Week 13 in Review (May 30 – June 5)

This was a pretty solid week for biking. Excluding the beginning of the week, the weather was good and I had some time to actually go on some decent rides. On Thursday I biked a simple loop around Fairmount Park and felt really out of shape. I couldn’t tell if it was the wind or if I was more that I had not biked much and still worn down from the wedding weekend. Either way I was mad strugs. I did make it out and back from my apartment in less than an hour. 

The next day, I wanted to go to a park to do some laps. I had been thinking about switching it up from FDR Park, mostly because I bike there so often. I remembered that Hunting Park has a loop road around it so I decided to attempt a ride up to North Philly and check it out. Hunting Park is much more difficult to get to than FDR Park. South Philadelphia streets feel like they are made for biking; they are narrow, traffic moves very slowly and most importantly (especially for guys) they are fairly evenly paved. While North Philadelphia does not have as many cars parked on the street (I took 13^th Street up to the park) the streets are in pretty poor condition, especially around Temple. Also it probably does not help that there are a lot of hills, whether natural or man-made bridges/dips that go over/under much of the decrepit industrial infrastructure.  I learned from another bike ride I took to/through North Philly a cyclist has to be more on alert, as motorists are seemingly less aware of bicycles.  This held true for this ride so if you decide to bike around here, be alert.

Hunting Park turned out to be a pretty cool park. As I stated in a previous blog entry the park has a lot of history. However when I rode past previously I did not realize how much was happening inside the park.  There are community gardens, a soccer field, a recreation center, a pool, and several playgrounds. Also, that Saturday was the inaugural day for the Hunting Park Farmers Market, at the corner of Old York and Hunting Park. The loop road is smaller and fairly broken up by stop signs for Hunting Park Ave that cuts through the park. Also, it is filled with some interesting entrepreneurs. There were people with lemonade stands. There was one man selling some sort of homemade trinket. However my favorite was the man that had a horse and a pony all set up for rides around the eastern field, that takes dedication. 

On Sunday I biked up to Lemon Hill to watch the last few laps of the Philadelphia International Cycling Championship with Meghan and Judd. I fortunately biked up the back way to Lemon Hill (up Pennsylvania Ave and then over the informal CSX crossing to Sedgely Dr.) and when I got there got a chance to watch the cyclist whiz past heading down the hill. It is amazing how fast the move and how close together they are.  So surprising that no one just slips and ruins the entire race. 

After finding Meghan and Judd on the other side of the hill (where I saw the cyclist come up Lemon Hill instead of down I biked home and ended up on the side of the parkway, where the entire group was in a giant pack and zipped past me at what had to be 35 mph. Impressive.

Routes	Miles	Minutes	Speed	Calories Burned
4	45.8	205	13.40	2,455

I covered over an extra square mile this week, which is impressive for not going on any exploratory rides. With this extra boost my total area is 25.99 sq. mi. covering 18.13% of the city. There were major changes in neighborhoods I’ve biked through.  By biking up 13^th Street to Hunting Park I added major gains in the amount Yorktown/Temple/Hunting Park I’ve biked.  Additionally, I have officially biked through 100% of Washington Square West.  For all the detailed information on my cycling patterns check out the Geographic Analysis page.

Week 6 in Review (April 11-17)

Even though it was really nice this past week, I only had a few miscellaneous rides.  I think that I’m still thinking of last year when I was working and bike commuting I biked 10 -15 times a week and therefore am disappointed when I only have 1-3.  However one of the rides this week was a trip along the Schuylkill.  A nice ride to the Falls Bridge and back, except that the day I went it was beautiful and there were SOOO many people on the trail, so many that I watched a biker hit and unsuspecting and over-dramatic pedestrian.  Therefore, I decided I’d rather chance it with cars and cycle back via University City.  

Routes	Miles	Minutes	Speed	Calories Burned
2	15.1	65	14.0	758

I’ve now biked through 9.48% of Philadelphia!  Insane. 

I’m still working on a separate neighborhood section so I haven’t calculated any updates for that. Coming soon, hopefully. 

Sunny Fairmount Park Sunday!

I’ve been itching to bike more and more but the weather has not been accommodating.  Today ended up being a beautiful day for a ride; sunny, warmish and a Sunday.  I debated with myself for way to long on where I should go (it was between Fairmount Park and the Delaware) and finally decided on taking a leisurely ride through the park. I ended up going a few more miles than expected.  The stats, link and map are below.

http://www.dailymile.com/people/Jerome9883/entries/6280086

Miles	Minutes	Speed	Calories Burned
14.7	77	11.3	927

Although the Schuylkill trail is a wonderful and gleaming case study in waterfront recreation and revitalization, on a warm early spring weekend it’s a bit TOO wonderful.  My disdain for braking for people with their dogs or runners that are oblivious to their surroundings and uturn in front of you leads me to choose routes that bypass the entire area south of the boathouses.  Additionally, the Kelly Drive trail is usually clogged up with high school, college and professional regattas (today was a high school regatta). While rowers tend to be great eye candy, they and their fans are too numerous for any decent bike ride. This is all leading up to the fact that I started my ride by biking up 22^nd Street into the Fairmount neighborhood.  Fairmount is one of the quintessential Philly neighborhoods, except that it’s really hard to get to on foot or transit.  The houses are very well maintained, they have a pretty vibrant commercial corridor (that contains a lot of bars that I’m not too familiar with so I’m not going to vouch for them) and lots of flowering trees. 

