, and a copy of the Washington Post.

After dinner I wandered around the corner to The Sound Garden on Thames, I have been wanting some new music for the ipod for a while.  They recently were named the number 2 cd store in the US by Rolling Stone.  I am a big fan of them, and a vip customer (earned by buying more than $100 worth of CD's in one shot).

Spent a little time shopping, and 8 CD's and $95 later I headed back out into traffic to head for home. Traffic is especially heavy tonight, it's the Charm City Music Festival right down the street, we are doing sound for that, but it's not my account so no worries for me (so far). I did hear it all day while waterproofing the deck, love our JBL PAs.

Then back to the house where I am updating this and adding music to my Itunes.

Another Commute

Beautiful day today so I opted to ride to work.  Not much new on the way in but this.

This is what happens when a rehab goes wrong. Put in a full day at work then rode home where the unthinkable happened. I got a puncture that was too much for the sealant, as a result I was forced to put my emergency tube in and continue on. First time that has happened since I switched to tubeless. Like a moron, I didn't take any pictures of this part. But I did make it home without any further drama.

Little Fluffy Clouds

We had a big line of thunderstorms blow through yesterday, and as a result today turned out gorgeous.  About 80 degrees and low humidity, so I went out for a ride to celebrate the nice weather.  There were little fluffy clouds all over the sky, which of course brought this song to mind.

And as a result it ran over and over in my head for the next 24 miles.  But it was very appropriate for the day, it was nice to get out and wander for a couple of hours.   I headed out Boston Street then through Dundalk to the Penisula Expressway.   Here is the view as I headed out towards Edgewater.

At the end of the Expressway is Sparrows Point Steel Mill.  The mill has fallen on hard times, after a succession of owners they are trying to sell it again.   Once upon a time 27000 people worked here, and the first new ship that my dad captained was built stem to stern here, including all the fittings.  The shipyard has been closed for a long time, but they would like to keep the blast furnace running while they find a new owner, if they have to shut the furnace down, as I understand it, it's ruined. From the access road around the point you can see the Key Bridge which was probably built with steel from the mill.

This is one of the big buildings in the plant complex, it's absolutely enormous, I have no idea what it does.

Then it was back to the house and take a shower, but the day wasn't done, it was time to go grocery shopping while Kathleen continues doing homework. I saddled up my Linus bike with the bags and off to the whole foods I went.

The Whole Foods is about 1.2 miles away and almost totally flat, so an easy spin for my legs. I did the shopping and loaded up the bags.

Then headed back towards the homestead.

On the way home I spotted these groovy vespas outside of Kislings Pub.

Once I got home I have to lean the bike against the garage to park it, the weight of the groceries is too much for the kickstand.

Now I believe I will be washing the car, having got the laundry started.

Race Weekend

The Baltimore Grand Prix is this weekend, so downtown is a bit of a mess right now, but despite that and a temperature of 94 degrees and about a bazillion percent humidity, I went out for a ride today.  I slid around the race on the Promenade at the Inner Harbor, then went out to Carroll Park where I spotted this mural.

Then it was around the west side of Baltimore where I spotted this one, very community pride-ish.

After that it was around the other side of the race course and back to the house for a shower and some dinner with Kathleen.