BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

sorry about your mom.

tell us your main points (hotel, hospital, store?) and I'm sure you'll get lots of advice.

The google maps bike directions aren't half bad and you can zoom in as much as you want. Asking for route advice here is probably your next best bet. It usually doesn't take very long before a few people chime in.

Yes, where are you staying and what hospital are you travelling to?

Friday is going to be the most incredible day for riding, the best way (possibly only) to traverse Pittsburgh is with Pittsburghers, come out for a ride! Check the "Car free Friday" page from the front page and the "Parking Day ride" on the board. Say hello!

And then stick around to party with the Flock....!

Potholes are part of the game, welcomes to the north east.

thank you for pointing out our map was broken in such a nice, constructive way. i'll get the web developers on it. should be re-launching the online version in a few weeks. enjoy your stay.

I agree! The black text-outlined in white-on blue background is indeed difficult to read... maybe something to consider with the next print run?

no doubt.

Erok, I would also like to criticize the bike pgh map.

We were all so much better off before that pesky map got in the way. Now, instead of asking idiots for directions and running into one way streets and staircases, I have this bulky free map to carry around that saves me tons of time and frustration.

What gives?

Yeah, I'm with spakbros - that map has saved me tons of time and frustration. Can it be improved? Everything can be improved in some way - but it's damn good already. I've studied it often.

Wow, I'm not tearing down the map. That map was one of the things that drew me to this city. But I can objectively say that the choice of colors leaves something to be desired...

noah, although i can't speak for them, no one is picking on you. i think it's the person who came on the board and the first thing they said here was that it was HORRIBLE.

yes, we've been experimenting with the colors. after the first year we changed it because the most common color blindness was red/green and people had trouble with it. we're figuring it out. and it gets improved upon every year.

ps. i agree, it can be improved upon. and that's what we're doing.

Thanks for all the answers.

I was out all day/night.

Hotel/House is UPMC Family House Neville (514 N. Neville Ave) & mom is at the Kindred Hospital Pittsburgh - North Shore - 1004 Arch Street (somewhat past my fav local - Warhol Museum).

I made it down 28th St Bridge and what I thought was 3 Rivers Trail but then it suddenly ended with some construction and I went into downtown then over the bridge to the Warhol Museum for half an hour then to the hospital... on the way back thought I found the correct trail on the opposite side of the river but got way lost and it got dark but finally found a way onto the 31st St bridge then up to the hills...

btw, I think the mapping is fantastic, and more suggested that with these old HORRIBLE eyes really should be looking at bifocals - I apologize to anyone who may have read more into that "HORRIBLE" than just the 'black on blue print' as any print on any map is pretty difficult to read without a lit magnifying glass at nearing 50 years old. Sorry.

I always miss out on the fun.

I missed CM at the end of last month and will be leaving early afternoon this Friday. Thanks for the well wishes. If mom cant be moved closer to home then I will be back again soon and hope to make another attempt at the "best way to travel anywhere". I was glad I flipped the fixie to the freewheel. I usually ride a pretty big gear and the hills here were killer! but feeling alive! Most def will remember to pack a lit magnifying glass.

frank

Man, if your "nearing 50" and you're an out-of-towner riding the burgh on a single speed, who gives a shiite about your eyes, your legs must be on the money. Come back when you can do some riding.

well, hopefully next time you visit, the city will have installed the route signage that we're working on

i'll point people to this thread if they don't think it's worth it. "see this guy from san francisco got lost twice!"

@fjp; Construction is a constant around here. Sorry about that. Next time you are here, or on your next commute, try Neville to right on Center (or Baum), left on Liberty (at Shadyside Hospital), enjoy the bike lane...., right on 31st street, cross bridge, at first stoplight on bridge turn left onto River Avenue, Follow River Avenue (or adjacent trail). River Avenue will take you to within a block or so of the Warhol....

At Sandusky(?) and River, you will have to head right a half block, and then left on the sort of subterranean West General Robinson (which is a surprisingly nice ride, assuming there are no ball games...). Right on Tony Dorsett/Scotland, follow curve, left on Merchant will take you to the backside of the park almost across the street from where your Mom is. (A little longer, but nicer than the crappy ride around Allegheny Center Mall.)

Good luck! And best of luck to your Mom. Will someone be looking in on her while you are back in SF?

