Icycle Bicycle 2014 and a spectacular Hades tile.

25 miles total in the cold, a very good day. I bumped into DB (whose wife is the former owner of Ruby) at the Casino and we made good conversation along the way to the South Side for the Icycle Bicycle ride.

On my way back into town, I thought I would do the grid ride in search of any remaining tiles. I found these two. 

Allies and Smithfield

 Boy, did this one ever cheer me up from a gloomy mood. Wow, look at the detail! Both of today's finds mention Toynbee Idea!

A spectacular find at Allies and Cherry, aptly placed right across from the Art Institute.

I think I found the best one last, I rode over nearly every asphalt street in the Golden Triangle and made no further discoveries. There are NINE new Hades/Toynbee tiles and a Stikman that I know of.
*sigh* what am I going to look for now?



I went back to the Allies and Market tile and got closeups of the text with the good camera, had Photoshop Panorama them together and adjusted the contrast in the hopes that I'd be able to read it. My eyes hurt now.

I have the documentary on the Toynbee tiles lined up in my Netflix queue.

 I couldn't resist getting this shot.

Goodbye, antlers. Maybe I should add Viking horns or a propeller?

2014 YTD Miles: 25 (this is the one and only day of the year that I'll be ahead of Vannevar in miles logged!)
BMI: 25.3

Hill climbing to Soupaneuring 5.5

Hubby and I made a compromise today. He wanted to drag me all over the city (in a car), go shopping, have lunch, do some more shopping... *YAWN*
I can't lament these things to other women, they give me an evil look and tell me how lucky I am to have a husband who wants to take me out to eat and shopping. They then tell me how awful it is to have a spouse who lies on the couch, drinking beer, passing gas and watching football and refuses to go anywhere with them. OK, that does sound like it sucks, but I'd rather ride my bike than drive to all these places.
The compromise was that I would ride my bike there, hubby would meet me there in the car. We'd shop separately. He was happy, I was happy. This was a good way to start the new year: happy.

I actually bumped into him at Marty's Market on my way through the Strip and said a brief hello before I was on my way again.

I took this opportunity to take the new Bike Boulevard there. It was hilly, and I did a fair amount of heavy breathing, but it wasn't as bad as if I were riding the Monster. It didn't give me mental scars.

It was snow-squalling on my way up Gold Way and left a layer of snow on my bike while we ate. I got egg dosa and it comes with sambar... I got insanely sick the last time I had the sambar there. So, I gave my nuclear/toxic sambar to my lunchmate. Maybe this will count for #soupaneuring 5.5? Again, I'm bending and breaking rules! However, I'm riding my bike, soup is involved and I'm feeling very good about it. I'll be having a safe miso later tonight at our Eve dinner at the only Chinese restaurant I've found where the staff understands English very well and is very concerned about my MSG allergy. They go out of their way to make sure everything I get is MSG-free.

I had to get a shot of Immaculate Heart on my way through Polish Hill.

Stikman resides at Liberty, Garrison and 7th.

 On my way back through Downtown, I found a Stikman tile. These fall into the Toynbee/Hades guerrilla art category: a spectacular find as they're hard to distinguish from a random piece of paper on the street. It was about the size of a dollar bill. I'm surprised I even noticed it because traffic was VERY thick with the FirstNight street closures and I was paying close attention to the vehicles.

I was finally able to get Ruby back into the bike racks at our building, for the past week and a half they were blocked by copy machines and huge palates of recycling. I'm glad to see we have access to the bikes again. She had been parked in my office, next to my desk for the time being, which I liked to be honest. I parked Ruby and took the Monster and hooked her up to the rack to be taken back home and resigned to light Montour duty. Ruby was going to be my everyday bike from now on.

Here's Ruby, all reflective n'at.

The Monster came home with me and she managed to stay on the rack.

I bought beets in the Strip on my way back with intentions of making a beet soup, which I've never tried. A new soup! This will be a true #soupaneuring adventure.

