Category: Biking in Baltimore

The Grassroots Bike Series is a series of bicycle races, once a month, taking place throughout the Baltimore area. While these are “races,” everyone is invited, regardless of speed or competitive nature. The goal of the GBS is to provide a time for us, the Baltimore area cycling community, to come together and have some fun in an otherwise hectic bike city.

Each month a new location will be chosen, and a course will be determined beforehand. I will do my best to keep the course varied each month, in terrain as well as style. One month may be all pavement, the next all grass, the next a mix of pavement, grass, gravel, mud, etc. You get the idea. The style of race may also change from month to month. We may be racing for laps, for time, or mix it up with unconventional race styles, such as a tag-team race. Each race will, however, be a reasonably small (a mile or so) closed loop with a number of laps, so as not to send anyone too far away or all across the city. Before each race I will post a page describing the location and time of the race, as well as what to expect you will be riding on and any other special instructions you should know before showing up.

You can race on any bike you want; track, mountain, bmx, cyclocross, hybrid, tandem, recumbent, unicycle, etc. It’s all good. As said above, I will note what type of terrain each race will be held on.

Each race will gather at a specific time. Before the race begins, i will lead everyone in a few leisurely laps around the course, so everyone understands clearly what the course is. I will do my best to bring signs, cones, tape, or other devices for particularly confusing sections, but in general the expectation will be to remember where you are going.
Continue reading “Grassroots Bike Series – Saturday, April 25”

[Note this is in Bike Baltimore because this ride will be coming through here.]

Last week, and, in hindsight I could feel it coming for months because their business was off the mark, the Main Sponsor for my ride pulled the plug. The quarterly payment that I got from them for web work and soon the advertising exposure they would have gotten for helping the two most photographed vehicles in the world get from one coast to the other, fell victim to bad economic times. It was this money that I had planned on using to get me out of the gate come May 3.

Nor can I feel at all mad at them. When the orders were not coming in, they had to figure out some way to keep themselves fed. Nor do I know what more I could have done. I moved forward in good faith finishing my book, learning this backwards HiWheel so I could pedal the mountains, and even though we barely broke even, holding fund raisers so we could maybe actualize some of the bigger dreams I had for this ride.

Instead of using this month of April trying to add a few sponsors so I could buy some needed supplies in addition to the motor home I had planned to rent to blog and stay in touch with Mayor’s office from, sag my ride and get the Busycle back to Boston, I am finding myself starting from scratch. Besides dollars, I also lost my sponsor’s office support, so I will have to build two crews in three weeks time – one for the road and one for here at home.

Do I crawl in a hole and throw the last six years away? Or do I look for new ways to make all of this real? I suspect that those of you who have read my book, “Awake Again”, know the answer. I was up against a lot tougher odds in rebuilding my broken body, mind and the world I had created then. So, just as I got better from my setback by listening for God’s voice, I am doing the same thing now. And it does seem that a Bigger Power is saying that I need to come before my community of friends for help. Here is how:
Continue reading “Main Sponsor Pulls Plug – Help Save Ride to Boston!!”

From the Urbanite:
Say what? Under CLIMATE/ENERGY/TRANSIT
Baltimore Spokes: This website/ discussion forum provides an endless stream of bike/ transit/ climate-related news and commentary.

Cool beans!
Continue reading “WEB EXTRA: A WHO’S WHO OF BALTIMORE GREEN GROUPS”

Urbanite magazine is looking to set up a spirited, sassy, tit-for-tat
between an avid biker and an opinionated driver for an upcoming issue
on transportation. We’re looking to have some fun, not get nasty. The
tit and tat don’t have to be long — think of a 500- to 800-word
essay, just a pithy story and some thoughts on navigating Baltimore’s
roadways on your chosen set of wheels. Know anyone who could write
such a tit or tat? Maybe you know a rabid biker whose spouse or
significant other thinks he/ she is crazy? If so, send me an e-mail.
We’ll talk. (Disclaimer: There’s no money in this. Just a chance to
have some fun and get your name in the magazine.)

