PIT Airport Connector Trail FTW

01/09/12 #241 23m

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5 pancakes 2 PB&B 1 snackbar, 1 bike chew, 2 packs honey scrambled eggs 1 biscuit and gravy

Rode 23 miles (23.49 but a rule's a rule!) in 43F on Montour Trail. Started at Boggs Trailhead, rode west to MP13, then started the GPS recorder and reversed to ride east to the PIT airport via the Montour Trail Airport Connector.




The trail surface varied with the terrain, the shade, and drainage; in turns it was soft, wet, snowy, and icy. It was all good, it seemed rideable without doing any damage, but where it's soft it's difficult to maintain much speed up-slope. (How's that for a fine whine?)

I really appreciate the new trail gate at MP9.3ish, replacing a one-way gate with a two-way gate. Exited the limestone trail at Enlow to ride on shared-road to the airport property. At the end of the public road there are two airport gates, and the Montour Trail continues via the left-hand gate.



At one point, the trail exits the airport property for a quiet residential street, and then the route turns right (and uphill) onto Clinton Road, which seems like the rehabilitated descendant of old Moon-Clinton Road. The road is not perfect, it's steep, the cars are pretty fast, and the shoulder is sketchy in some places - and it's wonderful to have it.

Crossing I376 you come upon a small parking area habituated by people looking for a place to loiter until it's time to pick up an arriving passenger at the terminal. In the future this may be a popular trailhead for Beaver County folks looking to get on the Montour Trail.

The route continues through a smallish individual-sized gate, apparently called a "man-gate" but that's too close to both "main gate" and "man-date" for my comfort zone. Once through the gate it's back on joint-use airport service roads, and they are indeed joint-use; every weekday I've been out there I've shared the road with airport vehicles, and the crews have been very friendly.

As the route crosses the airport public roads there are buttons to activate blinking lights to facilitate the crossing. The approaching cars are doing 55 mph here, IMHO using the lights is a good idea. I may (or may not) have learned this through experience.

Crossing into the parking lots I was very impressed at how well marked the route to the terminal is. There are signs on poles and there are painted directions on the road surface, and they're excellent.

The route ends at a bike rack at the western end of the moving walkway. It was really a treat to get to ride all the way to the terminal for the first time. I did venture in to the moving walkway area, just to see what's there. There's nothing there (water fountain, pay phone) except a heater vent which was quite welcome. I don't think the airport's WiFi extends out to the moving walkway.



If you lock your bike, it's an easy trip to either the airport hotel lobby (I'm thinking fruit, coffee, newspapers) or the terminal building (rest rooms, pastries, hot chocolate).

On the way out, from the terminal back to Boggs, the signage was just as thorough as on the way in. I encountered a local track team running on the Airport Connector, more people taking advantage of the unseasonably nice weather.

There were several walkers, dog-walkers, and runners out on the trail. I didn't see any other bicyclists until I was putting my bike on my car-rack at Boggs, when I saw a young meshie with a fishing pole riding out for an adventure.

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2012 Meatspace Goals

1/08/12 #241

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two greek yogurts 1400 two pb&j 1500 1 piece pistachio cake 1900 chicken salad, 2 rolls

There is perhaps no better obfuscation than covering for a day of no riding by describing goals for 2012. These are my meatspace goals; subjects for emotional, spiritual, and/or intellectual growth are left for another time.

My last year's goal was 3500 miles and I rode 4500 miles, which was great. On reflection it also missed the point, because I ended the year weighing 240 pounds, most of the year I weighed 230 and that's just not good for a Type2 Diabetic who wants to keep his toes.

I've fallen into the Fallacy of Faulty Quasi-Metrics; I seized on measuring something that was easily quantified, somewhat related to the desired outcomes, and enjoyable.

My 2012 goals will be primarily weight-driven and secondarily mileage-driven. Although 2011 was a big leap in mileage for me, since I have just retired my likelihood of achieving the same mileage is pretty good, and I would think that I could easily do better - what with not working and that.


So, my 2012 goals will be

• 215 pound weight for six months
• becoming an intentional eater
• 6000 bike miles (outside only, trainers don't count)

My sub-goals will be

• quantification and review of my eating
• discipline in evening snacking
• less Diet Coke, more H₂0
• Riding around the Chesapeake Bay OR riding the Natchez Trace
• Doing several multi-day rides
• Riding Pgh-DC at least once
• spending some/more time on my road bike
• experimenting with bicycle camping

My approach will include:

• riding with others when I can
• promiscuously joining group rides
• updating the LHT drivetrain in either Spring or Fall
• attempt to use the ubiquitious smartphone as some sort of Quantified Self-type (QS) asset
• striving to avoid divorce

So, nowhere in my goals does the word "diabetes" occur. I want to be defined by exercise and nutrition and healthiness, not by diabetes or diagnosis, and my (hitherto) implicit assumption is that if I do a good job on weight and exercise, keeping the diabetes into a somewhat normal range will follow.

Achieving this would be will be wonderful.

27 Miles with Grupetto Pittsburgh on Cecil Roads

1/07/12 27m 50F

The first mentionable, I suppose, is: Why didn't I ride on Friday, 50F and beautiful, and invited to two different interesting rides? Because I sliced my finger open and needed to go to the Emergency Room and get three stitches, and they told me No Bicycle Riding until Saturday, and I'd missed the rides. Arrggghhhh!

