Today, the weather was finally pleasant enough for me to take my new bike out for a ride! Before that, I owe an old friend a memoriam:
Angel, I hardly knew ye.
My Mom found her on Craigslist 2 years ago, and it's hard to believe I only had her for that short of a time. Shortly after I moved to Philly, Angel became my primary method of commuting. We shared rides damn near every day and hundreds more memories along the way. I rode her in the Naked Bike Ride, and even shlepped her to the beach on multiple occasions. She almost took the place of my guitar as my most beloved travel companion. Almost.
Looking at that picture, you can't imagine there's much wrong with the old girl, still, I couldn't bear riding her again after the horrific accident we unfortunately shared last October. She was still in working order afterward, but something just didn't feel "right," so I had to say goodbye. Rust in pieces, onward and upward:
A horse with no name...
My Sister gave me her bike (laugh it up) after I parted with Angel as an interim solution to my cycling needs, and though she has performed admirably, I knew I would eventually need a bike that was more, y'know, me. So you can imagine my pleasant delight when my Mom graciously surprised me with this Trek 7.0 FX on my birthday!
That was 2 months ago. Being that it was Winter and largely crap-tastic outside, I didn't want to get my shiny new bike dirty, so she's sat inside lo these many weeks until today. I originally had other plans, but nice days have been so few and far between lately. I didn't have any set plan when I left the house either. The ride kind of became what it wanted. I rode up to my old neighborhood (not much has changed), stopped by City Hall to visit Philly Jesus:
And he followed me on Instagram. Who's the shepherd now?
I decided to head up towards Fairmount/Brewerytown and found this very out of place yet awesome bamboo patch on North 22nd Street:
I've been told it grows better when supplemented with human urine. Think about that.
And finally, after about an hour of cruising around, I decided I was thirsty and stopped by Crime and Punishment Brewery, which I'd been meaning to visit for several months as well:
Mushroom dumplings. Hold the psiloscybin.
Belgian, Brown, Sour. Full taste spectrum.
Because "Drunktown" just didn't have a nice ring to it...
Overall, the beer was decent, and I'll go back, but I'm not necessarily raving about it. In any case, I'm glad I finally crossed this place off my non-existent bucket list. I came outside about an hour later and noticed this pretty neat old building:
I'll admit that I didn't know what a cornice was...or that it appears here on the cornice...
It's a damn shame they don't build neat buildings any more. Fortunately people are doing other neat things these days, one of which I spotted on my ride home:
Not the bike. The mural. Duh.
This bridge on 33rd street between Girard Avenue and Oxford Street is a large art installation by Joe Boruchow that I'd heard about last Autumn and again, never got around to seeing, even though it's a short 10-minute ride from our Wash Cycle laundromat. It was well worth the ride today. There's so much to love about it! I've long been a fan of M.C. Escher, and I see a lot of his elements in this:
It took me 5 minutes to get enough of a lapse in traffic to take this panorama.
Plus, it's a big piece of art! I'll spare you the social commentary and any in-depth review. I took more pictures, but you should go see it for yourself if you have the chance.
As you can see, it was starting to get dark, so I decided to head home. After about 2 hours on the bike (and one in the brewery), that seemed like enough. Not a bad way to break in a bike, eh? Looking forward to many more fond memories, and deciding on a name...
Have a good week, y'all!
Awesome!
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