Type 2 Diabetic. Cyclist Flâneur.   Coffeeneur.    Errandoneur
A bike / map geek with a gadget obsession and a high-viz fetish.

Friday, November 29, 2013

Chartreuse and Orange is the New Black Friday

11/29/2013 #212 20m 34F
This seemed a much more tolerable weather day than Monday, I think it was due to the absence of any significant wind.

My response to Black Friday, shopping, and cars was to wear Chartreuse and Orange, ride a bike and be fabulous.



Started at the Bastille with S. Rode around to USX Plaza to see the Crèche and take some photos. Pittsburgh's is the only authorized replica of the original Vatican crèche on display in Rome.




Joined the Jail Trail and saw Bob and Maggie Holder on their tandem riding quite smartly in the opposite direction.

Crossed the Hot Metal Bridge and joined the Baldwin Borough Trail. Just south-east of the startup office park, the consistent wet patch on the trail has turned into a consistent ice patch. Continued down to Keystone Metals, where the trail really doesn't get much sunlight at all due to the hill beyond Route 837. The trail surface was about 1.5 inches of irregular crusty ice, and since this was a pleasure ride and we weren't delivering any transplant organs n'at, we reversed and went to REI.

REI: warmth, restrooms, Chia-seed munchies. Back across the Hot Metal Bridge. Saw Ben-Y on the Jail Trail, rocking two bike-Menorah's - one on his helmet, one on his trailer. Continued across town, saw the folks going into the Pitt game on the North Side.

Passing the Casino we encountered award-winning cyclist Yale Cohen along with PaulH and Meg. Yale, who just crossed 10,000 bike miles in 2013, had just delivered his BikePgh Men's Bike Challenge Trophy to the Bicycle Heaven Museum for display until next year. Yale has won the award two years in a row, very impressive and a great guy.

3 comments:

  1. While shopping in the Strip today, we saw a couple parking their tandem at Kaya. It must have been the couple you ran into. I wanted so badly to ask them about riding together and to tease Hubby about trying such a thing. Also, two of the racks at the corral there at Kaya are now painted GOLD. Are they reserved for special bikes? Curious.

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  2. Thanks for the kind words, Ed. You mentioned the ice near the Hays eagles' nest: being dauntless foolhardy cyclists, we biked on through the ice...until I tried to change lanes and took a dive into the weeds. Luckily, both of us were fine and the tandem only required a bit of readjustment. It's all part of the adventure...

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  3. We did indeed park our tandem at Kaya, and we would have been glad to talk about tandem riding. Next time, just ask!

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