Cobbles

Today turned out to be a nice day, Kathleen and I rode the city bikes down to the opening day of the 2013 farmers market season, and perused the wares on offer, a bit sparse since a week and a half ago it snowed here.   Then back to the house for some breakfast before Kathleen headed out to the office to do homework.   I fiddle-farted around the house for a while, then went out for a quick ride around the the harbor.   Today was Paris-Roubaix, one of the cobbled classic bike races from Europe, so in honor of that I went and found some of our local cobbles.   To give you an idea of what the race is like, here is a commercial Specialized did featuring scenes from last year's race with the eventual winner Tom Boonen.  I always have liked this commercial, I can totally identify with the kid.

But the reality is that it is one of the toughest races of the year, 28 secteurs of cobbles, and they are brutal.

At any rate, I made it through the teeming throngs of the Inner Harbor, then riding up Light Street in Federal Hill I spotted this.

I am pretty sure that somehow the bus driver will get blamed for the cab door getting opened into his wheelwell.  Then I ventured further around in search of the Phillips Seafood Crab tower.   Not much to see in the daytime.

This is one of those things that bums me out a little, the Phillips Crab thing was one of my signs that I was almost home, it's just before the entrance to the Fort McHenry Tunnel, so when I am coming home late at night, it means about 10 minutes to home.   What it used to do, is the can would open, and a crab would come out and go up the tower, then down the other side back into a can, all in neon.   I was hoping to find a video of it, but no luck.   At any rate, it's been broken for about a year now, I suspect that it will never do it's thing again.   Moving on, I went out to Fort McHenry and swung a loop through the parking lot before heading back, around through the Under Armor complex, and back up Key Highway towards the Inner Harbor.   The sun was shining, and the volleyball courts were hopping.

Then it was cobbles time, here is the first batch I encountered, this is going from Key Highway down to the promenade around the Inner Harbor next to the Maryland Science Center.

Then around the harbor towards Fells Point again, here are some of the cobbles at the end of Thames Street.

Here is an arty shot with the bike and the cobbles on Wolfe Street just around the corner, totally different style of cobbles.

After having my fillings rattled loose going 12 mph over the cobbles (the pros in Paris Roubaix do it at 25-30 mph) I headed for home.  On my way to Canton Market for a soda I spotted this parked on Boston Street, it appears to be the baddest Euro motorhome ever, and they are on some sort of adventures of the Americas, the map on the side had them going all over north and south America.  It caught my eye because of the bike on the side.

Then I stopped in at the market, got a soda, then it was homeward bound.