2013 Miles: 623
BMI 25.5

More Toynbee tile discoveries!

I went for a ride on my lunch hour today and was forced to take the roads because snow and ice still made the trails treacherous. I found 3 more Hades/Toynbee tiles at the corner of the Boulevard of the Allies and Market Streets.

Two, right next to one another!

I need to get better closeups of the text. I can't read that either.

This was right across the intersection, closer to Market Square. Those are pennies embedded in there.

Now, I'm fixated on finding all of the new Hades tiles. I'll have to grid-ride all of Downtown to accomplish this. It may be best to do this on a Sunday when there's less traffic. I found myself paying more attention to the ground and not enough to my surroundings.

Happy dance: I can use my raincape and leggits soon!

A Christmas adventure with Ruby

I started out relatively early, but getting the bike unloaded from the car, loaded with the essentials and dressed into the required number of layers for temps in the teens took much longer than I had anticipated and I didn't get rolling until 10:30.

 

Ruby's all set.

Some interesting graffiti along the Eliza Furnace trail

 I set off to see the Bald Eagles nesting in Hays. I managed to find a geocache not far from the nest and heard the telltale screeches of the pair while I was logging the geocache. Crows were mobbing them across the river.

When I got to the nest, they were performing some courtship displays while in flight above the ridge. This made me happy beyond description. I never did spot the nest, but who cares? I heard and saw BALD EAGLES!


I went down to the Waterfront complex in Homestead looking for a bathroom. No port-o-pottys, no stores were open on Christmas! I was getting desperate. I kindly asked to use one at one of the hotels there. Whew.

 On the way back, I decided to look for the remaining  Toynbee tile I had missed along Smithfield and to my delight, there were THREE NEW ones!

Smithfield and First

Smithfield and Third

Smithfield and Fourth. I LOVE the homage to the originals with the legs framing the tile. This is splendid.

My target was this original at Smithfield and Forbes. The other three were icing on my Toynbee cake!

Soupaneuring #4 was this bowl of tomato daal that I'd made the night before with 3 different types of daals. Yellow daal, red daal and moong daal with a masala that I'd made in a huge batch and frozen months prior.

Still-lingering bike fit issues

This was the first ride I'd taken since my fitting. I was concerned initially that my saddle was still wrong and after a few miles into my ride, I tried to readjust it. No go. My fitter had tightened that bolt with man-strength that I just wasn't able to undo. Fortunately, it wasn't an issue after a 22 mile, 3.75 hour ride. My neck was *really* angry and still miffed hours later. I do NOT like riding all hunched over, bending my neck at an awkward angle to see where I'm going. I *really* want my handlebars further back and/or higher. I will mention this to my fitter with our follow-up. All of Europe rides in an upright position, this doesn't seem to be an issue for them!

With my new rear-mounted basket, I can no longer tip the bike to one side to mount her. I have to grab my leg and hoist it over the bike. Rickety joints suck.

YTD Miles: 576

BMI: 26.1 

ARRRGH! Damn you, delicious, tempting holiday foods!

Sunrise, Toynbee Tiles and flashes of orange

 It was a gorgeous morning, so I decided to take the silver bike down to Point State Park for my final opportunity to get shots of the tree lit with a stunning sunrise.

Hurry and get over there before they switch off the tree!

They turned the lights off right after I got this shot.

The moon made an appearance too.

 Then, it was off to see if I could get some shots of 2 of the remaining Toynbee Tiles. When I first moved to Pittsburgh, I remember being very curious about them. These were pre-Internet days and research was difficult until I found websites about them years later. Many of the originals are gone, but a Toynbee culture still exists in Philadelphia.

Later in the day on my lunch hour, I ran into E and S again and was delighted to have some company and conversation.

I love her Santa hat bike helmet.

YTD Miles: 554
BMI: 25.3