Murals and Street Art

8/14 19m

My riding has been off and my blogging has been off even more. My riding is off because I've been working a lot, which is just a silly thing for a retiree geezer to cop to. Not riding a lot is really ungood for me in so many dimensions. And then, I've had a computer failure which I'd like to say is tragic but when a 9-year-old XP laptop gives up the ghost it's not a grievable issue; it had a good life. Primarily, the absence of the machine kept me from uploading and blogging the few rides I was making.

This ride started off on a cool, crisp, clear day in August which is just wow, I am in San Diego or what. Rode with SR, and coming across the Ft. Duquesne Bridge we saw the FOAN (flag of another nation) flying over Point State Park which left me concerned that perhaps we had surrendered overnight or maybe the damned Queen had sent her minions to retake Fort Pitt.

Inquiries at the Fort about the non-standard ensign were met with inconclusive responses, except for the tidbit that this was a 1776-era British flag. I wish they'd tweet the nature and rationale of the non-standard flags, that would be cool.

Rode up to the Hill District, to see the MLK mural that just got started focusing on August Wilson. Two young artists were painting some of the lower work.

Rode up into Oakland to see the Mad Mex mural, which I had not seen before.

Spotted a bit of street-tile art, ala the Toynbee Tiles. You'll see it here, in the street, by the motorcyclist with the excellent hi-viz helmet:

And this is a closeup:

Rode across Oakland, down Panther Hollow, across Four Mile Run and out to Saline Street to view the band new Bike Lane. Until two weeks ago, commuters were parking here and walking a few blocks to get onto UPMC shuttle buses to their job site; now parking is verboten and it's a bike lane. Almost seems a bit salt-in-the-wound to be parking a bike where they were recently parking cars:

Rode over to Thick Bikes, so SR could get a mirror to replace a broken unit. Happened to see this tremendous bike, a custom-painted Surly LHT Disc Trucker named Hi-Viz Fizz after a Yehuda Moon character. I'm very impressed at it. Custom paint job by DanB and I've got a bit of WantSomeOfThat going on.