Nonsense: Spring Unleashed

Today is the day that will go down in my personal history as the day that I took my first real road ride of 2008. I am not sure whether it was the comfortable Spring-like temperatures, the blossoming cherry blossoms, or the distant lapping of the Chesapeake Bay against the concrete of the Inner Harbor that drove me out of the house in Halethorpe, but ride I did.

To get to the beautiful city of B-more, I retraced the Hoppy Holidays route from way back in December of 2007. My pre-determined goal was Fort McHenry and the path that I took zigzagged from Halethorpe to Arbutus, past Carroll Park, through ancient and bombed out railroad yards, and up Federal Hill. The April wind whipped around children shooting hoops in city parks, drunks ranted and stumbled out of neighborhood bars after happy hour, cherry blossoms lingered in the air before dashing to the pavement before my tires, and I...I pedaled.

The day was beautiful and I kept the cadence light. I did not make it to Fort McHenry before it closed at 5 p.m., so I double backed to the Inner Harbor and cruised its bricked pathway. A black man who was dressed as a sailor stopped me to ask about my bike. As we talked about commuting into and out of Baltimore, he diagnosed a problem with my front hub. For a sailor, he seemed to know a lot about bicycles.

The sky turned its dial to dusk as I shook hands with the sailor, and I knew that it was time to do the Halethorpe hustle. I was 15 miles into the ride and my legs were already dead tired. The six miles of slow grinding hills back to the house did not help my fatigued legs, but I knew that the good burn would pay off later.

The Inner Harbor.
Photograph by Chuck Bolte.

P.S. The Colorado rough draft should be finished soon!