I ride over three draw bridges adn through teh industrial area of Curtis Bay and into the drug infested Brooklyn area of South Baltimore on my way to downtown and then to Hampden.
I love cycling close to the Bay, getting to see the sun rise through the mist on the water. On the way to work last year, I smelled a horrible decomposing stench stonger than the normal industrial gases I breath daily. I called the police when I got to work about the smell and its location - turned out to be a homicide - a poor homeless man had been killed in the woods.
You can do it - cars make you fat. Bikes don't.