\n
![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/citypaper.com\/polopoly_fs\/1.1134595.1303230082!\/image\/3164307042.jpg_gen\/derivatives\/landscape_335\/3164307042.jpg\")
\nRarah<\/small><\/p>\n
\u201cGravity goddess\u201d Marla Streb is pulled back to Baltimore
\n
\nRarah<\/small><\/p>\n
By Van Smith – City Paper <\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
She became a world-class contender in single-track downhill\u2014in which, just as in downhill ski-racing, \u201cyou start at the top of a mountain and they time you as you go down, one at a time, a very treacherous course with jumps, and you get to the bottom in about five minutes,\u201d she says. In her 16-year career, she won three national and two world championships, broke 24 bones, and wrote two books about it\u2014a training guide and a memoir, Downhill: The Life Story of a Gravity Goddess.<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are hoping to open up a bike-themed caf\u00e9 with indoor, unlimited free parking, possibly selling retail bikes, and a full liquor license,\u201d Streb explains. \u201cWe want to do fresh-roasted coffee in the morning and then stay open all the way into the nighttime. We\u2019re still looking for a property\u2014we\u2019re under contract for one, but it\u2019s a bumpy road.\u201d<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
Streb also tends to a company, Streb Trail Systems (STS), that she and her husband founded in the mid-2000s in Costa Rica. It designs mountain-bike trails for resorts and communities. \u201cWe created a nice trail system in Puerto Rico for a nature park called Toro Verde,\u201d she explains. Its first U.S. project has been here in Maryland, putting together a trail plan for Mount St. Mary\u2019s University in Emmittsburg.<\/p>\n
In the two months since Streb returned to Baltimore, she\u2019s also been laying the groundwork for becoming a local bike advocate. \u201cI\u2019m meeting with city planners,\u201d she says, \u201cbecause I really want to improve on the bike-ability of this city.\u201d She\u2019s happy to see that there are bike lanes on some of the city\u2019s main thoroughfares, and finds her Fells Point neighborhood is suitably bike-friendly, but she believes much more can be done to accommodate and promote bike-based city living.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf more and more people see a mom riding her kids,\u201d as they see Streb do, using her \u201ccargo bike\u201d\u2014an extra-long bicycle with a bucket up front, big enough for two kids and a lot of groceries\u2014\u201cthen they\u2019re going to think about doing it themselves. It\u2019s a snowball effect. And as more people do it, the city will need to just create space for it [on the streets]. Cyclists are paying the same taxes the drivers are paying, except what cyclists are doing is greener and it\u2019s healthier. I\u2019d love to do anything I can do to help people understand.\u201d<\/p>\n