Date: 2022-11-27
Time: 01:21:06 UTC
Title: Bike ride to Winton Place today, 11/26/22
One theme that will permeate this phlog is stories from my bike rides. Mastodon
may be a place for pictures, but this is the right place for the words. Over
the past few days I've been back home in Cincinnati and had the opportunity to
ride into some familiar (but not truly) familiar neighborhoods to the south and
west. I have quite an unusual folding bike I ride here, a Strida Mark I from
1987 I should probably talk about further in a subsequent phlog post. To keep
things simple, it's a single speed, belt drive, aluminum folding bike that is
almost exactly triangular in shape, except for a slanted bottom edge. It's got
its quirks, like handlebars and a seat in almost the same position, forcing my
tall knees to occasionally hit the handlebars, but to my surprise it rides
gently and comfortably. It's not *that* fast, averaging about 12 mph on a mix
of flats and gentle hills, but the sprung saddle and front joint between the
bottom tube and front tube absorb shocks quite well.
While yesterday I went up the unbearably steep hill from Carthage to St. Xavier
High School, today I took a more manageable route south through the Mill Creek
valley. It was bold but biking down the wide lanes of Springfield Pike in
Wyoming and then Vine Street in Cincinnati proved quick and safe, except for a
car that grazed past me in the right lane on the way back near Alford Motors.
The whole stretch of Springfield Pike south to Cincinnati was quiet and
beautiful, lined with two-story houses and tall trees lacking their leaves.
Entering Cincinnati a thrift store and West African grocery greeted me to the
left, while a bar (Vogue) and small grocery store (Country Fresh) greeted me on
the right. I passed a mother and two kids entering Country Fresh on my way
south. Heading further south, I passed the Hartwell School to the left, the
Hartwell Recreation Center to the right, and then the Hamilton County
Fairgrounds, now quiet and gray in November, on the left, after crossing the
wide and fast crosstown Galbraith Road.
Heading further south I remembered just how industrial and gray Cincinnati was,
biking past one car dealership after another and industrial parks along the
Mill Creek. The sun and clouds seemed to wash out the colors. Instead of taking
Vine Street or Spring Grove Avenue into Winton Place, I took a detour west,
across the railroad tracks, to the quiet, fast, and bike laned Este Avenue,
beside the Ridgewood Industrial Park. Quiet it was, but not quiet enough to
avoid other friendly cyclists. I passed at least two on my way to Emery Park
and back.
There was a time when I thought Cincinnati wasn't bikeable, but that time has
quickly passed. We don't have the nicest protected bike lanes crisscrossing the
city, but we make up for it with quiet avenues and careful drivers.
