Cycling Though Baltimore This Week
A rest stop in Baltimore on Wednesday.
The whole idea was to be a goodwill ambassador. A pre-conference party in Washington DC was organized by one of my partners, and she wanted me to meet her friend attending from Argentina. “He is a cyclist, you would get along well with him.” That was all I needed to know — “cyclist” + “DC.” I proposed that I show her Argentine friend the real USA by riding him the 130 miles from Wilmington to DC, via Baltimore. At first the Argentine cyclist accepted my proposal: plans were made, logistics ironed out, a route planned, and a hundred other details that would get us to the party, showered and dressed correctly, after an all-day bike ride.
Joining us on the ride would be Nicholas R. and Hutch J., riders experienced with the now traditional summer Friday rides from Philadelphia to Wilmington. However, my soon-to-be new Argentine friend backed out based on a recently twisted ankle and after, quote, “I intensively rode 90/100 km to test it and felt I still need some time of recovery.” Although I tried to talk him into riding anyway, my powers of persuasion failed.
Having made all the plans, I decided we should go with ride anyway. The long range weather forecast for Wednesday was perfect. What was not in the forecast was “sunny with a chance of riots.”
As all know, on Monday afternoon and evening, after the funeral for Freddie Gray, serious rioting and looting broke out in numerous places throughout Baltimore. Police were injured, people were arrested, business shut down, and even the Orioles game was cancelled. By Tuesday, the National Guard had been called up, and Baltimore had requested police reinforcements from other jurisdictions.
Nicholas and Hutch were understandably concerned that riding through Baltimore may not by the safest or smartest thing to do. But they were game, with the understanding that if we encountered any signs of trouble we would ride around it, and could outsprint anyone laden down with self-helped CVS supplies or liquor.
The scenery across the backroads of Cecil County was beautiful as always, and the traffic over the narrow Conowingo Dam was not too bad. We took a rest stop at mile 52 north of Bel Air (nobody does a salty big pretzel like Wawa). After a somewhat hilly ride through the Gunpowder Falls area, we crossed over the Beltway at mile 70, with about nine miles through the neighborhoods of Baltimore before our planned lunch break at the Inner Harbor.
The streets of Baltimore were full of people, full of traffic, but no sign of any trouble. Interestingly, even though we rode through some questionable neighborhoods (defined as junk cars parked on the street and a high percentage of boarded up windows), there was no sign of any police for eight miles, until we reach the Johns Hopkins Medical complex on Orleans St. and Broadway. Perhaps the police had pulled out to avoid any confrontation in the neighborhoods. The Inner Harbor area was a different story. Military vehicles and camouflaged-dressed solders holding large automatic weapons were all over Pratt St. We got some delicious sandwiches from a well-guarded Lenny’s Deli, and ate on a bench on the waterfront, discussing the situation with a deputized DC police officer who had been called up to help patrol the area.
Hutch decided to call it a day at Camden Yards (mile 80), and rendezvous with us in DC by train. Nicholas and I rode off, taking in the scene of the Orioles game closed to the public, with a dozen media trucks parked outside, and a dozen interviews of shut-out Orioles fans. As we were to find out later, Hutch got shut out too, as both Amtrak and MARC would not allow him to take his bike on the train unless it was “foldable.” Hutch and his non-foldable bike then had the experience of hanging out at Baltimore’s Penn Station in his cycling jersey, shorts and cleats, somewhat nervously watching a (peaceful) protest, and talking with Toya Graham (the now famous Baltimore mother who slapped her son several times and pulled him out of a riot on Monday) when she got off the train after a day of TV interviews (CNN, GMA, etc.) in New York City.
Nicholas and I rode another seven miles south before crossing under the Beltway. Again, in contrast to the Inner Harbor area, there was no police presence at all. In one neighborhood we were stopped at an at-grade railroad crossing for a five minute-long freight train to pass. The driver of one of the stopped cars took the opportunity to run into some sort of store, followed shortly by his passenger, who looked like she may have been coming off her shift at a strip club. Nicholas and I stayed tight to the crossing arm, and as the last boxcar passed, we were around the arm, over the tracks, and on our way.
We dodged some traffic by taking a bike path around BWI airport, where we had an awesome view of all the runways and planes taking off. Outside Hanover, one small road was barricaded with a huge pile of gravel and a sign of “ROAD CLOSED.” We ignored it, cut through hardhats doing heavy construction, and enjoyed a traffic free ride for a couple miles. By 4:30 p.m., we had crossed over the Capital Beltway, and took a variety of bike paths, neighborhood streets, campus roads around Catholic University, and flat out busy city streets to reach the Capital. Tourists and very important looking congressional interns were out in force for our loop around the Capital and Supreme Court building.
Nicholas and I ended at the Hyatt Hotel near Union Station with 128.7 miles. Showered up, with a change of clothes and the family mini-van waiting in the parking lot (Elena thank you shout-out), we attended the pre-conference party, and discovered that our no-show Argentina cyclist was also a no-show at the party. Maybe next time. After inhaling all the hors d’oeuvres set out and offered up by the roving waitstaff, and some other visiting, we were driving the minivan north on a mission to extract Hutch from the Baltimore train station before the 10 p.m. city-wide Baltimore curfew. Although traffic was light on the dark city streets, we were still a little late for curfew. Fortunately, nobody was arrested and we packed Hutch and his train-forbidden bike in the car for the I-95 road construction delayed drive back to Wilmington. That was a full 21 hour day.
Marty Lessner is an attorney in Wilmington.