Next time, try this route.

(Edit: oh, yeah, that's about the same as swalfoort's suggestion). River Ave is better than riding on crushed limestone and it's very low-traffic.

I'm kind of proud that someone from SF says our hills are brutal

Erok: I hadn't considered color-blindness. Maybe a color lighter than that dark blue would work, like a baby blue or something (and shed the white text outline)? I don't know...

Heh - my two biggest complaints about the map are that it's not big enough (I want the whole county! Well, at least a little more please), and I never take it out to look at it when I'm lost. Changing the first would probably make it too cumbersome or coarse to be useful, changing the latter is a personal issue

fjp - your lack of gears is astounding, but if your native haunts are the hilly bits of SanFran, that explains a lot Hope your mom is doing ok, and welcome to PGH!

One thing about the SF bike map I really liked was the color gradient that showed the varied intensity of the hills. I wonder if Pittsburgh's hills are far too all over the place to record easily - SF's hills seemed a lot more uniform...

Frank: ride suggestion: South on Neville until the bottom of the valley, then about 300 yards mroe. Bear left at the yellow gate to the Panther Hollow trail. A nasty corkscrew wiggle to the right when you get to the overpass will put you on the Eliza Furnace Trail (AKA Jail Trail). Thebn you are downtown.

Right on Grant, Left on 6th Ave, wiggle past Liberty, and 6th Ave becomes 7th street.Taht will take you across the Andy Warhol bridge.

edmonds59 - Will do. I feel that once you got a decade or two on a single speed and can keep your knees then your muscles kinda keep their memory... I also went thru the "cure" of 72 Hep C treatment weeks which really (disabled my body) was a "blast". Keep healthy all and if not make sure you really research what docs what to do with YOUR body (end of sermon).

about the SF thing... I moved back home to PA about a decade ago to help out the ma and pa. Graduated from Pitt a long time ago then moved to Tokyo. Rode thru those suburbs on a beachcomber, a real heavy Chinese made one! Started a fashion house in SF, carrying a hundred pounds of clothing/fabric thru the streets of SF on our backs... "the wiggle" was a great help thru those hills!

Thanks for all those different routes. I knew I should have just started asked on here instead of trying to figure it all out... the forum members in SF are also a really helpful bunch. I will let you in on a little secret about those SF hills. They are pretty steep and seem to reach the stars but every block levels off so you get a bit of a rest. The PA hills just go up and up and up and there is little room for cheating.

Hope the weather doesnt mess up anyones ride tomorrow and if mom is here for another week maybe look for me on an old grey Fuji with red longhorns.

Ride safe,

frank

p.s. mom seems to be doing really well... It has been a long three months of ups and downs. Thanks again.

p.s.s. why not go real simple? The safest routes should be the black on white streets... give the regular old streets the blue/grey or whatever (cause we dont care color) then use the caution and the ones you have already. It seems most important to read the safe street names for cyclist since this isnt a map for everyday use...

can i just say the fact that someone from out of town came here for a week or two and knew about the bike map and this forum is a huge testament to just how far we have come as a community in the last few years. thanks bike pgh!

I mailed maps to people who mentioned they were passing through town on tours. The response has always been positive.

@ejwme - check out the Allegheny County maps at

http://www.spcregion.org/trans_pedbike_maps2.shtml#all

I think your home territory might be on sheet 3:

http://www.spcregion.org/pdf/biketrailmaps/evalmaps/Map3.pdf

Thank you swalfoort! That should sate my appetite for cartographic entertainment for a while.

I also just tacked up the western side of the Bike PGH map up beside the eastern side on my office wall - there's an entire half of the city to explore.

It's the little things.

Before I moved here we had a copy of the Bike Pittsburgh Bike Map hanging in the hallway of my house in DC and I brought it with me when I came to visit. I think it's one of the best bike maps of any city I've seen.

Does DC have a bikemap? I don't remember ever seeing one

P.S. they just opened an awesome bikepath along the Redline in NE...

There is a DC bike map. It's okay. I lived right along that bike path for two years before it was ready and only had horrible roads to ride on and then it opened something like the month after I left. Last time I was there, I was on the metro and my train was passed by a biker on the trail.

Ha ha. awesome. I totally regret not biking more when I lived there... only now do I realize what strong advocacy there is in DC.