Exploring Baltimore on Two Wheels: A Co-op-Fueled Adventure
by David Lidz, Waterbottle CEO
Anxiety? Do you know about it? Of course you do. Or maybe you’re more familiar with its dear cousin and partner in collywobbles: stress.
I experience it in a variety of forms: tightness in my chest, pain in my shoulder, cramping in my left arm. Feelings of inadequacy, incompetency. Doom.
You know what my go-to, killer, kick-ass never-fails-me remedy is:
Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle, bicycle, bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like
Usually where I bike is out on the mountain roads where I live.
But on the morning of Saturday, October 5, I stuffed my introversions and carefully tossed my royal blue Jamis in the back of the CRV, and I headed to the 32nd Street Farmers Market down there at the #WaverlyCommons, where I met up with the Saturday Coffee Riders who, on this particular Saturday, had planned a particularly exciting cycling route.
🚲 🚲The First Great Baltimore Co-op Bike 🚴🚴 RIde!
Do you know, about exactly 20 years ago, I lived in Waverly? Man oh man how things have changed, for the better. The farmers market was a gas: a ton of people, a ton of amazing food, music, dancing, coffee, kids! I did not know this was a thing that had sprung up.
Leave it to the #Baltimore #cooperative movement to get my old ass to discover Baltimore’s best kept new and exciting secrets.
@bred.baltimore and @baltimorebicycleworks cooked up the idea for the Great Baltimore Co-op tour, so, naturally, after grabbing our coffee at the farmers market, we moseyed across the commons for our first stop, Red Emmas. Kate Khatib (@owlgrammar) presented a brief introduction to the nation’s most famous anarchist bookstore and history of its vegan menu.
And then we mounted and pedaled our way to a wonderfully sacred place and greenspace masterfully designed by @envirocollab. How cool to meet and connect with Amanda Foran, whom we have engaged to help us bring beauty and health to the brownfields we are cleaning up in our own West Baltimore neighborhoods!
Then onto a little old cooperatively owned real estate portfolio, maybe y’all have heard of, WaterBottle Cooperative #winkwinknudgenudge. As always, I cherished giving the 20 or so cyclists a tour of the great work we are doing, cherished introducing them to my fellow co-op hermanos y hermanas out there swinging hammers on a hot October (yeah we broke the planet) Saturday!
From there to @merakitchencollective, where we learned their journey “from hosting small pop-up dinners in our homes to a weekly booth at the Farmers Market to opening a restaurant.” This collective of amazing resilience is committed to community building as well as worker democracy and empowerment!
Last stop for me was @baltimorebicycleworks up in the Falls Road canyon, where Great Baltimore Bike Tour leader @drlevine4ceasefire and his brother in cyclery, Bernardo schooled us on the great mechanical work they do but more importantly with fairly deep details on how BBW does co-op governance.
I peeled off at this point and headed back to the mountains, opting out of pedaling with the others to the final stop @taharkabros ice cream, a place I am no stranger to. Taharka is where I most regularly live up to my commitment to Cooperation Among Cooperatives 😁.
Closing note: this was my first time riding a bike in a big city. At times, I gotta tell you, it felt like a death-defying thrill!
