Day 0+: Rolling around Pittsburgh

After a redeye flight, the hotel was kind enough to let us into the room at 9:00AM. We got cleaned up and headed out to check out a bit of the town, and see if we could get Nancy a bike to ride for a couple of days. Walking down along the river to Point State Park, where our tour would be starting, we got to experience the energetic Pittsburgh waterfront, and saw a ton of bike tourists starting or finishing their GAP rides.

We found the hipster neighborhood, The Strip, a reclaimed industrial zone with at least two indoor mini golf courses.

One of the hipster-serving business is a combined bike shop and restaurant, which rents bikes but does not appear to be very good at it. We reserved a bike for the next day, then headed up to the spectacular Church Brew Works for dinner and beer.

We were blasted from the travel, so we headed back to the hotel and crashed.

In the morning we were back in the Strip to pick up the bike, which had way too much technology; electronic shifters, and a light system which was difficult to turn off (especially the flashing front white light. Who thinks that’s a good idea?)

Back at the hotel, I put together Beverly’s bike which she’d had shipped to our hotel, and made some comfort adjustments to Nancy’s rental. Then we rolled out back to Point State Park.

Pittsburgh has a neighborhood called Oakland, and we couldn’t leave without visiting. We rode the beginning of the GAP trail to get there, and climbed one of the few hills we would see over the next few days.

We got up to Carnegie Mellon University, and I recognized a building there I’d visited in 1985 when I was applying to schools. (Wait-listed).

Coming down from Oakland, we rolled over the Hot Iron Bridge to the south side, where two classic “Inclines” (funicular elevators) still operate.

We’d been encouraged to ride the inclines by my friend Eryn, who I knew from the mountain bike/unicycle world when she was in the Bay Area. She’s now involved with Bike PGH and is quite the civic booster, leading us on a nice tour of the Southside and back into central Pittsburgh.

Up there we learned how to kill the attractive but insanely invasive spotted lanternflies which we would see all up and down the East Coast on our trip.

Every city has a good bike shop, and it wasn’t the one we rented Nancy’s bike from. So Eryn brought us to the good shop, Thick Bikes, whose owner Chris is a bikepacker and part of the local unicycle crew. They had some great classic bikes and unis in the shop, and we chatted with the staff while I picked up some cargo straps and other gadgets for the trip.

For dinner we met Eryn’s partner Justin at the Over The Bar Bicycle Cafe, a bike-themed bar and restaurant, where we got some filling food and Nancy had her first Yuengling.

Afterwards, the battery which powered the lights on the rental bike was shot. Freakin’ technology. (At least the shifters were still working). We rode back on main road, which was mostly fine, but had one scary interaction with a car coming off the bridge. Most of Pittsburgh’s 400+ bridges have bike and ped access, but the transitions to and from the roads on either side are often sketchy.

Beverly arrived the day before the Climate Ride start; we met her and got her bike dialed in, then headed back down to the point for some more touristing, crossing over to Northside on our way to Bicycle Heaven, which bills itself as “the world’s largest bicycle museum and bike shop.” As a bike shop it’s probably a little esoteric, but as a museum it’s overwhelming, three floors of thousands of bikes, focused on classic Schiwnns but with lots of other unusual and unique bikes. Mostly manufactured products, but some specialty bikes like one from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, and a bounce bike used by the Three Stooges. And an unbelievable collection of banana seats.

Beverly’s a transportation geek, so we knew she’d want to see the inclines. We wanted to take a different route to the Duquense Incline, so went over Ohio River instead of heading back into downtown and crossing the Monongahela and the Allegheny. The infrastructure isn’t as good from that direction, and we wound up doing some sidewalk riding getting to Duquense.

Views were again beautiful.

Eryn had told us yesterday how to take the incline up and the road back down to town; we got a good free downhill on the way back, took the river pathway around the point on our way back home, swapped the seat and returned Nancy’s rental bike, and got ready for our morning logistics. Meet at 9:00 AM at Point State Park for Climate Ride orientation start.