BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

There is an book about 15 years old called "Bike rides out of Pittsburgh"  by Oscar Swan.   I think it's out of print, but it's available used on Amazon, and there is an online copy here: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~apd/Pittsburgh/Oscar_Swan_Bike_Rides_Out_of_Pittsburgh.pdf   It's quirky, hard-to-follow, and probably just a bit out of date, but it was the definitive guide to Pittsburgh road rides.   With 425 rides it's on the edge of overwhelming.  Swan's habit of referring to directions from other named rides, which themselves refer to still other rides make it a rabbit hole kind of thing. Great book if you are looking for longer Sunday rides.   Only a very few would be in the 25 miles or under range. There was a book that had a few excellent shorter rides by Lou Fineberg (who used to post here), called "3 rivers on 2 wheels."   I imagine there are a few copies around.  from 2002. I'm thinking there really should be some newer book like these two  and I don't know about it because I'm out of touch.    If not, maybe I should write one.

Here is the petal pittsburgh 40 mile ride Or 25 mile ride.   I am sure many people have other rides, I just knew where the ride with GPS files were for these rides.   Have fun

Team Decaf Route through some cemeteries: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/9560717   An old ~25 mi ride I put together for a work group ride: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/25157352   A lovely 50 km jaunt around the city, but beware of the car traffic on the McKees Rocks Bridge and in that general area: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/7274676   A local Randonneurs club 100 km Populaire route (in case you find more time to ride): https://ridewithgps.com/routes/7080549   Hopefully a few of those will provide what you're looking for. If you're using RWGPS, they have a nice 'Find' function where you can put in a starting location, set your desired min & max distance (and min & max climbing), and then look at all routes that match your criteria. I recently moved away from Pittsburgh and that feature has helped me discover some nice rides in my new city.

Tie it in with learning some local history! From this message board right here, a project we started a few years ago and periodically still do. http://localhost/message-board/topic/labor-day-strike-tour/ ...and my write-up about it. https://bus15237.blogspot.com/2015/09/labor-history-sites-bike-ride-year-1.html I'm out of the area for a few weeks so can't accompany you, but feel free to chat via this thread, or the board's message feature.