There’s not too much to review this week. I didn't bike at all, which is the first time since mid-January (I biked at the gym when I had a 30 day membership). The week was just too damn hot.
Point proven. However this coming week I expect to be
biking a little more so keep tuned.
I’m starting to realize with my schedule picking up and the fact that its
90 degrees out that my bike rides are not as frequent. I've only ridden 78
miles so far this month, last year I totaled 283 for the month of July. I don’t
think I’m making that threshold, especially seeing this coming week is in the
UPPER 90s.
This week’s rides were fairly mundane, consisting of traveling back and
forth along the Spruce/Pine Street bikeways. However the week was dotted by an
epic first ride through New Jersey. It was less epic because of distance and
more epic because it was through Camden/Gloucester City. Camden, as many think
of it is a bit rough but not any rougher than parts of West and North Philly.
It was more nerve-wracking because I have no concept of New Jersey
geography.Philadelphia is easy to
figure out because if you are lost you can always look for a numbered street (2nd,
5th, 23rd, etc.) or one of the main thoroughfares (Germantown,
Baltimore, Frankford, etc.) and within 10 minutes you’ll find it.In New Jersey if you find a main arterial
there’s a high probability that you’ll end up on some freeway type road with jug
handles and long impassable medians.
My Jersey ride was brought on by a few things. 1) The temptation of a
new place seeing that I’ve not been there since blogging. 2) When I was
recently fly into the airport we flew over South Camden and Gloucester City and
I saw two interesting things from the window.A park that seemed to over look the South Philadelphia Port (which is
impossible to get to in Philadelphia, I’ve tried) and an adorable looking
neighborhood plan that was tucked in between highways and marshlands.
Once on the ground I found so many more interesting places it wouldn’t be fair to continue
talking about it here. Look for a Camden/Gloucester City post coming soon.
As always here are the stats for the past few weeks.
Routes
Miles
Minutes
Speed
Calories Burned
4
32
169
11.4
2,021
There were very little changes in the Philadelphia neighborhood
composition of my rides. I apparently biked through a new portion of
Rittenhouse which brought my total for the neighborhood to 99.8%.However, with my Jersey ride I made some significant
headway through new municipalities. I’ve still biked through a higher
proportion of Philadelphia than any other city (30.49 sq. mi/21.2%) but I explored
almost 1.5 sq. mi. or 13% of Camden. Make sure you check out the Geographic
Analysis page for all the deets!
As part of June’s epic week
of cycling, my riding buddy Zack and I took a lovely Wednesday afternoon to journey
through southwest Philly, inside the wildlife refuge and loop around the backside
of the airport. I had pretty much done a similar route a few years back with my
friends Ben and Sarah, so I knew the lay of the land to a degree. It is a good idea to know where you are going
around the airport because while it can be fun there are some really tricky
spots. No one wants to end up on the I-95 bridge or heading towards the
terminals on a bike
I started this ride by heading over to Zack’s house in
West Philly where together we carefully dodged the trolley tracks at 49th
and Woodland in order to head down Grays Ave./Lindbergh Blvd. Philly Weekly
might have rated
Girard Ave one of the worst streets to bike in Philly, but I’d say 49th
and Woodland is easily one of the worst intersections. Once finished dodging
tracks going every which way we made it to Lindbergh Blvd. It is a strange road
to bike down; the road starts out as fairly large arterial, however the further
southwest we travelled the more the road turns into an actual boulevard.
As in many areas in the city typical Philadelphia rowhouses
line the side streets of the boulevard. What
is fascinating is the highly customizable nature of the rowhouse. Lindbergh
runs through Eastwick and as an area developed in the mid 20th
Century many of the houses take on architectural styles popular at the time. Just
take a look at this late 1970s beauty; not only do you get a stone fenced
parking spot and little yard, you get an entire house that is shingled. For those who are enthusiastic about living
inside a roof.
Lindbergh essentially leads to the entrance the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge
where we left the busy road for peaceful serenity. Zack and I had visited the refuge on a ride
before but only got as far as the visitors center. This time we rode the entire trail!
