Wheel cool in Baltimore: who we met on Bike to Work Day

by FERN SHEN

Here are some of the folks we met Friday morning at War Memorial Plaza where there was a big meet-up with speeches, etc. for Baltimore Bike to Work Day 2010.

(We’d have their pictures for you, if only our shmancy-fancy camera lens hadn’t gone haywire, causing dozens of great shots not to save to the disc. Waah. Please send us any you happen to have, Brew readers!)

A family
Louis and Mary Triandafilou and their daughter Elaine biked over from where they live in Federal Hill and enjoyed the view on a crsp may morning. “The harbor was beautiful,” Mary said. After the ceremony, they each were heading to their jobs around town. Louis, a bridge engineer, was going to go over to the Federal Highway Admininstration (FHWA) office at the Crescent Building on Howard Street. Mary was off to the Cherry Hill branch of the Pratt Library, where she was working that day. And Elaine was going to her job at 180s (the behind the head earwarmers company.)

Living downtown as they do, they said, biking to work was not unusual for them. Said Louis: “It’s great exercise.”

Co-workers

Two other Federal Hill bikers were Maryland Department of the Environment engineer Eric Bielby and Stephen Walker, an MDE administrative assistant. They planned to continue on, after the brief speechifying, to the department’s offices at Montgomery Park.

Bielby said he bikes to work four days a week and changes at the gym in his building, where he keeps a change of clothes in a locker. Walker said he doesn’t do the whole change-of-clothes-in-the-locker thing.
“I don’t perspire so much. At firs,t omigod, i had to bring a change of clothes i was dripping,” then he got more used to the ride and found a less hilly route, he said. Bielby was skeptical: Wait ’til August!”

A biker from Brooklyn

Dennis Lamont came in on his own, from Brooklyn, where he lives and works for the Anne Arundel County health department. He said he started biking mostly for his health.

“I got into it four years ago with a crappy bike from Wal-Mart and now I have a good one. It’s worth about $450,” he said. “It kind of gets me to have a bike that costs more than my first car did, but it really makes a difference.”

Lamont, who cycles the short distance to his work when he can, has biked downtown a few times and only has one spot he dreads on his ride.

“The Hanover Street bridge scares the hell out of me,” he said. “So I get on the sidewalk.”

New friends

Alonzo D. Lamont Jr. and Charlie Murphy struck up a conversation because they both were riding those small fold-up commuter-friendly bikes. Lamont commutes from Forest Park to his job at Hopkins’ Welch Medical Library in East Baltimore and Murphy gets on a MARC train at Camden station.

They compared routes, raved about the Gwynn’s Falls Trail and the various spots around twon where street parking spaces for cars aren’t necessary and they could be elimnated, making life better for cyclists who wouldn’t have to worry about slamming into an opened car door.

“You don’t really need cars to be able to park inside Druid Hill Park,” Lamont siad. “They could park on the edge and walk in.”
“I feel safer in the road than closer in near the cars,” Murphy said.

Then they got on the topic of county-vs.-city. Lamont observed: “I feel much safer in the city than the county.”

They didn’t notice it, but a woman near them overheard that and concurred: “absolutely, give me the city any day. Much less hostility.”

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Baltimore area cyclists, go and be with your tribe.

Friday is one day you won’t feel lonely out on the roads because it will be “Bike to Work Day.” If you’re a first timer with  bike commuting, this will be a good day to give it a try . . . . definitely safety in numbers.

There are many, many activities planned around the region: convoys, rallies, free safety checks, food, tee shirts and freebies galore.

(In downtown Baltimore, for instance, there’s a rally planned from  7 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. at War Memorial Plaza, 100 North Holliday Street.)

Registration has doubled since April and now 1,175-plus riders in the Baltimore region have signed up, according to an email just sent out by Stephanie Yanovitz, of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council.   (All riders who attend a local rally will receive a free t-shirt, a Bicycle Commuter Guide for Employees and Employers, and be entered to win prizes – including a folding bike. Registration closes tomorrow, Thursday, at noon.)

Many other events require you to sign up beforehand so check ’em out soon. And peek at some of the  useful/interesting reading we’ve packed into this little bikers’ bento box.

1. Baltimore Metropolitan Council:  This is your main web portal to events taking place around the region.
http://www.baltometro.org/commuter-options/bike-to-work-day

2. Bike Commuting and Living To Tell About It: A view-from-the-street piece by Wired writer Cliff Kuang, a New York bike commuter for more than a decade.

3. Ride Your Bike to Work! An essay about bike commuting in Baltimore by Justin Schaberg on Open Society’s “Audacious Ideas” blog. It sparked a lot of interesting comments.

4. Bike Jam Festival: A big bike event at Patterson Park on Sunday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.. It will include professional riders racing, beer, food, things for kids to do.

5. Bike Snob! It’s a blog , it’s a book, it’s very New York. Actually pokes (affectionate, I think) fun at bike culture.

6. Cautionary tales: It ain’t exactly Burlington, Vermont out there folks. Biking around the Baltimore-Washington area can be dangerous, as this recent item from the DC-based blog WashCycle reminds us. If you’re wondering what’s going on in the debate over bike safety in D.C., it’s just as heated as it is here. Check out this discussion at the Washington Post on a piece discussing AAA’s recent statement that bike lanes would impede traffic in D.C.

7. Really Cautionary Tale: Even in rural southern Maryland, man’s-inhumanity-to-bike can surface with very scary results. Somebody repeatedly threw tacks on the road during the recent Leonardtown Criterium and this video captures the disastrous results, as cyclists crash to the ground in a huge pile-up.

8. Dreamy Dutch Scene: Cycling in the Netherlands in the 1950s – Cars? Who needs em! Not the Dutch, at this particular moment in time. (After the last unnerving item, we need this one!)

9. More biking in Baltimore: Bike-to-Work-Day isn’t enough community biking for you? Then register for the 8th annual “Tour Dem Parks, Hon!” on Sunday, June 13th.  Participants can choose from four interesting park routes through the city, including a family ride on the Gwyn’s Falls Trails.

10. The first Baltimore Bike Map is here: It lists existing and upcoming bike routes and has info on safe cycling, taking your bike on transit, etc. To get a free copy, call 410-396-6856 or check the bike page on the city government website where it will (soon) be available in downloadable form.