Thanks,
Greg
Continue reading “Bikes in Urbanite magazine”

Continue reading “BikeJam 5-17-09”

Sad news: Stolen Trek 1600 (2007/8)

Distinguishing features: red speedplay pedals (look like lolly-pops), two different colored water cages, front tire Bontrager race light, back tire Continental gator (?) , all other equipment standard.
Continue reading “Stolen bike”

[Note this is in Bike Baltimore because this ride will be coming through here.]

Some people think of bicycles as an occasional way to get around. For Palo Altan Martin Krieg they’re far more: a full-time mode of transportation and his ticket across the United States.

On May 3, he will begin a 4,000-mile bicycle ride from Palo Alto to Boston, Mass. — his third cross-nation bike trip. In 1979, he rode a standard upright bike and in 1986 a recumbent bike. He will pass through 25 cities that he hopes someday will become links in a national bikeway.

But it’s not just any bike he will be riding. With a design that harkens back to the 19th century, his 1891 HiWheel Eagle has a small wheel in the front and a really large one in back — a reverse of the better-known Pennyfarthing bicycle that Krieg has been riding around Palo Alto for years.

…
Continue reading “Palo Alto cyclist heading for Boston on rare bike”

I have been fascinated by the concept of civil disobedience to invoke change ever since I was a kid. We see examples all the time in our society where people willfully and arrogantly disobey laws to create a change they want to see. Depending on the subject this willful disobedience to laws is either accepted or met with scorn.

Now many in our society don’t see any form of civil disobedience as acceptable nor do they see civil disobedience going on daily and that to me is the real shocker. Since we talk a lot about bicycling on this site you might be thinking I am talking about bicyclists running red lights, well that is not were I am going with this but I do want to point out that much of cyclists disregard to laws is the result of the lack of accommodations for bicyclists, this has been supported by studies. So civil disobedience by cyclists is a protest about the lack of accommodations for the general public on public streets. This form of protest is just as valid if not more so then motorists protest against speed limits.

Somehow through civil disobedience the legally defined maximum speed limit has been redefined as the minimum speed limit and you are a inconsiderate jerk unless you are diving speed limit+15mph. Through civil disobedience most public roads have become as expressway like as possible (accommodating fast through travel, high speed turning lanes and prohibiting [in spirit of design] bicyclist and pedestrian traffic.) As a society this is what we demand with one and only one exception, the road in front my house but I should be allowed to go fast as I want on the road in front of your house. It is within this self-centeredness of the protest for car only roads that things are starting to fall apart but we still have a long ways to go.

So the problem is how to successfully protest against a successful protest? Well Ted Dewan has ideas about "spontaneous mischief" and other guerrilla traffic calming concepts, in one case he paints a crosswalk on a street where pedestrian fatalities have occurred complete with painted flattened bodies and smashed pumpkins for heads. In this 20 minute video there are some very entertaining ways presented that could help change peoples mind about what is the purpose of the "space between houses" (formally known as a road.)
Continue reading “Road Witching”

[A letter from Movable Feast to one of Baltimore Spokes friends:]

When we meet our clients, they are caught in a vicious cycle where disease thrives. They are sick. They are poor. Many are alone. We work to reverse this downward spiral by feeding them, caring for them and creating hope.

This year, we are pairing each of our Riders with one of our clients. Our hope is that you will feel a personal connection to this ride and to Moveable Feast by knowing that you are making a real difference in the life of a specific person.

The client you’ve been paired with (initials only): A.T. is a 55 year-old African American female who is anemic and living with AIDS in Baltimore City . A.T. is blind.

Please know that by reaching your fundraising goal of $1,200 that you have provided this person with three nutritionally balanced meals a day for a whole year. You should take great pride and comfort in knowing that thanks to you, this individual will receive the nutrition that they need to fight their illness. You’ve made their lives a little easier, a little better – and you’ve given them hope.

From all of us at Moveable Feast – thank you!
Continue reading “A Reason to Ride and donate to Movable Feast”

Sponsors and Outreach Partners:

                                                               

                          

Continue reading “Baltimore EcoTour Saturday, April 18, 2009”