The refuge was created as part of the early 1970s
federal environmental push for protecting sensitive and important lands. Before
rapid industrial urbanization during the early 20th century the
entire area, which is home to the PHL airport, Sunoco Refineries and Navy Yard,
used to be tidal marsh lands. By 1970 most of the marshlands had been built
upon under the auspicious of economic growth. The more than 1,000 acre Heinz
site was one of the last natural areas left and was under development pressure
from a sanitary landfill to the north and Interstate 95. John Heinz, a senator
from Pennsylvania, was the champion of securing the national wildlife
designation. The wildlife refuge was named for him shortly after his premature
and uncanny death in 1991. According to Wikipedia, John Heinz
died in a plane/helicopter collision over a school in Lower Merion that killed
all passengers on board AND two kids. On
a much cheerier note, the Heinz Wildlife Refuge has been deemed very successful
and is now home to over 80 species of animals, including a nest of Bald Eagles.
The first part of the refuge trail is on a compacted
gravel path, much like the Manayunk Towpath trail, and follows the banks of the
Darby Creek. Near the visitor’s center
there is a boardwalk with observation areas over a large impoundment (which is the
term for an area of water that is made by constructing dams or embankments,
a.k.a a man-made pond). The boardwalk
provides stellar views of the expansive airport and long stretch of I-95, as
well as the wildlife in the area. When Zack and I were there we saw several
types of turtles; painted
turtles, mud
turtles, and my favorite name, stinkpot
turtles. Stinkpots are adorable,
they’re so small!!
About a quarter mile down the trail is another observation
area, this one being a “tower” (it’s really only two levels). We took another break to explore. However, this exploration was not as relaxing
as the edges of the upper level were filled with mud dauber’s nests. They
seemingly didn’t bother Zack. We still made it to the upper level which
provided more expansive views.
Shortly after the observation “tower” the trail gets a
little bumpier until is eventually turns into a path of large gravel rocks.
Loretta was not pleased as she (and I) were real worried about either skidding
out or getting a flat tire. However as
the trail moves further from the impoundment it winds along other water
channels and through some amazingly wooded areas.
There were several
birds that Zack and I heard/saw as we traveled.
However one of the coolest occurrences we had is when we were biking and
around a corner and there was this deer chilling; completely unphased by us.
As we rode further both Zack and I were becoming a
little over the inconsistent gravel road. The road eventually exited the woods
and pretty much became dirt road next to i-95. Additionally, the further we toured
the more the weeds there were growing into the road. Even though it was awesome
to bike through a shaded natural habitat, the last half of the ride made it
almost not worth it, for me at least.
I’m not a big fan of ticks; really bugs in general.
The trail ends just north of the interchange of I-95
and State Route 420 in a gravel parking lot, not an ideal spot. Also not ideal
is to get to the airport we had to bike over the cloverleaf
interchange at I-95, which is probably one of the trickiest things to do on
a bike. I know if I was driving I’d be cursing out whatever biker is trying to
cross that as those loop ramps are ridiculous even in a car. On the other side
of I-95 lies the heart of Tinicum Township; two little towns named Lester and
Essington. Neither are recognized towns but both are fairly historic. Essington
is the site of the first recorded European settlement in Pennsylvania. 40 years
before William Penn, the Swedes settled in the upper Delaware Bay and
established forts where present day Wilmington and New Castle, Delaware are.
They expanded their reach up to Tinicum Island but only for a short 10 years,
in 1655 the Dutch gained control of the region and in 1674 the English captured
it. Through this entire turnover the Swedish settlers were mostly the only
Europeans in the area. In fact, when Philadelphia was founded many of the
original buildings were built in the Swedish log cabin manner as that was the
only building technology here at the time.
Today there are no indicators of this Swedish heritage
in Essington. It looks like any coastal, Mid-Atlantic town, there are a few
businesses along Wanamaker Ave and bunch Cape Cod inspired houses scattered
among a small grid. The only remnant of the Swedish influence in the area is
Governor Printz Park, sandwiched between a motel parking lot and a yacht
club. Governor Printz was one of the few
governors of New Sweden while it was its own colony and built Printzhof, a two-story,
log house on the site of the current day park. The park is essentially a deep
grassy lot with dated interpretive signage and a walled river bank. Even though
the river bank is walled, it is one of the only spots with public access to the
Delaware River along Tinicum Island. Additionally, all of the signage (there’s
a lot of it too) tells the story of the colony of New Sweden. Neither Zack nor
I cared that much about it though and by that time it was getting late and we
had to boogey if we were going to make it around the airport.
When we biked away from the park we entered more of
the industrial section of Tinicum Township.
