I Like To Play Outside: Rando Rambler Pancake Ride


The crew forms up in front of Charlie's

It began with a moderately long chain of emails. Something about ice cream, a swimming pool, a thong, and cold weather. After skimming for a while, I realized that it was an invite to come ride, eat, and party with Bob "Master of Disaster" Wagner and a hodgepodge coterie of rambling cyclists (AKA "awesome people").

I got a ride down to Charlie's house with Ken, since Ken lives near me. We showed up a bit early, and hung out with the other early people. After everyone arrived, we had our Grand Depart from Charlie's and headed into town towards Fell's Point for our first goal of the day: Pancakes.


My first time riding a bicycle down Pratt street, in the heart of downtown!

We rolled up to Jimmy's restaurant and began the process of locking 15 bikes to various poles, signs, and lamp-posts. After waiting for a few minutes, we got a giant table together (thanks to Bob's prodigious foresight in calling ahead). I ate pancakes with a side of bacon, and downed a couple more cups of coffee. Suitably stuffed, we headed out to start the "real" ride at around noon.

Tom locks up outside the pancake spot

Massive breakfast crew!

Riding through the heart of downtown with a large group of cyclists is eminently more fun than going it alone (or at least in my imagination, because I've never actually ridden downtown by myself due to fear of becoming a statistic). We rode past the Aquarium and the Inner Harbor, and eventually worked our way onto the Gwynn's Falls trail, which winds its way out of the city past the big incinerator.

Leaving Fell's via the Aquarium

Iconic Baltimore incinerator adjacent to the Gwynn's Falls Trail

Cruising down the GFT

A new view of downtown from the Gwynn's Falls Trail

Riding past BWI Airport on a bike path = fun!

It wouldn't be a Ramble without some "unconventional terrain" - this time, the route led us through and Amtrak station in God-knows-where southwest of Baltimore. I've never seen a dozen or so cyclists climbing up a stair tower. After the stair tower, we crossed a sky bridge to a weird and awesome network of elevated paths. I have no idea why they were put there, but they were REALLY cool.

Amtrak station stairs

Elevated walkway

The crew on the elevated pathway

After leaving the unconventional terrain, we hopped onto some roads that were slightly more familiar to me, having ridden them on some of Bob's other rides. On Race Road, which is a wide flat time-trial-friendly cruiser, I snapped a group photo. Somehow we found ourselves at an ice cream stand, where I ordered an awesome cone of coconut-almond-chocolate-chip ice cream. It was delicious, and we had to drag ourselves away from lounging in the sun to continue on the ride.

Cruisin!

Mmmm... noms.

While the ice cream sat in my stomach like a delicious lead ball, we took off and headed towards Patapsco state park. During the whole ride, there had been some "improvisations" on the route, but now we just kinda went wherever. A private road lead to a dirt track, which took us past the Vineyard Spring trail onto the park road. We rode down the road to the bike path that leads through the park along the Patapsco River, eventually crossing the swinging bridge and popping out on River Road.

Waiting to re-group in Patapsco

River Road led us into Ellicott City, where we took a right turn onto the Trolley Trail. This interesting bike path leads uphill, around several corners, which caused some pondering about what kind of vehicle must have traversed it back in the day.

Bob leads the way up the Trolley Trail

After the Trolley Trail, we got back on a different segment of the Gwynn's Falls Trail, which headed back towards Charlie's. Somewhere along the line, my chain started skipping abysmally and eventually dropped off. I pulled over to pop it back on, and realized that it wouldn't stay in place. Scanning the drivetrain for errors, I noticed an unusual amount of slack in the chain. Further inspection revealed that one of the jockey wheels on my rear derailleur had fallen off, so my chain had an extra couple of inches of length to it. Rough solution? Shift into a big enough gear to take up the slack in the chain, and keep on riding. I rode the last 6 miles to Charlies (which thankfully were not too hilly) on a big-bad-ratio singlespeed bike.

Upon arriving at Charlie's house, we found the awesome party in full swing. A delicious feast was laid out on the table, and four of Charlie's excellent home-brew beers were on tap. After much eating, drinking, and carousing, it started to get dark. Bob proceeded to bust out the 16mm film projector, and we watched some classic cycling films. It was great.