Biking north I turned left onto Parrish St and then veered onto Pennsylvania Ave. (the wrong way…shh) to an informal bike crossing of whatever railroad runs through there.  The crossing puts you onto Popular Drive, the east edge of the park, and then turns into 33^rd St. as you cross Girard.  There is quite a hill that takes you to the formally named East Fairmount Park as well as the neighborhood, Strawberry Mansion. Before entering the park I biked past a new, and enthusiastic, vegan restaurant.  It seemed a little out of place but via internet research it’s a real place, if you want vegan delivery as far south as Penn hit them up. Vegan restaurants are generally not that noteworthy, but in Strawberry Mansion they are.  The neighborhood is a classic case of wealthy, white neighborhood that was abandoned in the 1950s for the suburbs and became a poor, black neighborhood. Along the southern edge, primarily the area known as Brewerytown, there’s been gentrification by artists and young professionals (hence the vegan restaurant) but as a whole the neighborhood has a lot of large, ornate buildings that have been neglected for decades. 

                                                       

As I entered the park I realized something was happening as there were many parking attendants and a lot of signs for $12 parking. It turned out to be the regattas down the hill but it made for a really awkward confrontation with one such attendant that stopped me to ask me what I was doing.  I answered, biking and starred at her.  Anyway I toured around the drives of a few of the mansions that are settled in the park. A brief introduction to the park, it is approx. 4,100 acres and was formed in the 1850-60s as a collection of private estates and undeveloped land to prevent pollution of the city’s water supply.  One of the “estates” I visited was Mt. Pleasant.  Mt. Pleasant is a Georgian manor that was built in the 1760s by some guy named McPherson.  However, fun fact, it was owned briefly by Benedict Arnold until he became a traitor and they were forced to give up their country house.  Another nearby estate I visited was the Rockland Mansion, now home to PCOP.  I spent a good 5 mins riding around trying to figure out what that meant, Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia.  I got nowhere close to that. The mansion however was constructed in 1801 and is a great example of Federal style. 

After that I followed the roads around the reservoir located directly in the center of the park past some interesting park activities. Most people were doing “normal” things, i.e. flying kites, playing softball/baseball, etc.  However there was a group of guys that were all dressed in the same thing with back packs all huddled around each other and moving down the road looking like a bunch of lemmings searching for a cliff.  Upon closer inspections they seemed to be boy scouts that had a hold of some really large tree trunk and just moving it down the road.  There were like 40 of them it was a little strange.  Even though I wanted to I didn’t take a picture b/c I felt that would be stranger. 

Continuing my tour of the eastern portion of the park I biked past his old crumbling building that looked like it once used to be a concession stand.  It actually turns out to be one of the few structures left of the Strawberry Mansion Music Pavilion, designed by famed Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer in the early 20^th century.  It is a reminder of just how wealthy the area around East Fairmount Park was.  The structure now is crumbling and fascinating. Apparently as recently as 2004 there were plans to renovate the structure as part of a larger bird sanctuary/educational center to be constructed and managed by the national Audubon Society. 

After crossing the Schuylkill River along the Strawberry Mansion Bridge I biked along Greenland Dr. and up what seemingly is the biggest hill in Philly.  It’s not, but to give you context I live (as most of Center City is) around 10 – 30 feet above sea level.  When one is along Chamonix Ave, one is at approx. 260 feet.  Point being there are lots of hills in the park.  However, once you are that high you have the ability to bike DOWN the Belmont Plateau.  This plateau is where the Belmont Mansion sits and, possibly more importantly, has some of the grandest views of Philadelphia in the city.  The view is basically looking over the Art Museum at all of Center City and West Philadelphia. After snapping a few pictures, I biked down the hill and reached the fastest speed I’ve even gotten on a bike, 30mph. 

On the other side of Montgomery Ave. from the plateau is the Fairmount Horticultural Center.  It’s a 20 acres site that was formed for the Centennial Exhibition, the centers building was built in 1976 for the Bicentennial. Many of the trees and landscaping however date back to when the grounds were part of the Centennial.  I have never spent much time on the grounds; I’ve just biked through or have been cockblocked by the fence that seems to have irregular hours. I was hoping for some flowering trees but I think I was in between their blooms.  In addition to the gardens and the greenhouse the center contains a Japanese tea house and gardens.  The building is a replica of a 17^th century scholar house.  I think for $5, you can go in and visit it. 

The end of my Fairmount Park excursion was marked by Memorial Hall, the main hall for the Centennial Exhibition and now the Please Touch Museum, and biking around the relatively newly minted running/biking trails nearby.

After that I headed home through some relatively rough neighborhoods in West Philly, where one person decided to point out I was a cracker.  I should have told him that was really cheesy of him to say…ah, ha, ha, but in retrospect biking away is the best thing to do in that situation.