Along the north side of 2nd Ave. sits the Airport
Business Complex, 130+ acre industrial complex which claims to have the
first “smart-grid business complex in the country”. However I’m not putting much stock into that
claim as looking at their website it seems like a fake company - most of the webpages
are in gibberish. After cycling along a
long stretch of industry to the north and natural reeds to the south we turned
onto Hog Island Road. Named for the island the PHL airport began on the road
runs 5 miles around the southern perimeter of the airport. The ride is fairly monotonous as the entire stretch
contains a railroad track and line of trees along the riverbank to the right, and
the airport’s open fields to the left.
Zack and I paused a couple of times along Hog Island
Road. First, we saw this brown
shimmering fuselage in the distance and as we got closer it was easy to
indicate it was some sort of burned up airplane. Turns out it is the airports fire training
center. Not pictured below, but an equally creepy part of this site is a very
long metal tube that must be used for training people to climb through HVAC
ducts. It made no sense though.
We used this stop to explore the river bank on the
other side of the road from the fire training center. Zack made a comment about how it’d be a great
place to dump a body. I concurred seeing that there was no one for miles and a
large refinery across the river.
The rest of the ride was the same, periodic points of
interest along the airport side (i.e. a field of UPS containers and an air
traffic control tower) but nothing worth stopping for. One of the coolest parts
of biking Hog Island Road though is the ability to stand under a plane as it
lands seemingly on top of you. I only
got one picture of it on this trip because we running out of time. Along with
the picture below is a video that my friend Sarah shot as we went on this ride
a few years back.
It’s a little nerdy but it’s also a pretty surreal
experience. When a jet lands overtop of you there is an awkward delay and then
everything that lies in the approach path gets blown around as the jet engines
have an immense amount of power. The video is of a prop plane, as Sarah points
out, which do not have the same swoosh effect.
The last stop that Zack and I made along our journey
before we diligently biked home was at Fort Mifflin. Almost at
the end of Hog Island Road this historical treasure is lost behind an
ill-marked sign and a confusing entrance to an industrial complex.
The fort was built a few short years before the
American Revolution in order to protect the booming city of Philadelphia from
pirates. The City of Philadelphia was the largest colonial city to not have a
defense system in place due to its Quaker roots. The fort briefly served as a
battle ground in the revolution before the British destroyed it to gained
control of Philadelphia in 1777. After the revolution John Adams commissioned Pierre
L’Enfant to redesign the fort and renamed it for Thomas Mifflin, a merchant
and major general in the revolution. Apparently it is a very interesting layout
on the inside of it, and has some of the few examples of Greek revival architecture
in military buildings. The fort was used mostly as a prison during the Civil
War, housing Confederate soldiers and political prisoners. Additionally a hospital was built on the
outside of the fort’s walls to attend to the sick. Fort Mifflin saw very little
action after the Civil War and was decommissioned in the 1960s where the City
of Philadelphia gained control of it and the Old Fort Mifflin Historical Society was
created to preserve and maintain the site.
Zack and I didn’t go into the fort due to time and the
fact that neither of us had $6 at the moment. We biked along the parking lot
and I took a picture of the outside and the hospital - that now serves as the
offices for the historical society.
From the fort we continued along Hog Island Road, under a runway and onto Island Avenue where there is another tricky interchange near the Sheraton, but not as death defying as a cloverleaf. Once we crossed under I-95 it was smooth sailing from there, with the exception that I lost Zack right near his house and he somehow ended up at 54th and Baltimore. Whoops.
It’s been hot in Philadelphia and as a result slowed my biking
explorations. Between that and trying to find a sustaining income I only got
around to biking twice in the entire week.One ride through Fairmount and Northern Liberties was just out of
boredom and the other was with a NEW bike riding buddy, Ben.I was in Ben’s wedding earlier this summer
and as a wedding gist Ben and Sarah got new bikes (not from me, that’d be
awfully generous).On Saturday we
decided to bike along the Delaware River, which I had chronicled
previously.We only made it to Northern
Liberties before we had a a craving for food. After spending more than an hour
at the Green
Olive, a healthy/veggie friendly take out market, we finally moved along
Delaware and Richmond Avenues.Traveling
past the casino, through Port Richmond and along the big-ass road near the
Tioga port we headed away from the river search of a better way home.FYI:
Richmond Avenue might be one of the worst roads for biking. Not only is it
fairly broken up, there is approximately 4 feet between parked cars and the
route 15 trolley tracks, sometimes less depending on the a driver’s ability to parallel
park. I suggested that we head to the Frankford Transportation Center to
fill up our water bottles. Much to the chagrin of Ben it was not a couple
blocks away as I eluded but a couple miles. However we made it and decided to
bike under the El as it would provide shade on our way back.That turned out to be false as the sun was setting,
but we did get to see some of the finer citizens of Philadelphia. Kensington
Avenue is hopping for being cockblocked by a giant elevated rail line. As we
travelled back through Northern Liberties Ben got a flat tire so we ended up
going to A Trophy Bike Garage (which
I didn’t realize was connected to Trophy Bikes in University City until I just
looked it up) and then got an iced coffee at One Shot Coffee (which possibly might be
the cutest coffee shop around, sorry Good Karma).
