Five observations after two weeks of biking to work in Baltimore:

1. Sure, motorists can be unnecessarily confrontational and unreasonable – in addition to the usual “get on the sidewalk!” comment I get, I had one old lady yell “buckle your seatbelt!” at me, hm – and, sure, they can present problems because they don’t use turn signals, they stop in crosswalks, and for some reason they can’t use the left lane on a two-lane, one-way street with no other cars on it. Yet, after two weeks, by far the biggest problem I’ve encountered, strangely, is pedestrians. For some reason, they just choose to ignore the fact that I exist. Cars stop for me at four-way intersections, but pedestrians don’t; I’ve had to slam my brakes no less than half-a-dozen times because a pedestrian will look both ways, see me coming, and still decide to cross the street (in a crosswalk? nah). This morning, a gentleman was standing in a dedicated bike lane on St. Paul, tying his tie. He looked, saw me barreling down the street, and decided, this tie is just too important to move out of the bike lane for. I mean, sure it was a great tie, but I’d rather it not cause my untimely death.

2. Guildford is heaven. Almost nobody uses it, it has (unofficial) bike lanes, it’s all downhill, and it even has sharrows for extra comfort.

3. Baltimore is not like San Francisco, but it’s, shall we say, hilly.

4. I’m out of shape.

5. Biking is really fun, once you get the hang of it, and once you get your routes down. Don’t get discouraged! Try to bike as often as you can and soon enough it’ll seem like second nature.