Monday, April 25, 2016

Seed Bomb ride and The Keg ride

Sorry, it's been a while since I've blogged: I've been busy!


Flock co-hosted a seed bomb ride with a local apiary and it was well-attended. I suffered a bit of 'Bomb-regret' with my bomb placement. In hindsight, I could have found a more suitable place to throw my bomb.



Stopping to learn about trees and chuck bombs.

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We'd heard that a driver of an SUV found their way onto one of the trails and not only damaged part of the Hot Metal Bridge ramp, but HIT a cyclist.



Later in April there was the Keg ride where 500 cyclists escort several kegs of East End Brewing Brewery's beer, hauled on trailers and two guys on a tandem. It is this event's 12th year. Marko and I, as well as many other CIKs (Cyclists I Know) assisted in marshaling: corking intersections with the assistance of 2 motorcycle cops and a patrol car in the sweep position. It was very nice to social with my people, the CIKs.


Marshals meet for logistics and learn the secret route.




The marshals wore the Vests of Fredness.



I got a tee shirt and Commonweath Press screen-printed it right there for me!





Marshals group photo with Seth bombing us.
 
I got a chance to register Doomer into the I Heart My Bike program
Afterwards, we hung out at the Brewery's new location and drank beer and: more socializing!

Then, Sarah and Noah opened up her home for grilled tube meats, libations and s'mores. Good times.



                                                                               

 Other various things we did on bikes:

Ride to Mineo's for a pie
I attached all my Coffeeneauring and Errandonnee patches to a pannier
We picnicked in parks

Marko offered to help with my employer's Walk fundraiser: we were unable to afford a professional photographer this year and in lieu, I gave Marko my camera and he did a bang-up job of capturing images of our happy walkers.
He climbed up onto a truck to get a nice eagle-eye view of the crowds.
#pleasedontfall




I enjoy seeing how many groceries I can cram onto my bike:

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Alley Cat!

I became interested in a scavenger hunt/race by bike, also called an Alley Cat. I knew we wouldn't win or even place on the podium, but it was something FUN to do on a bike. Anna Lena, the organizer gave us 20 riddles to solve for locations around Pittsburgh. We were able to ride to 12 of them, take a picture of our bikes there and text them back to her. There was also a bingo card to try and fill out finding things around the city like: "Mullet" "Car parked in a bike lane" "Pedestrian wearing a PGH sports jersey."
28 miles and much fun. I enjoyed running into others along the route.



Anna Lena splains the rules.
"A twin meeting of Pittsburgh's most famed in art and innovation, getting their hair done on brick at this Downtown location."
Answer: The Two Andys mural!


The Greenfield Bridge rubble

The Children's Museum

CMU's walkway

The USS Requin

A sculpture at CMU

The Beehive coffeehouse

Babyland

Penn Brewery

Wholey's
 "In tourist attractions, we've many vehicular, though none so established as our favorite funicular"

Answer: one of our inclines!


Afterwards, we had a burger, fries and CAKE!
Spoke card!

Monday, April 4, 2016

Saving gas, Women and Biking forum and a new mural

I've been commuting using Doomer instead of the car whenever possible and had to take a look at how often I'd been filling the gas tank and it looks like it's about once every 2 months.
Once my weekly infusions are completed, I can use even less because that's about the only use the cars gets: driving to the infusions. I debated riding the bike to the hospital's infusion center, but they load me with a bag of liquid Benadryl and I'm rather loopy for the rest of the day if not comatose. Riding a bike under the influence of Benadryl is not a good idea.

A Bendryl moment.
I've been out on the bike to pick up tags in the Tag-O-Rama game both with and without Marko:

 

One morning, MaryG of Coffeeneuring and Errandonnee fame announced on Facebook that she and EdF would be doing a flèche on tandem and the start point would be Pittsburgh, THE Point,  They'd be leaving just as I'd normally be rolling through the Point on my way to work.
I waited, but I missed them: as is usually the case, 'cyclist time' and actual time didn't agree. They left about 20 minutes beyond their optimal and I had to get to work.
I can't say I blame them; it was a cold and wet morning. Yuck.

Waiting at the Point

Saturday was the Women and Biking Forum presented by Bike Pittsburgh. I chatted with Tricia and SarahP at my table. I attended the advocacy seminar where local neighborhood bike/ped committee organizers talked about the work they do and how to start one in your neighborhood or town. I've wanted to attend some of the meetings held in the neighborhoods I live and commute in and I hope this spurs me to finally get out to one.
I learned Negley Ave is slated to have a bike lane bestowed upon it. I was asked not to release images of the plans. Super top secret stuff n'at.








The second series of seminars was a difficult choice: 'Bike Maintenence II', 'Errands by Bike' or 'BikePacking'.
I chose BikePacking for two reasons: A: Marko's been pestering me to try bike camping and B: I wanted to meet Aryn the presenter whose blog I've been following while she traveled alone for the past year all over North America.
I'm not a camper. I'm not a fan of bugs and dirt and I understand there's a lot of that involved in camping when I harken back to my childhood memories of camping with my parents.
For Marko to get me to even consider camping is a triumph in the relationship accommodation department.


I love her water bladder kept in then left front pannier with a tube up to the handlebars. The dynamo set up she has also has me leaning towards a generator. She's also had great success with the P-Style and I'm considering one of those too.

I won door prize socks!
Sunday we found ourselves just riding around.
 We rode over to the check out the new Baron Batch mural.



 


We met up with Yale and they stopped so I could climb down to see The Temple of the Dog along the shores of the Mon. Neat.

We slogged through the crowds for Opening Day.
This was the first Opening Day in 9 years that I hadn't attended. No bother, it was the coldest it had been in over a decade for Opening Day. They had to scrape ice and shovel snow off the field.