I pedal my bike uphill and consider the difference between "No Outlet" and "Dead End" signs.

Londonderry Court is a gentle loop with no outlet. Landscapers picked up leaves from the lawns of clean, tidy homes. I didn't know this neighborhood, on the eastern edge of Schenectady, existed before riding here. I have a lot to learn about this town.

I'm trying to ride every street in the city of Schenectady to build a greater understanding of this place I live. I carry a highlighter and a paper Jimapco map in my backpack, highlighting streets as I ride them.

I mostly have been riding the city in hour-long segments in the morning before work, exploring one neighborhood at a time. My longer weekend rides are when the real fun comes. Those short weekday rides are like looking at the city through a microscope, examining each neighborhood closely. On the weekend, the lens is pulled back and I see the city more as a whole being, riding from city limit to city limit in a crazy zigzag that gets me new streets in both directions.

As I ride I wonder if our childhood memories of home are created because we traveled those places slowly the first time, on foot or on bike, before zooming around them in a car. Do those details we get from going slowly create a richer impression?

I rode over Ashmore Avenue to Eastern Parkway, then to the city line before eagerly turning around. Eastern Parkway flows downhill and takes me with it. For the first time, I realize Brandywine Avenue is where Eastern Parkway becomes Eastern Avenue. I turn up side streets I wouldn't visit for any other reason: Degraff, Pauling, Lomasney. Unlike Londonderry Court, these are marked with yellow "Dead End" signs and end at Vale Cemetery. The gravestones begin right at the end of the streets, and I wonder what it's like to look out your window at that garden of stone every day to remind you of your mortality.

On Landon Terrace, I find what I'd hoped for: a view over downtown Schenectady. There's more parking lot than I'd like, but there are also church tops and the dome of City Hall. Though it's the same road, Eastern Avenue becomes Liberty Street. Some post-Revolutionary War optimism must have flowed through the city when they named these downtown streets — Congress, Liberty, Lafayette, and Victory.

College Street is in the Stockade section, a vestige of Union College's first home before it moved to its current location. I treasure my rides through this beautiful, historical piece of Electric City. These are the mother streets of Schenectady, before the city flung up fast housing in the surrounding hills during the General Electric boom. I find myself missing streets on purpose so I can return. As I leave the Stockade, a bunny hops down the sidewalk on North Street, perhaps looking for my favorite Schenectady street name so far — Cucumber Alley.

These rides through the city aren't about knowing; they are about discovering. And I've wanted to see Grand Street since I first saw the name. There's essentially one large, formerly-white building lining the short street. There is some ornate woodwork near the roof that may have been grand once, but now the windows are broken and there are no doors.

The buildings improve when I ride up Broadway to Campbell Avenue. This is the Bellevue section, the farthest ride, so I've saved it for the weekend. The streets between Campbell and Broadway are numbered – First, Second, Third. They are full city blocks, but they cross Campbell to become tiny nubs of streets, some just 20 feet long. I'm curious how they came to be, how someone decided to continue these little streets to the end of the big hill that slopes down toward the train tracks and the sprawling General Electric campus below.

Bellevue is really nice, I think, as I ride down trim, clean Fairlee Street. Somehow, between Ninth Street and Eleventh Street, Perry Street is where Tenth Street should be. Who is Perry, and how did he or she get a street name?

There are more mysteries on Twelfth Street as I'm halted by police cruisers and crime scene tape. Earlier that morning, a man was found shot to death. Neighbors gather on the sidewalk to talk about what happened.

It brings home the fact I've known since I began this project: There have been some streets I don't really want to ride down. They are unpleasant, the reason we drive cars — to stay in our own pod as we go from place to place. That's the reality of this city, every city.

A few blocks away, on Turner Avenue, you'd never know anything happened. Families walk together on a warm fall day and another cyclist tucks in behind me. I finish up my Bellevue ride by taking Olean Street back to Broadway at the Rotterdam town line. Some of the businesses here share the name "Hungry Hill," the label this neighborhood has on an old city map I have at home.

I ride downhill on Broadway, thankful for light weekend traffic and being able to cross this busy street off my map. I pass beneath the Bellevue bridge that reads "United We Stand" written in stone. Above me is Mont Pleasant, then Hamilton Hill and finally a climb up Goose Hill to cross some more streets off my map on the way home.

There are more streets than I would have imagined. There are more uphills and more miles. My city ride is going to take more time than I first expected. The thought of more riding and more days to discover is a good one. There's a lot to learn.

hterns@timesunion.com - 518-454-5780 - http://blog.timesunion.com/outdoors/