All dressed up with someplace to go

It's here! It's here!

Last week, our custom-made bike rack for the office arrived. I can't wait for it to be installed.

 The Dressed-up ride:

I don't often break out the pearls. They come out when we're going someplace fancy: the Symphony, brunch at the Ritz Carlton, etc...
Mind you, I inherited these pearls. I still consider them my MILs. I don't claim ownership; I'm not worthy to consider such an exquisite item 'mine'.
At any rate, the whole office was needed to work at our annual Women On The Move luncheon. It takes place at a local high-end restaurant or golf club and many local socialites break out the giant hats, the press shows up. Not my cup of tea, I'm just working to make things go smoothly there. So, I've gotta step up the wardrobe a bit for this shindig. Lookin' sharp in a blazer, skirt and pearls, I set out to LeMont, which is UP on Mount Washington. There's no way I can haul my ass up a mountain dressed up and arrive not looking sweaty and haggard, so I employed the use of the Duquesne Incline. It's one of two inclines that date back to the 1870s to take passengers up and down the steep hillside along the bank of the Monongahela river.

Wheeeee! I hope we don't have a landslide!

The incline building still uses a woodstove for heat?

I'm glad I pared down the panniers and basket as I had to carry the bike up two sets of steps once inside the Incline's lower building. Ooof. They didn't make things wheelchair accessible back in the 1800s!

It has a stunning view from up there.

The valet guys were sufficiently impressed. They're not accustomed to seeing people arrive on a bike.
The remarkable thing was, only one of my co-workers was all that stunned that I rode my bike over. They have become so used to seeing me on a bike that they thought nothing of it. "Oh hey, you rode your bike up here? Cool." "You made it over here faster than we did in the car."
I liked the nonchalant attitude. I'm de-sensitizing them.

Afterwards, I decided to take the famous Sycamore Avenue back down. Sycamore Ave is one of the Dirty Dozen streets.
I can imagine how brutal this street is to climb up. Going down was an unfamiliar obstacle course of potholes and sharp blind turns. I rode the brakes the whole way not knowing what was in store for me around each bend.

Bike Pittsburgh is using my "Little Girl in Training Wheels in the Bike Lane" photo!

"Excuse me, did you drop a scarf?"

I noticed an abandoned scarf on the Ft Duke pedestrian bridge.

Further ahead, I noticed someone who might be the owner, she had her coat draped over her arm and I guessed that her scarf had also been draped there and had dropped a few yards back.
I was right.

Leap-frogging through Pedal Pittsburgh and Serenity 2.0

Today was Pedal Pittsburgh, a large, supported event bike tour of Pittsburgh.

This would be my first Pedal Pittsburgh and my first experience as a cyclist in a large scale ride. For the past 12 years, I've been on the Staff side. It would be strange to be She Who Must be Served.

There are 4 choices of routes.  I had trouble deciding which route to take, I would definitely have trouble with the 62 mile route, both in stamina and the hour at which one had to start. There was a 25 mile route with a 45 mile option. I'd have to tack on the 13 miles to get to and from the start line, so I would wind up doing 60+ miles anyway! There was also the 25 mile route, but that didn't include much territory that I hadn't already seen. I wanted to hit new places, like... Highland Park, Riverview Park, Frick Park. These were all places I'd not yet been, so I gritted my teeth and chose the 45 mile route.
It was hilly; really damned hilly.

Today's efforts earned me my first 30K steps badge at Fitbit! W00t!











Would you believe I wore wool? It's August and I'm wearing wool. I'd understood that wool is awesome to cycle in even in the summer, so I took the advice of seasoned cyclists and invested in some wool. They have nice summer sale on right now, so I got some winter base layers and some summer shortlseeves, a dress and a skirt. They're no warmer or cooler than the synthetics, but they cause you to slide around on the seat much less. They dry quickly too. Love the wool skirt. I'm somewhat anxious to wear the longsleeve wool dress and baselayers, but I don't want to rush the seasons.

