Some crazy-cool cycles at this year’s Ciclovia, in Roland Park.
Photo by: Fern Shen
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Cars took a time-out on Sunday in Roland Park, as the community held its second “Ciclovia,” in which a portion of Roland Avenue is set aside for walkers, runners, bicyclists, tricyclists and others using human-powered locomotion.
Sponsored by the Roland Park Civic League, the slightly-more-than $3,000 event involved shutting down a mile-long portion of southbound Roland Avenue from Northern Parkway to Cold Spring Lane for five hours and turning it into a combination bike-roll-and-street-party.
Organizers hope to find sponsors next year to expand the Ciclovia to include other communities and reach to Lake Montebello.
Along with kids and adults on regular bikes, there were some exotics on display on this crisp fall day, including several recumbent bikes and not one but two examples of the Elliptigo, a combination elliptical trainer/bicycle.
Parked in Roland Park on Sunday: a penny farthing," as they called them back in the 1870s.
Even more unusual: an old-time high-wheeler or penny farthing, leaning incongruously up against a filled-to-the-brim trash barrel in front of the snack table by the Roland Park Library. According to the Ciclovia Facebook page, we have Larry Black of www.bike123.com to thank for this unusual sight.
A passerby gave us a somewhat pointed bit of backstory about this relic from the 1870s, of the early days of cycling.
“It was because of bikes like this that we first got paved roads,” he said, “and now the cars that came along later and got to use these roads, thanks to cyclists, don’t think we belong on them!”
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