streetcar0109
At the risk of sounding overly self-righteous, I am.  It’s either the craziness my co-worker playfully accuses me of or courage or utter stubbornness.  Or  I’m a pleasure-seeker, and there’s no more pleasurable way for me to get to work than on a bike.  Or something.

I was at an event last night, when it was 20 degrees sans windchill, I asked a fellow cyclist if he rode. “Is there any other way to get here?” he replied. Frikkin A. No, there’s not.

I’m finding less cycling company in the mornings. This morning, it was 11 degrees when I left with a windchill of -2 (without the windchill of barreling from North Baltimore to downtown at 25mph). I rode with ElRo and left her in the Chillage.  I didn’t see any other cyclists, but my glasses were fogging up, so maybe I missed them.

But I discover daily as I leave the office on Charles Street after work, that I just head to work late because I can get here so quickly.  Turns out that I just usually leave after other people.  Even with this weather, I’m never alone at night.  Which makes me less crazy, less self-righteous, because these are relative.  I know that I will see other blinking, fender-ed commuters on my way home tonight.

If there’s actually bike traffic in Baltimore in the middle of January (and there is), that’s a sign that cycling is really here to stay in Charm City, no?  Yes, it gets much colder in some places.  But those places don’t have the doggy summers we have to put up with.  We’re Southerners used to winter temps in the 40s.  Central Maryland weather really runs the spread, and I tip my, er, helmet to those who ride when it’s 10 and when it’s 110 degrees.