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.

Monday

Today I got out in the morning, bolstered by yesterday's success. I went for a quick spin around Canton before work, enjoying the slightly cooler temps. In my travels, I passed through O'Donnell Square, usually in the evenings it is packed with 20 somethings who are bar/restaurant hopping the square, there are probably a dozen restaurant/bars there. But this morning just a few dog walkers, much more peaceful.
Then around the neighborhood back to the house, but on the way I spotted this house, I have been meaning to get pictures of it for a while, but today I remembered.

The house is a crazy parallelogram and is getting a full rehab, I am not sure why the art on the sides, but I like it.

Finally

It has been a long couple of weeks, I last rode almost two weeks ago, since then I have been heavily wrapped up in the 4th of July concert at the Washington Monument for the National Park Service. While doing that, I managed to bruise/fracture (hard to say which since I never went to the doctor) my ribs. As a result, despite some nice (and not so nice) weather since then, I haven't been out at all. But today that all changed, it would have been yesterday but it was rainy and as much as I enjoy riding the bike, I don't really enjoy riding in the rain. At any rate, I went out today to see how my ribs would handle the ride, and for the most part it was fine, although climbing out of the saddle hurt. I rode around the inner harbor, then out into the Catonsville/Glen Burnie area. It was a bit hot, but all in all a nice ride. Here is the road going out into Glen Burnie, relatively quiet and totally exposed.
This is the same river I took a picture of in January, quite a change since then, today I passed it going the other direction from that time, but still very scenic.
A little further on headed back towards home I caught this view from Brooklyn of the working part of the harbor, the cruise ship was in today.
I followed another portion of the Gwynns Falls Trail from Brooklyn over towards downtown, and I am happy to report that it is just as poorly marked there as it is elsewhere. After losing it for a while I managed to re-acquire it, and right where I picked it up again there was a gas station with a mini-market, so I stopped for a soda break.
Then it was on down the trail towards the Inner Harbor. Right as I got into Federal Hill I managed to get a flat, stupid piece of glass, so I spent some quality time on the side of the road changing tubes. By the way, that is my new Louis Garneau jersey, very comfy on these hot days.
After successfully getting my tube swapped and re-inflating it, I continued on towards the homestead. As I went along Light Street there was a World Cup party of some sort going on, they had all sorts of inflatable kids stuff including this groovy soccer field.
As well as a big screen for the game and lots of other stuff, I have no idea what it was all about, but it looked like fun.
Then it was back to the house to clean up, and go to the bike shop looking for a Look Pedal tool to disassemble my pedal and grease it. Unfortunately I haven't had any luck on that front, but I remain hopeful that I can locate one.