Bleg time!
Quick request for Pittsburgh-area cyclists – I do plenty of riding, but it’s mostly limited to dirt, getting to and from dirt and commuting to work. A friend just moved to the area who for whatever reason enjoys spandex and Tour-length road training, so he wouldn’t like the rides that I know. The river trails, for example, are short and a bit crowded with a mix of peds and swerving casual riders for someone going 30 miles an hour. If any of you have useful advice I am sure he would appreciate it.
For everyone else, have some Ryan Leech.
Do not sue me if you try this and get killed.
MR Bill
Good morning.
If you want some easy chuckles, George Will At WaPo is sayin’ denim and informal dress is ruining, ruining the country.
No, seriously…
From "Demon Denim"
Denim is the infantile uniform of a nation in which entertainment frequently features childlike adults ("Seinfeld," "Two and a Half Men") and cartoons for adults ("King of the Hill"). Seventy-five percent of American "gamers" — people who play video games — are older than 18 and nevertheless are allowed to vote. In their undifferentiated dress, children and their childish parents become undifferentiated audiences for juvenilized movies (the six — so far — "Batman" adventures and "Indiana Jones and the Credit-Default Swaps," coming soon to a cineplex near you). Denim is the clerical vestment for the priesthood of all believers in democracy’s catechism of leveling — thou shalt not dress better than society’s most slovenly. To do so would be to commit the sin of lookism — of believing that appearance matters. That heresy leads to denying the universal appropriateness of everything, and then to the elitist assertion that there is good and bad taste.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/15/AR2009041502861.html
I think only a moron would mistake wearing a bowtie as an icon of seriousness (i mean, Tucker Carlson and Lewis Farrikhan?)…
And given the rapacity of the business elite and it’s class war on the American polity, I can see how it needs to have it’s nastiness cloaked in a dignified suit and tie.
someguy
Will is an asshole but he’s kind of onto something, though it doesn’t appear that he grasps the significance of it. Bad grooming and bad clothes are a revolutionary tactic to smash a bad system. Abbie Hoffman talked about it a bit and recognized it as another way to destroy oppressive norms. Why do you think the military insists on uniforms? It’s a social control tactic. Will treats this as a symptom of something but it’s not, it’s part of the cause of something – the overcoming of the old effete bastard’s patriarchal, smothering way of life. Yeah, that’s right – Miss Manners is your enemy. So’s GQ.
Pat
If you go a bit south on that rails to trails path, it’s lot more open. The 11-mile stretch from Ohiopyle to Confluence also doesn’t have many intersections. That might be too far to do daily, but it’s probably the best in the area. (That I can think of, anyway.)
Also, HEY! I like bowties.
MR Bill
Pat, I’ve worn my share of bowties.
I never acted as if it made me look serious.
But then, I tend to look a bit silly under the best circumstances.
Brick Oven Bill
More power to the Obama’s for making $2.7 million last year. But I would like to know if the taxpayer is still putting up his illegal aunt, or if the President is willing to share his good fortune with his illegal aunt, to give her the dignity of not being a ward of the State.
You would think that the President could pop for an apartment for his illegal aunt, to free up her housing unit for somebody without a blood-relative making millions of dollars per year. You could probably get a basic apartment for $600/month, or $7200/yr, and it might even be tax-deductable.
This would leave $2,692,800 for the President’s family, who does not have to pay rent anyway at the White House, if I understand the arrangement correctly.
Doctor Science
Even if I wasn’t having a Bad Knee Day (which I am), watching that vid would make my knees hurt. I don’ t know if my joints have ever been that young.
Wow, George Will is sure bucking for that Get Off My Lawn Award.
Australian joke:
Q: How do you tell who are the bride and groom at an Oz wedding?
A: They’re the ones wearing *new* flip-flops.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
That video doesn’t do anything to my knees, but my bad shoulder is whimpering in empathy. I can’t even bunny hop until I get the adhesions out.
comrade akaoni
Super Rider
Steve_in_NC
I travel with my road bike some, and usually any medium sized community has some sort of road bike club that list organized rides. Also local bike shops also have organized rides to promote biking and wear out components on their customers bikes:)
Western Pennsylvania Wheelmen seems to be the best bet for starting riding in that area.
taodon
I couldn’t even balance and jump track to track without a damned bike.
oz
Lol did anyone see some republican congressman on Morning JOe talking about Rev Wright and bill ayers? Lol wtf.
Zifnab
So, if anyone is interested, I’ve got about an hour’s worth of Teabagging up on DKos. :-p
Although it appears that some of the clips got killed in the editing process. *sigh* No time to clean it up.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/16/8528/50254?new=true
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Brick Oven Bill – have you seen this?
Is it really necessary to blow up the squirrels?
Incertus
I own a bike. That’s about as far as it goes, though. It’s got a basket.
As for open thread stuff, Spain’s probably not going to prosecute those Bush administration officials, but the reason they gave is iffy, to say the least. I hope something’s being lost in translation.
Eric U.
Bikely and Map my ride are the two websites I go to to find rides. State College is a little too far from there for me to be helpful.
Punchy
Who in their right fucking minds would EVAH have guessed this could happen?
And NOBODY saw this eventually happening, right?:
We’re truly fucked.
