Chute Noob- paying it forward

Today I had an opportunity to show a cyclist who's been living in the city for a few months how to negotiate The Chute. I noted he'd stopped along the Schenley Park/Panther hollow trail and was digging around in his pockets. I later learned he was looking at a map. He caught up to me just before the bike lane along Saline Street and asked for my help getting to the Jail Trail. Well, sure! Follow me! I explained the Inbound 2nd St/Outbound Chute unspoken rule and that some folks like to trespass over the tracks, he declined that route out of respect for trains and a distaste for trespassing and giving cyclists a bad reputation. He was frustrated that the map he had just didn't show all the odd levels and weirdness of The Chute as well as the lack of signage. I agreed wholeheartedly and expressed a hope that eventually, it would be 'fixed'.
He told me how he was from Columbia and still adapting to our climate. He said it was 80 degrees in Columbia today. It was in the 40's here with a misty drizzle all day long and I wasn't complaining for December.
Very nice to meet him and such good karma to show someone one of our most convoluted routes.

I spent the day making a loop around the city, checking out the new, unfinished bike lane from Millvale up to the 40th St Bridge. I observed from afar, I'm not ready to jump into that before it's completed.

I made the Whole Foods/REI/Marty's Market bathroom loop, enjoyed lunch of tofu, lentils and quinoa at Whole Foods and a quadshot latte at Marty's while reading the NY Times. Oddly enough: an article about butter in coffee caught my eye.

As if a quadshot latte wasn't enough to get my nerves going, I had this.
Seriously, I'm getting sick of this crap. The only reason I haven't landed on someone's hood (yet) is because I've learned to expect this nonsense. My 'this guy's going to be an idiot' senses go off at certain times. Someday, my asshole clairvoyance will betray me.





21 miles closer to 4000.