However, I did glomm some latex gloves for my bike kit (always useful when changing tires) and the good-spirited staff gave me a Bedazzle bandage and three stickers (including a Scooby Doo) to cheer me up.

Rode 27 miles on roads in Washington County with MeetUp's Gruppetto Pittsburgh. Seven riders: myself and R, J, B, K, P, and B. Everybody was using road bikes, except for R and myself on touring bikes.

Scenery looked like this:


This was a very nice route, a few hills but that can't be avoided around here. It was a well-conducted event, everybody knew what they were doing, and the ride turned out to be exactly what was described in the pre-ride brief. Nobody got dropped, nobody got lost, nobody got pissed off. Nicely done.

This GPS track of the ride is not very accurate, I didn't get a very good recording and so I've edited it but I don't really know the countryside around there.



At one time the route skirted the Panhandle Trail, and at a few other times we were within sight of the Montour Trail. It looks like quite a bit of work going on for the new rail-with-trail between Route 50 and McDonald.

The roads were generally light traffic, and when we did encounter cars they were very copacetic. We saw one big deer bound across the road in front of us, and one dog named Bear wanted to come play with us on a country road.

27 miles, my longest ride of 2012 so far.

		1/7/12 Week 1		this week		65 miles		1st Qtr 65 miles		2012: 65 miles
						9.3 m/day

Blue Skies, 16 Miles

1/05/11 #241 16m 38F

Rode 16 miles around Moon Township, including 2 miles on the Montour Trail. I was pleased to see two other hardy riders on the trail.

Stopped mid-ride to meet a friend for coffee. It was cool to see the looks on people's faces when they saw the bicycle parked outside the Starbucks.

Very nice weather, roads slightly wet from melting snow. Used chemical heaters in my boots for the first time, they were very comfortable. I'll use them again.

Not a "training ride", but a few hills and that was good.

Yehuda Moon Returns

The most excellent Yehuda Moon cartoon, which features cyclists, a bike shop, the various aspects of bike culture, and American perceptions of bicycling had gone on hiatus....

...but now it's back! Here's the January 02, 2012 cartoon:



And here's the Feb. 9, 2008 cartoon which is, perhaps, a bit more aligned with the recent weather:



http://www.yehudamoon.com/

2012 Icycle Bicycle Ride

1/1/12 22m 45F

Rode the Icycle Bicycle Ride today. I've missed this ride the last five years, either working or weather or slothy ennui. I'm real glad I got out there. (see images)

It was raining as I packed up and left, but the rain stopped for the ride and for a brief period the sun shone. I met S and S to ride with them, but I also got to say hello to several other people I've met, and that was kind of cool. It was kind of a cyclist year-in-review.

The ride itself was about 10 miles at a conversational pace. There were quite a few people participating with all manner of bicycles - tandems, folders, recumbents, road bikes, mountain bikes, touring bikes. Mary Shaw and Roy Weil were there on a green Cannondale tandem with a Jolly Green Giant figure as a head badge.

We started as a group from Southside REI to facillitate picture taking. We rode from REI across the Hot Metal Bridge, which presented an interesting challenge as the mass of riders negotiated the switchback ramps in two columns.

There were an awful lot of interesting bicycles. I met M, a rider with frame-mounted glow tubes and some excellent lighting - two P*0 flashlights on the front and a L&M 180 on the back, and saw another rider on a brand-new Surly Ogre which the goods folks at Thick Bikes had tweaked for him, it looked like a very cool bike - 29" wheels, disc brakes, very sharp looking bike.

Took the Jail Trail to the Ft. Duquesne Bridge, then along the Allegheny to the 16th Street Bridge. We rode into Downtown in two or three columns in the right-hand lane, it was an inkling of what a morning commute might look like in Copenhagen.



Had a nice conversation with a gentleman named Leo about the MS150 and changes in this year's route options, that was pretty interesting.

We passed by Occupy Pittsburgh, then took the Smithfield Street Bridge and the SouthSide Trail back to REI. Hot chocolate, floor pumps, rest rooms and then we three rode to the Greenfield Bridge, then back to where the cars were parked.

This was a very pleasant ride, more aesthetic and social than utilitarian and that's a nice atmosphere to start a new year off with.

After the ride, the wind really picked up and there was some heavy rain, we were fortunate to get a good ride in the sweet spot of the weather.

Mileage so far this year: 22 miles.

Last Ride of the Year: 4511 miles in 2011

12/31/11 #240 19m 38F

Rode 19 miles on the Montour Trail with R, going from the Ridgewood Drive Trailhead to the Bebout Road construction site. Then we stopped at FarmHouse Coffee in a bit of a drizzle for coffee and red velvet biscotti (excellent!), and rode back to the Ridgewood Drive Trailhead.

This was the latest in the season that I've ever been able to ride through the National Tunnel, usually the floor gets icy and it's problematic. We got to see the construction in progress at Morganza Road, Georgetown Road, and Bebout Road, and it looks like there's new cement and rebar at all three sites, maybe the mild weather has helped them along.

Today's 19 miles puts my annual mileage at 4511, which is a totally excellent number for the year.

I attribute the mileage to my support on the home front and the support of my bike-budz, my thanks go out to K, R, M, G, M, J, C, S, and S. And Kurt.

The annual mileage also means I have 6000 miles on my Surly LHT drivetrain, so I'm considering a new crankset/chain/cassette in the springtime.