This Giving Tuesday, Bikemore invites you to support our ongoing work.
Your contribution will enable us to continue advocating for improved biking infrastructure, promoting safety education, and building a more connected and equitable Baltimore for everyone.
On November 7, 2025, Ibrahim Auguste, 32, spoke to Bikemore after a star-lit ride beneath the Baltimore night sky. We stood beside Southpaw in Fells Point after riding with Chris Broughton’s Bike Social Baltimore, leaning against our bicycles chained to the green U-bike stand, speaking through the chugging sounds of passing cars.
Our Bikemore representative, Cora Karim, met Ibrahim in February of 2025 during a Valentine-themed alley rat race here in Baltimore named “Lovers Rat Race” after bonding over their shared love of the Japanese anime “Naruto.” Since then, their admiration for cycling in the city has grown tenfold due to their ability to constantly reconnect with each other.
“There are so many people you can meet or network with. One guy in our group is the maintenance guy who owns our section of Lime bikes in the city.
The community is a very tight knit but eclectic group of people. You’ll never know if you don’t ride with them.”
Auguste first started riding on his dark emerald-green ISEO bike named “Rayquaza”, named after the legendary dragon-type Pokemon with the same emerald-and-gold scales on the flying serpent beast. It was 2018, and he had left New York City to return to his home city of Baltimore. He found biking to be a better convenience than public transit, and he recognized there was lacking attention to those who use biking as a necessity rather than something for pleasure.
“Biking infrastructure can be improved. It has been slowly improving since I started cycling because there [are more] repaved and protected bike routes than there were years ago”, Auguste said. “Growing up off of Hartford and Hamilton, there used to be a Blockbuster and beauty supply there. My family and I got hit by a tractor-trailer three times while in a car. Imagine if a cyclist or pedestrian were there. They wouldn’t be here right now.”
Throughout our conversation, Auguste held a passion in his eyes. He smiled with each word professed, and he felt genuine in his love and admiration for the city. Unlike many of the lesser privileged folks in Baltimore, Auguste could drive a car if he wanted to. But he recognizes the ease and content a bicycle provides him and chooses to cycle instead.
“You also get to see a different side of people because some of them do have cars, and their thoughts on how people should be nicer to cyclists and not try to run them over ‘cause they’re in the road, well, that will shift, too, because you might make your best friend in the cycling community.
If you’re in the car being a dickhead, you may have just hit someone who could’ve elevated your life or just helped you get deeper into the community.”
Auguste is proud to call Baltimore his home. He recognizes how far Baltimore has come and how much it has changed, and his love for the city shows in how he is able to want more. He’s seen increased bike initiatives pushed forward by Bikemore, such as the Big Jump or the planned lane on Eutaw Place, a stronger need for public transportation for those who don’t or can’t use a bike, and he defines his life on the affluence Baltimore provides for its diverse city.
“You can ride. You can still get to point A and point B and experience the whole city in a whole different way,” Auguste said with a wide smile on his face. He spreads this wild joy towards everyone, regardless of how quiet that sidewalk can be, however deafening the street becomes with the ear–shrieking honks and plumes of exhaust sitting beneath our necks. It was helpless not to smile with Auguste.
To some, Auguste’s perspective on life may be considered beneath them because he uses a bike to move. To him, it’s a spark of happiness.
“Being in a car pushes the need to speed. People become blurs as you race past them. We become smudges on a canvas. You forget who a person is because you become so disconnected when in a car.
You get angry, and that anger is pushed onto people who seem so happy on a bicycle or a sidewalk.
Everyone deserves to be happy, and no one deserves to die because of it.”
We asked Auguste what his perfect Baltimore is. Like many, he had his thoughts and opinions on certain facilities who privatize the wealth of Baltimore and take it from the very folks who live here and deserve more.
To Auguste, a perfect Baltimore is one that is embedded in the factual reality of what Baltimore is rather than an exaggerated fiction: “It’s not just ‘The Wire’. There’s danger everywhere [in the world]. But there’s danger when you have disenfranchised people, a strong poverty line, and people from out of the country just treating Baltimore like a tourist attraction and the people like zoo animals,” Auguste said with a flair like many others in contemporary history.
“My perfect Baltimore would be a central hub for culture, connection, growth, diversification of everything. That would be my perfect Baltimore. Downtown is beautiful. Fort McHenry is beautiful. The Inner Harbor is beautiful. It just gets a bad rap because of one single experience rather than tons of people who know the city and love it.”
We asked Auguste if he had any words for us:
“Bikemore, keep doing what you’re doing. Don’t stop. Keep doing it.”
Ibrahim's vision for a "perfect Baltimore" — a central hub for culture, connection, and growth — is one that Bikemore shares and works toward every day.
Our initiatives are designed to connect diverse communities and elevate the experiences of everyday Baltimoreans who rely on sustainable and accessible transportation options.
This Giving Tuesday, Bikemore invites you to support our ongoing work. Your contribution will enable us to continue advocating for improved biking infrastructure, promoting safety education, and building a more connected and equitable Baltimore for everyone.