Began with S from Millvale with the intent of missing trail traffic around the baseball stadium from Opening Day. Took the 40th Street Bridge over to Lawrenceville, wanted to stop at Iron City Bikes, doesn't open until 11.
Rode into the Strip District, stopped into the all-but-newly-opened Kindred Cycles at 2515 Penn just to say Hello, Bon Chance, and I guess to interrupt their work flow. Nice people, they're doing a soft opening this week as they put the finishing touches on the shop.
Wanted to go In Search Of a mural on Ira Way in Squirrel Hill, unsure of the best way to get there so we rode the Jail Trail, Junction Hollow, Schenley Park, and the new Pocusset Drive bike lane. Stopped to asked for directions, and TIL (today I learned) that it's not POE-cuthet it's pahCUSSet silly me. Great route between Hot Metal Bridge and Squirrel Hill.
Ira Way is kind of an obscure roadway, almost on top of the Squirrel Hill Tunnel. As we were riding up there a matron in front of her house saw our explosion of high viz orange, green, and yellow and was gobsmacked, stopped and stared and said: Oh, wow. Blinded by the light.
These murals are on the garage doors of Sylvania Natives, a nursery that specializes in plants that are Native to this area (Sylvania, meaning: before Penn). Pretty cool. Click the image below to embiggen in a new window.
Returned via the same route, poCUSSett and Schenley Park. Saw the vista of Pittsburgh (below) over the (frisbee) disc golf course in Schenley Park. Quickly realized that "returning via same route" meant we were salmoning or contaflow, which was great fun for a little while but quite dodgy close to the interchanges. I need to figure out the right route next time.
Crossed the Hot Metal Bridge, rode to the CoGoGetGoStopShop by the FBI-DHS complex. This is really a great location close to the trail. Back to the Jail Trail, across town on Grant St, out Smallman Street to 35th, and at 35th and Charlotte there's a house that's an art gallery with a changing rotation of paintings presented on the outside. This picture, shown over the doorway, I believe is Louise Brooks, early movie actress, courtesan, and film critic.
To play our own version of "beets, Battlestar Gallactica, bicycles" which shows that in the end, we all have bicycling as our common grounds: Louise Brooks was tagged by writer Kenneth Tynan as "The Girl With the Black Helmet" in reference to her (then) nouveau hairstyle; Louise had a helmet of hair, I get helmet hair when I ride my bike: bicycles. We're practically siblings. In the end, at bottom, bicycles.
This is the view of the other side of the house, I can't identify most of the images:
Rode back to the Millvale Trailhead with S. who departed in her car. I rode east and met Y on the trail, and we rode out to the Pump House together. It was a great ride, and we mostly discussed two recent cyclist injuries on the trail, and other trail developments.
At the Pump House, Y met Paul and they continued out to Dravos, and I reversed to Millvale.
Which brings me to something I am pissed off about: the Pissoir Lockdown that seems to be going on. At 5pm Monday at the PumpHouse, 5.30 at Point State Park, and 6.pm at Millvale trailhead, all the lovely public restrooms were: locked. The water fountains were running so there's ample supply, but no approved output locations. What, what, what are they thinking?
Encountered a loud, engaging group of drunks along the North Side Trail who had probably come out of the Pervy Kilt cluster of bars after the ballgame; they took to repeatedly shouting "on your left" with vigorous enthusiasm when I approached. Geez they let anybody on these trails.
| End of Jan2014 | 315 cum miles, 31 days | 10 miles/day YTD | jan=315 miles, avg 10 m/d in Jan |
| End of Feb2014 | 595 cum miles, 59 days | 10 miles/day YTD | feb= 280 miles, avg 10 m/d in Feb |
| End of Mar2014 | 1133 cum miles, 100 days | 11.33 miles/day YTD | mar=538 miles, avg 17.3 m/d in Mar |
If you're stone-worthy, there's a trail that runs around the ridge below Schenley's Overlook Dr; it intersects Greenfield probably about 2/3 the way up the hill. Look for markings for 'bridle trail'. Comes out just below Andersen Playground, in the Allies/Panther Hollow interchange across from the pool. Probably not much rougher of a ride than the old North Side Trail toward Millvale before they 'paved' it...
ReplyDeleteother option (assuming you don't want to just take 40+mph Panther Hollow or its sidewalk) would be to go up Greenfield past Panther Hollow, then left on Serpentine, then left again to descend Circuit through the golf course to Schenley, and left yet again to get to Phipps Conservatory (or right and a short climb to Tech to descend through CMU).