The buzz of riding in Electric City
It’s hard to go to the bathroom. I’m trying to ride my bike down every street in Schenectady and this is what I’ve learned. On country roads or hiking, there are trees for your business but that same business will get you in trouble in the city.
The “ride all the streets” project has taken a while because I go mostly during “stick season” — after the best of the fall foliage is gone for hiking and before we have reliable skiing snow.
The low hanging fruit of streets near my Electric City home have all been ridden. Occasionally, my wife, Gillian, a
lifelong Schenectady resident, rides with me and it doubles my enjoyment to see her surprise in finding new nooks and crannies in a place she thought she knew.
When I first started this project two years ago, I calibrated my route so I didn’t ride any streets twice. Now, I no longer worry about duplication. The riding project is an excuse and structure to discover the place I live. I could learn with a book, but instead find joy in learning with sore legs and wind-burned cheeks.
My first trips in the Adirondack High Peaks were with a friend who consumed the mountain’s history and shared it. He didn’t just know the route up Phelps or Colvin mountains; he could tell you Phelps was named for a mountain guide named Orson Phelps and Colvin was named for Verplanck Colvin, the man commissioned to survey the
Adirondacks in the 1800s.
I’ve taken my friend’s history lessons with me on my Schenectady rides. Every bike trip begins when I roll down our driveway and on to a street named for an early city postmaster.
Some history I’ve learned and some things remain a mystery. Fehr Avenue is one of them. Some lifelong city residents tell me it’s pronounced “fear” while others insist it’s pronounced “fair.” I pronounce it “fear” because it’s the way my wife does.
I could track my progress precisely with a GPS but don’t. Instead, I stop every few minutes to highlight the streets I’ve covered on a paper map. This has led to interesting conversations — people will ask if I’m lost or looking for something or why I’m peeing on their lawn. They, in turn, are amused when I ask if I’m still in Schenectady or have crossed the border into Rotterdam or Niskayuna.
The city isn’t all rainbows and puppies and shiny new casinos. Schenectady has its warts. I ride through neighborhoods of short, stout houses that I’ve seen in the newspaper or on television news for the wrong reasons. Sometimes things are better than I expect, sometimes they aren’t, but this is the city and I’m going to see it all.
I ride smiling through groups of streets near Balltown Road all bearing women’s names — Shirley, Alice, Linda and Marie. On another day, I find the boy street equivalents — Frank, Henry, Jerry and Edward. Where Albany and Watt Streets meet, there are streets named for American presidents — Wilson, Roosevelt, Jackson and Garfield. These things amuse only me but when I find Uncle Sam All-american Chocolate Factory is on the president streets, the world makes a little more sense to me.
These rides bring me questions and answers. I admire the bright red and orange of bittersweet on Tower Avenue and wonder if there had been a tower somewhere. I wonder why Lakeview Avenue, just off Crane Street, has no lake, no view and certainly no view of a lake.
A friend is doing a parallel trip, she is walking every street in her town. I enjoy her discoveries of new places and things missed while speeding by in a car.
I admit, this project is an oddball thing but it is as much outdoors and as much exploring as anything else. I find I get a little buzz before I set out on these trips, full of anticipation and excitement about what I’ll find. I come home, riding down the street named for the long-ago postmaster with a little bigger and a little clearer picture of the city in which I live. I return tired but full of stories of what I’ve found and full of curiosity for what I’ll find next.