Commutus Interuptus

Yesterday's ride home was brought to an abrupt halt by a staple in the road - to add insult to injury I had neglected to return my tire levers to my bag after using them on a rebuild for a friend that I finally finished last night. Luckily my dad was home and came to the rescue.
Soundtrack for the week - various tracks of the Clash's 1980 release Sandinista - especially "Ivan meets G.I. Joe.

14 - Tuesday's Shortest Distance Commute
22 - Thursday's Commute out and back the longer way
1377 - YTD

Another Boordy/Jericho Saturday

Kelly, Lindsay, and I once again met up at Hydes Road Park for the Boordy/Jericho Loop - this time an earlier start and a less muggy day made for slightly cooler ride.
This time around we made a brief detour to climb the short hill to the top of Rocks State Park - only a half mile long, but a 15% grade - which was a brutal out of the saddle climb...

Roadside Attractions - the foreleg of a deer, a turkey vulture, and a queen sized boxspring.

50+ Miles
1341 YTD

Friday's Commute

The usual ride in and the longer way home retracing the morning route.

Soundtrack - Wild Life from the Talking Heads 1986 album/film True Stories

22 miles
1290 YTD

Wednesday's Commute

Not much to report - the usual ride to and fro

Soundtrack - the theme from Candid Camera - where does this stuff come from? I think I may have passed someone wearing a Price is Right t-shirt - and somehow my brain took me to Candid Camera... the link above is to the wiki page as usual - I had no idea that started as a radio show called Candid Microphone.

17.7 miles
1268 YTD

Beating the heat

or trying to beat it...

awoke early and took a quick ride down Walther blvd. and 5 laps around the lake before driving in to work - hopefully this heat will let up soon.

Soundtrack - Beach Boys 1965 #1 - Help Me, Rhonda

Wildlife - Two enormous Sheepdogs walking a small woman dressed head to toe in hot pink.

14 miles
1251 YTD

Lindsay & Kelly made the paper

Below is an excerpt from this morning's Baltimore Sun article on the Tour Dem Parks ride:

Lindsay MacCuaig took up bike riding about a month ago, at the encouragement of her girlfriend, Kelly Walker. They rode 55 miles Saturday in and around Oregon Ridge Park in Baltimore County, and when MacCuaig woke up yesterday she was still feeling the effects of that grueling ride in the heat. Still, she had agreed to yesterday's ride and was out on her bike early again.

"If you want to ride, you have to deal with the weather," she said. "I'm one of those psycho people who goes running in the dead of the summer."

MacCuaig and Walker not only rode the 40-mile route yesterday but rode in 12 miles from their home in Hamilton - and would have to ride the 12 miles back home in the afternoon. Still, they were smiling as they rested in Carroll Park, lying out among the dozens of bicycles scattered in the grass.

They didn't plan to rest long. Later in the afternoon, when it got a little cooler, they were planning to do 20 miles of inline skating around Lake Montebello to prepare to skate 87 miles at a fall event from Athens, Ga., to Atlanta.

The full article can be found HERE

Tour Dem Parks

Today Kelly, Lindsay, and myself were joined by Steve for a ride around Baltimore city to celebrate the parks and raise money for the various non-profits whose work support, restore, use, and advocate for the city's parks. Kelly, Lindsay, and I started out from home and rode to the start of the ride in Carrol Park. It was great fun to ride through the city at 7 in the morning - so quiet and virtually no traffic. After a very peaceful journey we were pleasantly surprise to discover a large crowd had gathered in the park to participate in the event. We quickly found Steve and got signed in...

The ride included 4 routes - 20, 30, 40 and 60 mile options - the three longer options mostly paralleled each other, but at times it was more than a little confusing keeping track of the cue sheets and markings on the road. We headed from the park towards the stadiums and immediately missed our first spur down to Middle Branch Park. Once we passed the stadiums we headed up Federal Hill and then down around the inner harbor - it was here that we had the first of several interactions with a running event that was also happening around the harbor. For the next few miles we either paralleled or criss crossed the running route - which was more than a little clumsy. Thankfully when we reached Canton we headed away from the water and the runners. Our first rest stop was at Patterson Park at the Pagoda providing us with a nice view out to the marine terminals and beyond. A history of the Pagoda is HERE and a nice article about the 2002 renovation is HERE. After the rest stop we headed up Washington Blvd. past Hopkins Hospital - then at Gay Street, Kelly and I realized the we were going right by the 1887 American Brewery building and decided we had to take a detour to show it to Steve and see how the renovations were going. A little bit of info can be found at Urban Atrophy. From here we headed up past the old Clifton Park Valve House. Then past Clifton Mansion - the former Hopkins estate.

From here we passed through Clifton Park golf course, Herring Run Park, Lake Montebello, the old Memorial Stadium site, Sherwood Gardens, San Marten Drive, Druid Hill Park, Jones Falls Trail, and eventually to the Gwynns Falls Trail which led us back to Carrol Park.

In Carrol Park we joined in on the post-ride BBQ and hung out a chatted for a while with other riders. We met the guy behind Baltimore Spokes - also known as Human Car and chatted about recent successes at the city and state level for better access and facilities for cycling.

All and all it was a grand day out.

50 miles total for the day
1237 miles YTD