Keith G
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: Can you say Caddyshack?
The Moar You Know
@Punchy: Good article.
I can’t help but notice that no one said a word about the "systemic overcollection" when it was going on under Bush, but suddenly the intelligence folks are very concerned about it under Obama. What a strange coincidence.
I also like the part where the intelligence guys have no problems spying on you and me and everyone else in the whole fucking country, but then get cold feet when it comes to a member of Congress. A cynical person might arrive at the conclusion that members of Congress are more important than the rest of us.
We are, as you put it, truly fucked.
jenniebee
@Brick Oven Bill: well Bill, we could just follow Not In Our Name’s "logic" from yesterday and say that the Obamas are paying for the services they and their family use. So the illegal aunt’s costs can come out of the $800+K the Obamas paid in taxes last year. You’re welcome.
SGEW
More to the point, one could say that the costs should come out of the $102,000 in increased taxes that Obama wants to pay.
From Bloomberg:
Obama’s taxes are going to go up! He should go join a tea-party, or something.
soonergrunt
MSG John Hatley, yes, THAT John Hatley, has been convicted of murder by court-martial, yesterday in Germany.
I wonder if Bob Owens will have anything to say about this.
I’m guessing not.
gex
Lehman – Yellowcake
Can we now declare war on Wall Street? If it was good enough for Iraq…
Ol'Froth
Try North Park in McCandless for road riding (flat or hills, your choice). The county parks also have lots of trails that the off-road riders use.
dhd
WPW has a map packet that might be a good place to start. There are a few well-known roads in and out of town that everybody rides on (e.g. Babcock Blvd, Freeport Road, Noblestown Road, Lincoln/Verona Road), then endless possibilities further out.
I think the nicest riding is northeast of the city, between Saxonburg Boulevard and Freeport Road. Not too many ugly suburbs and high-traffic roads out that way. The Kiski valley is nice too. The Red Belt is really popular for road riding too.
The South Hills are not so much fun because the aren’t as many low-traffic and scenic roads until you get much further out of town. Streets Run Road is nice, and 885 out to Clairton is also surprisingly good.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Keith G:
"Correct me if I’m wrong Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers, they’re gonna lock me up and throw away the key…"
Paul L.
Looks like my prediction that progressives would claim Gun Control helped get Obama elected came true.
When actuality during the campaign Obama ran from the Gun issue and progressives claimed the NRA was lying about his position on guns.
Mrs. Greenspan is a lying b*tch.
terry chay
I haven’t been to Pittsburgh in ten years, but I remember riding a lot around the "belt" system (in particular the green belt) that circles around the city. Most of the belt is rural roads which (other the the occasional gravel) might be okay for road cycling. For reference, I lived in the Northern Suburbs at the time so these would be rides around Fox Chapel to North Park and environs (including mall runs)—I found you can get across most of the bridges to the city if you cycle slowly along the ped walks.
Other fun rides I did were to travel into all the Pittsburgh neighborhoods. It’s not really a spandex thing, more like a street clothes and clip-on sort of thing. It’s amazing how many "Mysteries of Pittsburgh" I learned just because I was hybrid cycling around the city instead of driving.
I imagine those from the South Side would have equivalent examples.
The most cyclists I knew in the city went to Carnegie Mellon, including my summer cycling partner. So I’d search CMU student websites for good “road rides.” The positioning of Oakland probably makes the largest portion of the city accessible by bike (and the position of CMU on the hill relative to Pitt).
charles
Denim and a bow tie… to die for.
NutellaonToast
All I know from my time there is that Critical Mass meets by the dinosaur on third Thursdays. Even if that is not your thing, per se, you might find other enthusiasts there.
Comrade E.B. Misfit
I’d suggest e-mailing the reporter at the P-G who wrote this article for suggestions on biking around Pittsburgh.
JB
Thank you Mr. Leech for doing kewl things while wearing a helmt..
cmorenc
What’s *really* scary about watching Ryan Leech ride his bike is how easy, effortless, and natural he makes riding on bridge railings, tree stumps, railroad tracks, and jumping back and forth among them, as if he were merely doing some artfully smooth, yet not terribly difficult dance steps. At least people who walk tightropes manage or do flipping trapeze stunts manage to make it look difficult.
Yes, I know that 99.999% of us would break several bones even attempting the easiest of the stuff shown on that clip. That’s what makes his natural ease (doubtless earned through countless hours of arduous practice while no one was looking on) so beguilingly seductive and maddening at the same time.
geg6
Tim, the Montour Trail is an excellent place for cycling. Long, level, well kept, well used, and simply gorgeous. Further west in my neck of the woods, I also recommend Moraine State Park, Raccoon State Park, Brady’s Run Park, or, for a shorter ride but a lovely and less well known park, Brush Creek Park.
Ben
I won’t say those stunts aren’t impressive, because they are. I certainly couldn’t do any of them. It’s a little weird, though, that with a few exceptions, any of those things would be very easy to do if you were just on foot, leaving all of your machinery at home. Hopping a few feet and reversing direction is totally unremarkable unless you have all that hardware to tote around.
I guess I just don’t get bicycle stunts.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Ben, the bicycle stunts are cool to do in between sessions of going REALLY FUCKING FAST. Faster than your own two legs can manage.