As always here are the stats for the past few weeks.
Routes
Miles
Minutes
Speed
Calories Burned
2
28.5
140
12.2
1,661
Make sure you check out the Geographic
Analysis page, but some highlights of the changes in my riding are that
biking through Frankford, Juniata and Upper Kensington added a lot of new area
to my total area.I’m currently up to
30.5 sq. mi. or 21.1% of the entire city!Due to Ben and I’s lunch as well as they pit stop at the bike shop, Northern
Liberties is the 11th neighborhood I’ve biked through more than 90%.
Additionally, I’ve biked through 98% on Center City (from Vine to South) and
92% of “Greater” Center City (From Girard to Washington). I don’t know, I found
that fascinating
The past few weeks I've been a little busy and have not been able to
update Urban Cycle as much as I’d like. I was on a vacation in Maine for about
5 days and then I've been busy trying to piece together some odd jobs to make
a little bit of income. Income is good
for me, but unfortunate for Loretta as I do not get to ride as often. However, here is an update for the last half of June.
Aside from the rides for groceries or to go visit people the only
rides I have taken in the past few weeks are to do laps around FDR Park in
South Philly. It’s my favorite park to
ride around because the loop road has low traffic (except for during a Phillies
game) and there are no stops. I can just ride, and ride, and ride until I’m
blue in the face if I want to. I went
to the park twice in the past two weeks and did a little exploring
afterwards. After biking around FDR the
first time I ended up traveling to the Gray’s Ferry Crescent to check out the
progress. It is still not open but they
at least have some grass planted. I’m
not really sure what’s taking them so long, it’ll be sad if they open it in
October because then it’ll be cold again. Afterwards I biked down a small industrial looking street (I guess it’s
an extension of Schuylkill Avenue) which ended up in a really large train
yard. It was awesome to see trains
rolling by, but I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. People get real fussy when an over-curious
cyclist ends up in a vast industrial site.
After the second trip around FDR Park I biked past the stadium along
Pattison Ave. It was during a Phillies
game so there were a lot of people to dodge. I saw the beginnings of Philly
Live, which is a retail and entertainment hub replacing the
Spectrum. Originally proposed in the mid
2000s, the project was tabled due to economic conditions and recently began to move forward but only about a 10th of the original plan. It'll apparently open in
2012 and contain 45,000 square feet of retail/restaurant space. It’s exciting to see something
move along that is not additional parking. I continued along Pattison until it turned into a Columbus Blvd, which is
a very long, lonesome and truck–filled stretch.
After reaching Pier 70 I ducked in along the big box stores
to bike along the beginning of the Delaware River multipurpose path constructed
a little over a year ago. The path
follows the river’s edge and ends near Pier 53 Park which
opened April, 2010. The park is an acre of native, waterfront vegetation along decaying piers and a portion of a concrete pad. The area is designed to allow plants to break up the impervious
area over time and reclaim it. It’s a pretty awesome area for only costing the
Delaware River Waterfront Corporation $570,000; although the wood fence is already
starting to show weathering presumably due to a lack of staining.
As always here are some stats of the past few weeks.
Routes
Miles
Minutes
Speed
Calories Burned
6
63.4
273
13.9
3,261
These past few weeks I really increased the amount of South
Philadelphia that I have reached by bicycle. So much so that Point Breeze and
Grays Ferry are two of my most biked through neighborhoods. Impressive because Point
Breeze is a little over one square mile.
With these mini-adventures I increased my area and percentage slightly
to 29.06 sq miles or 20.26% . Make sure you check out the Geographic
Analysis page for all the deets.