At the start, I crossed paths with VB and Mrs Q. I got hung up at waiting for a train to pass through the South Side before we could continue, so I thought I'd never catch up and we wouldn't cross paths for the rest of the day, but I kept running into them in an accidental game of leap frog. I'd catch up with them, they'd ride ahead, I'd catch up and get ahead of them and they'd come up from behind and leave me in their dust again. I think it happened at least 4 times, funny. Naturally, I ran into Yale because: he's everywhere. I also played leap frog with Dan Y, he was at EVERY rest stop I stopped at except the first one in Riverview Park. Goes to show you how hard event staff work. Met Ms Garrison of BlackGirlsDoBike who was volunteering at a water stop and said hello to Mr Woods of Major Taylor again while he was running SAGs. He looked at Fizz and said "I see you've upgraded!". Waved at Mikhail while he barked from his marshalling station. Marko kindly drug Fizz out of the poor position I'd dropped her at the finish line where he was volunteering... she was just too heavy at the end of a long day to try and prop up. Volunteers are awesome.

Along the way, I got some nice shots of the new bike against some interesting scenery.

Flocker Street!

Needed to get the Trucker in front of the Serenity sign.

Another day in paradise

I'm hoping the top tube pad will be covered in patches one day.

I'm finding that the Trucker is prone to depositing grease on my right inside calf. I'd show you a picture, but I'd already scrubbed off the grease.

Imagine it looks something like this:

...But on a bruised, chubby, oddly-shaped Popeye calf sporting lots of red and blue spider veins.

I'm having a hell of a time scrubbing it off too. I spent quite some time scrubbing away and some marks just weren't coming off no matter how hard I rubbed. Then it dawned on me: that's not grease, those are bruises and spider veins. Soap ain't fixing those!


The ride was rough, but fun. Everyone was friendly... like this couple:

The day's mileage was 60.29. I hit 60 at the casino on my return to base. I wanted to get a shot of the 60.00 on the computer, but I overshot it. A record!

I noticed today that I have FI'Zi:k bar tape on FIZZ. Huh.

The Bike MS- Escape to the Lake

This is my employer's major fundraiser, a 2-day 150 mile bike ride from the Pittsburgh area up to Lake Erie with an over night in Meadville or Edinboro. This year I was given a new task that I'd never been asked to do in previous years: Team photographer! Well, secondary team photographer. Sometimes, the teams' photos aren't wrapped up before the photographer needs to run to the start line and get shots there as they let the first waves out. So, I was needed to finish the teams off. Normally, I'd be filing waivers, which caused an enormous crick in my neck from two hours of tilting my head to one side to look at the rider numbers on each waiver. Very boring, tedious and painful work that didn't allow me to even glance up at the cyclists. I actually had to fill out an 'injury report' because I couldn't move my neck one year after a morning of waiver filing. Wow.

This year, I actually KNEW some of the riders and was delighted I'd get a chance to interact with them. Oh joy!

I might need a zen mantra too if I were riding
150 miles in *JEANS*.

Team Thick Bikes!

After a long day, I was able to get over to Point State Park for the 'I Heart My Bike' theft prevention program with Bike PGH!
They record your bike's serial number and vital info with a photo of you and your trusty steed in case it gets stolen.

It also makes an awesome Facebook profile picture.

#30daysofbiking and Fountain Firsties!

Here's some of the #30daysofbiking shots I've taken this week.

An emergency drill takes place at the ballpark

A landslide on Mount Washington.

Our non-profit's banner is up at Point State
Park for our Saturday Fundraiser

Firsties!

 I rode in the AM on  Thursday not knowing they'd be turning on the fountain for the first time this year just as I was riding up to it. FIRST!


I'd planned on riding after work because the weather was so nice. Not far into my ride, I ran into Terry and he turned around to chat as we pedaled aimlessly down to Millvale and back. Very nice of him,  it was nice to talk with the humorous Terry. The trails were packed an we spent much time dodging joggers, cyclists and walkers. We parted ways at Point State Park and I headed, again, aimlessly over to Station Square and beyond.

Beaver damage to trees

Gears and Gears

Wound up passing by OTB and there was a BikePGH! Free Lights table. Mike tried to give me free lights, but I'm pretty set in that department. Mike was very nice and we talked about my issues getting a bike rack at our office building.

I seem to have a smudge on my lens. Hmmphf.

Mike from BikePGH! mans the Free Bike Lights table at OTB

I took East Carson back to 18th Street... just because. I had a trail option, but decided on a different route back. Ah, Traffic Mettle.

I caught some nice shots of the sunset behind the fountain on my way back. I hadn't realized I was out riding for three hours. It felt like I'd just started and I wanted to keep going in the dark.

24 miles on a great but windy day.